What it means to be a Nerd — By ZeldaGamer
What makes nerds nerds and why we are such a beautiful community of people with our own language.
The Webster dictionary defines nerd as: “an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits”
Personally, being a nerd to me is so much more. It is someone who knows a lot about a topic they are passionate about. One that can get into positive debates about these topics. They may not be as socially active as others, but they often have their own family of friends they surround themselves with that they are comfortable around, often that involves other nerds. Nerds used to be shamed and the image some get is a person with taped glasses putting together a pc or reading. That is the stereotype, but being a nerd is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a celebration! Most nerds are picked on, bullied, ridiculed, judged, and much more. But nerds are willing to raise their swords high and scream out a puny battle cry, and bounce back. Usually it takes a community to support them and an interest to unite them. This is what one community I found that commits to this fact is NoNameNerd, a community that unites nerds of all passions and interests into one community no matter what area of nerdiness they come from, https://www.nonamenerd.com/.
Here’s an example. You probably know of D&D, or heard of it at least. Recent rise in shows, video games, social media, tv, and stars are all showing off their nerdiness to the world. It is amazing how nerds who don’t know each other, have never met, have one thing in common and are able to form friendships out of nothing. You can get into a conversation about the possibilities of what’s to come in popular shows, discuss characters of a show or a game for hours and soon enough you’ve spent the past 3 hours talking about the wizard drow elf in your d&d campaign.
In my experience, I have tried to have conversations with non-nerds before. They are often confused when I start trying to explain the difference between wisdom and intelligence, or when I start talking about my level 100 Persian with maxed stats. But I meet other nerds at cons in the homeland of nerds, and we end up having a friendly debate about how the generations of Pokémon are different and what could be improved and what failed. Nerds have a language we all speak, we are able to talk about our passions for hours and never be bored, get excited about what others consider mundane or boring. Like talking about the stats and moves of a card game that consists of pieces of card board with fantasy pictures drawn on them.
The question arises “Why do you waste time on games and things that don’t exist?” Well dear friend, we love the imagination, the rush when your character casts a spell and you have one 5th level spell slot, this is the boss battle, THE END OF THE CAMPAIGN the TPK, you are the last character alive with 12 hit points to spare, your party lay in blood around you. You have to roll high to get this hit, if it hits the damage of your spell will kill the boss for sure, but it all comes down to THIS. ONE. DICE. You take a deep breath. Your d20 from that dice set you bought at that one comic-con 2 years ago, hits the tray. The world goes into slow motion, the party goes silent as the druid player loudly exclaims “I can’t watch!” as the d20 spins on the soft felt of your custom $50 dice tray, the melancholy but intense medieval battle music rings in the distance of your headset, the die stops rolling nervously as you look at your d20, your heartbeat beating through your chest. It’s a natural 20. Confirming a critical hit, your drow elf wizard is still revered years later by the party as the player that beat the campaign.
Being a nerd is a gift and a passion as it is. It is much more than someone who is studious or socially different, it is something we all use as a language to communicate and be comfortable around others with. We look up to other nerds. A nerdy hero I look up to is Matthew Mercer. I have watched all the Between the Sheets of the cast, but I relate to them the most. I can see myself in his shoes and I know how he felt, the fact he was willing to open up about that being the name that is Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master and popular voice actor known across the world, open up about the struggles of being a nerd gives me hope that we are able to overcome obstacles, and become true to ourselves. No matter what you are, or what you may become, the world is better with people who are passionate and driven. Nerds possess power in their own way, and how we express that is through our interests and are unafraid to be themselves!
To all you nerds out there, thank you for being yourself!
— ZeldaGamer
