timepiececlock | nerddom

So I was reading this from

eliade's journal, a longish article about nerds during school years, what makes a nerd and why nerds are picked on. I thought it was interesting, and I'm only about half way.

Because they're at the bottom of the scale, nerds are a safe target for the entire school. If I remember correctly, the most popular kids don't persecute nerds; they don't need to stoop to such things. Most of the persecution comes from kids lower down, the nervous middle classes.

See, this I disagree with. For somebackground: I went to a public middle school, and sixth grade was, yes, my hell-year. I was picked on only a little bit, by one group, less than 10 times in the whole year. The rest of my turmoil was mostly being shunned. Partly for being a nerd, though it wasn't all brains & glasses (because I wasn't really into computers at the time, and yeah I had glasses and was smart, but I didn't carry a calculator in my pocket). Mostly though, it was because my "prettier" best friend moved on to higher pastures, populated by cows & dogs that didn't want me in thier group, just wanted my friend. I told her that they were shallow, and she chose them, leavng me out in the cold of frienddom.

But on the first day of seventh grade I walked up to two new girls (twins), and made myself a pair of new best friends, who lasted for the rest of middle school. At that point, I was what this guy called "middle-class". Maybe, lower-middle. I was often ignored, but I wasn't picked on. I was called a know-it-all or bitch a few times for reasons no one would explain to me (I think it was because I talked in class instead of batting my eyes and saying "Oh, I don't knooowww...."), but I was able to happily ignore the popular and unpopular kids, and just have my friends.

And I didn't notice that "middle-class" kids picked on others-- it always seemed that the popular kids tore each other apart, and then they all tore at the unpopular kids, and the unpopular kids often had internal abusing, but the main 70% of the kids were ignored by both top and bottom groups. Or, as I often noticed, a middle-person would have a few in-class friends who were popular, and a few in-class friends who were geeks, because they felt free to like the geeks, and they didn't mind searching out the nicer of the popular kids.

The article goes on that all geeks wwre smart and all unpopular kids were geeks who were cast out for being smart-- not true. The unpopular arena had two very distinct groups-- nerds and freaks. Some were both, but not everyone was unpopular because of brains.

Going into high school was different; I noticed the lines blurred a lot, and people had friends in many different groups. I hung out wiht a lot of band kids and some of the anime geeks, but no one picked on the anime geeks because there were about 8 of us, and we had other friends outside that group. And the goth kids had all their own little inter-group social dramas, so nobody needed someone percieved to be from another social "status level" to have turmoil.

Mostly, by high school I noticed the most popular kids were the ones who were smart and socially outgoing.

But yeah, even watching from the relatively-immune middle class, I hated middle scool. It was horrible, what kids did to each toher. What the extra-popular kids did to the dorkiest, geekiest kids, and what the populars did to each other. I swore in high school to never deal with "interpersonal drama shit", and as a plan, it worked out nicely.

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I totally agree with you!! What you said is far more acurate than what the article says. That school system must be quite unique because the majority of school follow the "social code" you described. The part of the article you quoted "If I remember correctly, the most popular kids don't persecute nerds; they don't need to stoop to such things" is pretty offbase. The popular kids kept their level because they were able to pick on the "lower classes".

You said that "I was often ignored, but I wasn't picked on. I was called a know-it-all or bitch a few times for reasons no one would explain to me (I think it was because I talked in class instead of batting my eyes and saying "Oh, I don't knooowww....")." I totally understand you here. For me, it's more because I won't let people copy work...
I loved when you said "I swore in high school to never deal with "interpersonal drama shit", and as a plan, it worked out nicely." I have a friend who spent all year working her way up to the "popular crowd" and now she calls everyday to whine about the "drama of the day" and who said what about her behind your back. I'm doing as you did and staying out of it. We nerds will be the ones to succeed in life. Go, nerddom!

Off-topic--- I love your icon! :D

That school system must be quite unique because the majority of school follow the "social code" you described.

Interesting. I'd wondered sometimes, because you hear about other schools where cliques were such a problem. It always made me wonder because in my schools cliques were only an issue to a smaller portion of the population; the majority didn't bother with "clique wars". Any time there were major disagreements that went bad, it was usually one person to one person, not a group to a group. It was never to the degree that it seems to be portrayed in movies.

I loved when you said "I swore in high school to never deal with "interpersonal drama shit", and as a plan, it worked out nicely." I have a friend who spent all year working her way up to the "popular crowd" and now she calls everyday to whine about the "drama of the day" and who said what about her behind your back.

Oh, how annoying. I just in 10th grade watched this whole big drama thing happen (it wasn't between two extra-popular kids I knew, it was between a goth kid I liked and a close friend of mine), and seeing that go down, I swore I did not want to have to deal with that crap on top of everything else ever again. So I went though high school without any real "enemies" that other people seemed to have. I just stayed away from people I didn't like.

I find the whole subject fascinating. The whole REALITY of it I mean. WHat is it about American schools that you ALWAYS have the popular ones, and the nerds, and everybody worships the popular ones and picks on the nerds? That just doesn't happen here. In Poland that is. I only see it in the movies. Never seen that happening when I was in high school, we were all one crowd, some having more friends, some having less. Now I'm a teacher and I still don't see it. My sister didn't see it, my brother doesn't see it. It just doesn't happen here. And for the life of mine I don't know why. The only difference is that over here you go through schools attending all the lessons with the same set of people, 30+ of them, you all constitute what is called here "a class". Always having the same schedule, the same teachers, the same homework. In the US all the kids at the same grade are "a class". At least 100+ I guess, attending different classes with different people each time. Maybe that makes all the difference?

WHat is it about American schools that you ALWAYS have the popular ones, and the nerds, and everybody worships the popular ones and picks on the nerds?

THat was my problem, you see-- I refused to worship the popular ones, and because I refused to participate in the brown-nosing just to be accepted by people I didn't like, I got the called a 'stuck-up bitch' a few times, and was regulated to the average middle group, whereupon I was ignored by the populars.

we were all one crowd, some having more friends, some having less

That's what its like for the majority of the kids in school I think-- like I said, the middle 70% aren't really regulated into any particular clique or group. This is where I think the article was somewhat off-base, and where a lot of tv and movies certainly are. If you want an example: Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Oz were what you could call "middle class"-- by themselves, Buffy was popular, and Xander and Willow were dorks, and Oz was middle. But together, especially by junior & senior year, they formed a middle-group of kids who just had themselves as friends, and occaisionally others, and didn't really conflict with other groups (except Cordelia, but that was more a personal thing than a group thing).

The funniest thing (to me) about that article is that the author claims to have been middle-class himself, and I have to wonder -- because my high school was also much more the way you described (I was on friendly terms with a number class A popular kids, mostly the ones in my AP classes. They certainly weren't stupid, and neither were the few others I knew through various circumstances), and I didn't see most of the middle class being picked on by the populars, nor the nerd-nerds (and again, I was friends with quite a few) picked on by the middle class in general.

Although of course the nerds and popular kids all in the same class weren't going to be the ones at odds with each other in particular, I suppose. And there was definitely shun-age, but not to the extreme degree that article suggested.

And there were certainly plenty of unpopular kids who weren't smart... basically, I agree with you. But I hope that article made the author feel better about having been a geek. And certain geek-readers, I suppose. But mostly it's perpetuating stereotypes that were innacurate in my experience and that of most of the "nerds" I know, who didn't particularly want to be bothered with being "popular."

I was on friendly terms with a number class A popular kids, mostly the ones in my AP classes. They certainly weren't stupid, and neither were the few others I knew through various circumstances

That's how it was with me too. I was in advanced reading/writing classes from 6th grade through 12th, and soem math classes, and there were popular kids in there, and I didn't have problems with all of them. Some of them I certainly didn't like, but when that happened it wasn't malice toward the "group", it was dislike of one person, and possibly his or her closest friends, for whatever specific personal reason.

But mostly it's perpetuating stereotypes that were innacurate in my experience

I sort of saw it that way too. I mean, I hated most of middle school as a social forum, so yeah-- I get that part. And yeah, I could tell that soem people worked a lot more at their social standing than I did. But for me, my problems with the social structure were a lot more sublte and complicated, and can't just be defined as "popular vs. unpopular, for these and these reasons." People, and thus little societies like a campus, are more complex than that simple label.

For example, in the middle-beginning of my 8th grade year a pretty Phillipino girl transferred to our school, and became part of my small group of friends. She had everything that seemed to make people popular-- cute, witty, nice dresser, cool attitude, great fun to be around. But she seemed to have no desire to do anything more socially ambitious than be our friend, and I never asked her about it because I knew it would insult her, and I liked her friendship more than I cared about why she was our friend.

nerddom

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