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timepiececlockSo I was reading this from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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.
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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Nerds
Date: 2003-02-21 11:38 pm (UTC)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."
Re: Nerds
Date: 2003-02-22 01:41 am (UTC)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.