A self-identified nerd writes:
I think what a lot of the commentary on GamerGate misses is that Nerd culture is by nature an exclusionary thing, and all claims of Nerdom being mainstream are a contradiction in terms. To be a nerd is not simply about liking something, even to the point of being socially awkward. Being a nerd is about being so emotionally and intellectually invested in something that you develop a completely unearned sense of entitlement surrounding that thing, as if the people in charge of it owe you something for how hard you like it. It isn’t a positive lifestyle or something to be proud of; it’s an imbalance of personality that we embrace in ourselves only because we have no other way to be.
We are nerds because they wouldn’t let us not be, so we created our own spheres and our own languages and pop culture canon, and because we’re smarter than the idiots who wouldn’t let us in, eventually our sphere appealed to them.
I went home and played videogames because I couldn’t play sports and didn’t have the competitive instinct, but eventually the jocks followed me home, demanding sports games and fighting games and soon the market shifted to cater to them, leaving me to find another thing. Then it was comics, and then the dopes followed me home again and demanded lowest common denominator action nonsense with the names of the things I liked slapped onto them. This is the plight of the nerds; we have to listen to media morons talk about how mainstream being a nerd is as what we love, what we devote our lives to, is co-opted by the very people who we sought escape from through our eclectic obsessions.
Frankly, I do question the claim of many women who say they are nerds, as it is a personality defect I find it hard to ascribe to a sector of society that is usually more mature and less prone to arrested development than the average male. Most are mistaking the concept of a nerd with that of an enthusiast. That so many of them don’t understand the sometimes petty rejection they face trying to enter a subculture created by ostracism is precisely because they aren’t what they think they are. They’re just regular people who maybe like Doctor Who or Star Trek. They should just accept that, and their larger ability to fit in with other regular people, which we can’t do.
This is our thing, and we don’t need you to relate to it to the same extent we do, even if we have the same tastes in common. Just let us have this and leave us alone.
Update: Female readers react here. Follow the whole thread on gaming culture here.
The Dish 