There I was, leading a meeting in my capacity as a professional social worker (whose sense of humor is more aligned with that of a child). A criminal charge was read aloud, “defrauding an innkeeper.”
I’m not making light of criminal acts, someone stole from a hotel/motel. That’s bad. However, the title of the charge sent my juvenile imagination to 16th century England.
With the room’s attention focused, I flung what I thought was a hilarious joke, “What, did they do….not pay for their mead?”
My room was full. But silent. With the exception of 2 chortles.
I grinned and called out to them, “Where my nerds at?!” Both laughed, one raised her fist and declared, “Huzzah!”
More giggling; by just us 3.
Culture means a set of shared beliefs and understandings. And in that vein, Nerd is most certainly a culture. Nerdism also exists on a continuum. I’ve been nerdy a long time, but I would be disrespectful to true nerds if I were to fully identify as a nerd.
My quasi-nerdism began with Star Wars. Obviously I was in love with Han Solo so I had to know all about his fake galaxy.
But my leaning a little more toward Poindexter was cemented by one of the least nerdy people I know; UG (Uncle George). UG is one of the very coolest people on the planet. He is not a dork by any stretch of the imagination. But he did show me Monty Python. Specifically a skit in which dark humor showed men regaling in their childhoods trying to out-tough each other. Is starts with mild complaints about having been so poor they drank tea out of a rolled up newspaper. It gradually escalates to “my father murdered me in cold blood, every night…” To my cooking brain, it was magical to think that there were creators who believed that folks would get the dark humor they were generating.
The realization that the existence of such humor means there must be other weirdos out there like me was all it took to find a new way to relate to others.
Many high school weekends were spent watching VHS copies of the Holy Grail and quoting it verbatim. Nerdism creates its own synergy. When you’re chilling with the gang who brought their own lawn chairs to sit on campus during school; you’ll learn about other nerd things. Other movies you need to see, other books to read, etc. And then when you’ve all seen/read the same things there’s an increase in the intra-nerd feedback loop. It is a beautiful thing.
Over the years I have noticed that there is a number of unplanned ben-
efits from my dorkish background. Many dweebs can pass for normies or even super cool badasses. Accidentally landing on another covert nerd can be like catching a spark of awesome. Maybe someone throws out a reference that may or may not be nerd-ist related. “It’s just a flesh wound.” Responding with some other quote of the Black Night may net you a level up on communication legit-ness.
I know that nerdist tendencies aren’t for everyone. Nor should they be. If something gets too mainstream, it can absolutely lose it’s nerd charm. That “it’s not for everyone” element serves to make it more important to those that do nerd align. Nearly no one got my meeting joke, and that makes it extra funny to those that did.
Thanks for reading, and HUZZAH!
Bifocals and Barbells 