<p>I strongly recommend that y'all read this article. It's long, but well worth it. Can any of you relate? Or do you disagree with what the author is saying? It's a fascinating read.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html</a></p>
<p>not all nerds are unpopular. actually, at my school, they're just a notch below the preppy kids</p>
<p>Probably because you go to a nerd school. Just kidding? My opnion is that nerds are generally not as good looking, and thus not popular to other teens, who generally only care about looks. They got gifted with intelligence, but not gifted with good looks. The "popular kids" are generally the inverse. These are all stereotypes.</p>
<p>Well, I suppose I go to a nerd school also. The popular kids at my school are the intelligent ones. We've actually run out of the "classical nerds". The "dorks" tend to be outgoing, funny, "cool", mostly attractive, athletic, and intelligent at the same time. Renaissance nerds, if you will.</p>
<p>I don't go to a nerd school. average public school in suburbia.</p>
<p>I don't know where I fit in exactly. Even though I study all the time (typical symptoms of a nerd), I shop at name-brand stores- not because I'm trying to impress anyone, but I really like polos. I try to surround myself with every type of person at my school (because there's literally every type of person represented in each of my classes). I join a bunch of clubs and I'm generally outgoing.
For example, after school I was walking through the gym lobby and a big black guy is sitting on one end telling his friend on the other side, "Yo, this Gatorade is so good". While he said that, we made eye contact, and I felt a little awkward, so I gave him the peace sign (a V with my index finger and middle finger), and I said "Word!" with a funny face. They all started cracking up, but I'm hoping they were laughing with me and not at me!</p>
<p>omg! i'm black and if anyone ever said that to me i'd be rolling on the ground laughing. I'm guessing you don't know too many black people</p>
<p>I go to an average public high school also. It just happens to be nerd -friendly.</p>
<p>I guess ours is nerd-friendly, but my school is by no means nerdy. I don't know how to describe it exactly</p>
<p>Yeah, there isn't a clear-cut separation between social classes at my school, but it's definitely there. However, the people in my classes tend to come from both the 'nerd' and 'popular' crowd.
Unfortunately, there aren't any black people in any of my academic classes, so I guess to compensate, I try to familiarize myself with more black kids in my gym class. I try to be friendly and funny (like giving them a handshake at awkward moments or something, I dunno..!) Heh..</p>
<p>it's not like you're popular <em>shoves to left</em> you're not <em>shoves to right</em> and as we've gotten older the line between the popular kids and the not so much has gotten more and more blurred, but still a distinction remains</p>
<p>In an all guys school (like mine), popularity is really a non-issue. At my school, you're either smart, an athlete, or rich. If you're a good athlete, people will know your name and respect you. If you're smart, same thing. If you're nerdy, everyone will know your name and ask you to help them. If you help them, you will be respected and make friends. If you're rich, just invite people to your house often and you'll make friends. If you're a combination of smart/rich/athletic, you can make friends with anyone.</p>
<p>Everyone has friends except the nerds who are *******s.</p>
<p>Yeah the clear cut "heirarchy" was definitely there in middle school, but it seems to blur together more in high school.</p>
<p>in middle school, it was this huge dividing line uncrossable, but now, as a rising senior, I hang out with a lot of people who would have never talked to me in middle school</p>
<p>Middle school had the heirarchy. Until 8th grade, I was always unpopular. I was a total nerd then (complete with the round glasses, bad hair, and the braces). </p>
<p>In 8th grade I made the jump into popularity (lost the braces, got contacts and a haircut). I was still a nerd (straight A's), and everyone knew it, but I was popular because I didn't look the part - and was a good soccer player and the captain of the baseball team (My pitching led us to our winning of our CYO division. I even won president of student council (beat the most popular girl in the school - she had a crush on me too.)</p>
<p>But 5-7th grade were no fun. I was never invited to the parties or just to hang out, the only girls I talked to were the ones who I'd known all my life, my best friend moved away...yada yada yada.</p>
<p>i've never been invited to a party and I don't suspect I ever will</p>
<p>I don't think they're unpopular -- they're just popular in a different circle.</p>
<p>In my school, most of the popular kids take AP classes. Intelligence is really respected and everyone strives to get good grades. If you don't care, then typically you are looked down upon and are less popular. There are plenty of people who are both nerds and also popular. Probably because we have tons of smart asians at our school. Also, there is another type of popular at my school. People who are just really nice people are popular and friends with basically everyone. I guess the black people are popular... but they kind of seperate themselves from everyone else in the school. Wiggers aren't popular at all, which is cool :).</p>
<p>Yah, intelligence is respected at my school, too. If I mention someone who's on the basketball team, few will know who I'm talking about, but if I mention the two or three students who earned 4.0 gpa's everyone will be like "Oh, yah. I know them." The atmosphere is good like that, but school gets overwhelming when academics is such a huge focus. It's as if a B is not good enough when a few of your friends earned an As.
My school is not full of nerds, but when your parents are paying good money to attend private school the students want to bring home a decent report card. At the end of the four years, we want to have good options for continuing our education.
The negative image of nerds is breaking down as people are seeing the advantages of doing well in school, and that people who are doing well are not that dorky kid who is the most socially inept student in school but the down-to-earth class president, the charismatic community volunteer, the attractive lacrosse player.</p>
<p>my school is kind of rural and mostly white kids; there are lots of suburban kids and us country kids. Anyway, the fights in my school are usually racial (we have a TERRIBLE reputation for it) or catfights, and the social groups tend to leave each other alone. Since I'm sort of a go between for the "popular girls" and the "Christian girls" (and I don't really fit in with either :D) I also notice that the "leave each other alone" thing doesn't stop the catty comments if one group gets on the other's nerves. There is a definite "nerd" group, and they are asked for help, but some of them are just incredibly immature, pompous, or strange, that that is the only contact they have with the popular kids or anyone else. As for me, I fit in wherever I darn well please because I have a reputation for being smart, refreshingly innocent (haha;)), and willing to help anyone who asks. It helps that I kind of have the stereotypical physical features to fit in with the popular kids, none of whom are ugly. Being intelligent is just fine, but no one has time for the arrogant ones, and most of the popular kids are too busy getting drunk to bother studying. So I guess it varies big time by the school.</p>