By 
Throughout my years of watching movies and selling electronics, I’ve noticed a trend that I find a bit amusing and that might help explain how * cough * we “know” who Nerds are … Tech. Say What You Want About Nerds, Nerds and Tech are almost interchangeable terms. Regardless of whatever else they’re a fan of, nerds LOVE their tech and are often the first to adopt the newest technological advancements.
People (and by people, I mean in general and not specifically), foster a love / hate / fear relationship with technology. When we first get a new tech gadget, we love it. We love our cars, computers, cell phones, tablets, cameras, and all of our fun gadgets and little ornaments that go hand in hand with modern life. Once our device doesn’t work * exactly * the way we want it to, we get angry. We fear life without them and we fear life with them. People often take out their frustrations with innocent pieces of electronic equipment. (I once threw my cell phone across a room when I was fighting with my then boyfriend. The phone miraculously survived).
In the more than 1,000 movies that I have seen in my life, a common theme emerges. Even in some of the older films made, “Fear of technology” is a predominant theme. In the first science fiction film, Metropolis (1927), a female robot destroys the city. In Modern Time (1936), Charlie Chaplin, a factory worker, suffers a nervous breakdown due to his high-stress technological job. In a range of more recent movies like the Terminator series, the Transformers series, and Me, Robot (2004), just to name a few, technology is a threat. Technology rises up against meaty creators (or mere humans) and destroys society.
Humanity in these films is also partially saved thanks to technology. The Terminator’s John Conner is repeatedly rescued by technology as it seeks to destroy him. The Deceptacons, generally military and non-automotive robots, cause vast amounts of destruction on Earth as we are saved by Optimus Prime (an 18-wheeler) and his Autobots (a variety of cars, trucks, and forms of civilian transportation). This also shows a slight fear of a military invasion, a concern that the war has ruined our society.
Perhaps one of the main reasons we fear technology is that technology eliminates our need in the workplace: people are replaced by machines, which means that fewer people are needed to perform the same functions. What use do we have of real babysitters when we can have a robot babysitter? In Yo, the robot society has adapted and got used to the overabundance of robots: they do all the work that people do not want to do by ourselves. Robots are bound by rules to protect us, until they turn against humanity because VIKI, the central ‘brain’ of robots, has determined that humanity cannot take care of itself.
But what does this have to do with nerds, you ask? Let me explain.
In movies and in real life, nerds embrace technology and make it their own. Nerds are the first to adopt new technologies like computers, the Internet, e-readers. Mobile phones are an exception, but mainly due to the cost of the first mobile phones.
In the Revenge of the Nerds movies, the nerds perform computer-based music. In Weird Science, nerds build a perfect woman (although she wreaks havoc, the nerds were the ones with the knowledge to do so) due to their inability to get close to girls. They are not really trying to replace women, but to learn to talk to women. In Growing Pains, nerd Carol Anne Seaver once dreamed of owning a modem. In the television series Chuck, the “Nerd Herd” works in computer repair. Hackers are actually a bunch of nerds who use their superior knowledge to “hack” government databases. While heroic in the movie, the threat of hackers and people stealing our information from the internet is very real. Even Tony Stark Iron Man is a money nerd – the comic book fan’s dream of being rich with all the technology and knack to become a superhero.
The men (and some of the women) in the Big Bang theory are nerds. They are also cutting edge scientists, studying string theory, space, theoretical physics, things that confuse a lot of laymen like Penny the normal. But men created things like a zero-gravity toilet.
Nerds are often the ones who * adopt * technology because they believe it. Real life “nerds” Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have had a tremendous influence on everyday life. It is the nerd who has the ability, knowledge and intellect to create, think ahead, propose new ideas and answers to the problems that are presented to society.
It’s the nerd who fixes the technology. We turn to nerds when our computer breaks, when we can’t fix our cell phone, when we don’t know how to set up our new television system. Now, I’m not saying nerds fix cars, but nerds do design cars and test them.
This adoption of technology is perhaps why stereotypical nerds love the sci-fi genre – science fiction shows a world where all the hard work of nerds has paid off.