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threemonkeysI got accused of being a weather nerd* today. Totally unfairly I should say. I was able to find a list of weather stations around the country because I used to work with the brother of the guy who set the list up and my google-fu did the rest.
I have to say I was a tiny bit put out. I replied that I was a science fiction nerd and weather nerds make science fiction nerds look like urbane sophisticates by comparison.
The thing is, there is a hierarchy of geekiness. Some obsessions are just more cool than others. Why for example is it just way cooler to be carried away by, say, medieval food choices (*waves innocently at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gillpolack*) than it is to be obsessed by knowing all the model of train engine that ever ran in the country?
Now some of that could be to do with the degree of obsession. Some interests seem to attract the really far gone loonies and are looked down on for that reason. But I do believe there is also a hierarchy of coolness that is attached to the subject matter of the obsession. Something similar to the hierarchy of snobbery that exists between departments at universities.
So what I want to know is just what exist at the extremes of this hierarchy. What is the coolest possible type of nerd? What is the most pitied/despised?
*Nerd = geek. I know there are people who consider them quite different in meaning and equate geek with guru and nerd with social reject. But for every one of those, there is another who thinks exactly the reverse. I therefore use them interchangeably as terms for the terminally obsessed. Any mention of biting off chicken heads will get you hit with a dictionary.
I have to say I was a tiny bit put out. I replied that I was a science fiction nerd and weather nerds make science fiction nerds look like urbane sophisticates by comparison.
The thing is, there is a hierarchy of geekiness. Some obsessions are just more cool than others. Why for example is it just way cooler to be carried away by, say, medieval food choices (*waves innocently at
gillpolack*) than it is to be obsessed by knowing all the model of train engine that ever ran in the country? Now some of that could be to do with the degree of obsession. Some interests seem to attract the really far gone loonies and are looked down on for that reason. But I do believe there is also a hierarchy of coolness that is attached to the subject matter of the obsession. Something similar to the hierarchy of snobbery that exists between departments at universities.
So what I want to know is just what exist at the extremes of this hierarchy. What is the coolest possible type of nerd? What is the most pitied/despised?
*Nerd = geek. I know there are people who consider them quite different in meaning and equate geek with guru and nerd with social reject. But for every one of those, there is another who thinks exactly the reverse. I therefore use them interchangeably as terms for the terminally obsessed. Any mention of biting off chicken heads will get you hit with a dictionary.