Why are Black Nerds so Unpopular?

I don't think this observation--kids from immigrant parents tend to focus more on education--is limited to any particular race, but is a byproduct of the immigrants themselves. In order to leave their home countries, they had to have the personality characteristics which granted them escape. When coming from areas that are not easy to emigrate from, this is commonly through scholastic achievement. It certainly was the case with my father leaving Iran, and seems to be the case with the author of this piece. As such, the best students of a nation--whether they are from Nigeria, Iran, or China--come to America and instill the same values in their children, the values that got them to this country. Interestingly enough, these values seem almost universal. I've gotten the "don't chase women, let them chase you" speech so many times I can recite it, yet the more I hear it from children of other immigrants, the more I regard it as truth than just my father's pontifications.<p>An interesting question would be to look at the children a few generations removed, to see if they continue the emphasis on education, or if they are swamped by American culture.

Both Paul Graham and Wumi are off the mark.<p>You see, unpopular people are people who have not learned to play the game successfully. There are two competitions going on in schools:<p>1. Be as good as you can be socially 2. Be as good as you can be regarding intellectual development<p>Every student will want to have the maximum of both those things, but the problem is that most people tend to choose one path and then work to excel at it. The most popular kids are as likely to be just as successful as the most intelligent nerds. It takes a bit of skill from the other branch to land at the top of either branch, and so those at the top will usually be successful people.<p>The problem is that these two branches seem to be exclusive. To be intellectually at the top, you have to forgo a lot of the social activities that allow you develop the necessary skills to get to the top of social ladder. And to be socially at the top, you lack the time to study, so you fall behind intellectually.<p>This is not about school in general - it's about life. To develop a skill, you need to focus on the skill, and your social life drops correspondingly.<p>But there is this middle ground. The people who know how to strike that balance between the two paths. The ones who are aware of the social hierarchies, and who make sure they do not drop in value socially. The popular kids who spend enough time studying, that their scores still remain good enough for them to do what they want to do.<p>There are a LOT of people who belong to that middle ground. But you know what, they don't write articles on the internet, because they have nothing to complain about! They liked high school and ended up doing well there. A lot of them are doing way better than the nerds who complain about how unpopular they were.<p>High school was your first taste of business. In business you need to develop your product, but you also need to make your sales. You cannot concentrate on one exclusively and leave the other away. Both require equal time and are equally important.<p>That's what these nerds don't recognize. They think there is some conspiracy against them - no, you just did not understand the system well enough to play it properly. If you went back in time now, would you not be able to do it better?

Why are we assuming that all nerds are smart? My high school had several "dumb" nerds (Napoleon Dynamite-ish). Nerds are people who are socially inept. Add intelligence to a nerd and all you have is an intelligent nerd, he has not moved up the social ladder at all. The real question should be "Why are smart black kids with no social skills unpopular?" but that wouldn’t be much of a question, would it? They’re unpopular because they have no social skills, being smart has nothing to do with it. Since the author states that blacks put so much emphasis on their social status, it makes perfect sense that anyone not exhibiting socially acceptable behaviors would be deemed unpopular. You could easily have said:<p>Why are black kids who wear tight clothes unpopular?<p>Why are black kids who listen to heavy metal unpopular?<p>Why are black male virgins unpopular?<p>If you do unpopular stuff then you will not be popular. Interesting article, but way off base. Oh, and if you are wondering, I’m BLACK.

I'm hesitant to ask this question because I think many of you will probably jump down my throat, but I will anyway.<p>Are any of you actually Black American? By which I mean a son or daughter of American Slavery.<p>I only ask because I would like to hear from one of them, about being a nerd in the black community. The reason I ask is because I've seen in Newark and LA for example, where even black athletes are only worried about getting home after school. I talked to a football standout from Newark and his exact words were,"I'm not tryin' to meet new faces at school, if I want women, that's what church is for." What I mean is, when I talk to these kids you get the sense that, between the police, the teachers, and the gang members, high school for them is a dangerous place. Many of them have expressed little interest in popularity, or looking down on others, indeed, they express little interest in even knowing others. It is dangerous to them. They SEEM to be just trying to get through the day without crossing the wrong person. Or as the young man I talked to would say, "Ain't no kids in a ghetto high school."<p>This contrasts sharply with things I've read in the national press and in reports like this about being 'cool', and looking down on the smart kids.<p>-- EDITED OUT A PART PEOPLE MAY FIND OFFENSIVE --<p>I'd imagine the average nerdy guy from the black underclass is far more concerned with mistaken identity on his way home, than he is with being accosted because he is smart.<p>But again, I'd like to know if I'm way off here.

What I (personally) find very interesting in American schools is the "unpopular"=="picked-on" relation.<p>I understand pg's argument that you have to work at being popular. In my (Indian) school, I was a typical nerd - I was poor, often wore uniforms from my previous years, I loved to read, and couldn't bother to spend the time socializing. There were a few others like me and a few widely popular, athletic, rich kids.<p>But we <i>never</i> got picked on for "being nerds"! Never! If anything, we got respect for being good at our work. It didn't make us popular but we had good friends (hell I had my share of girls in high school) and overall an enjoyable experience.<p>Sure there were cases of bullying, but they were one-off. It was <i>not</i> nerd==target and even the bullying was handled pretty soon, either by us (as a group) or the teachers.<p>I really would like to know where this animosity towards nerds comes from. I think that's the interesting (and painful) part of American culture that needs probing. It's definitely <i>not</i> universal. Any ideas?

Is it really just wearing the right clothes that makes you popular? Maybe the "nerds" are just fooling themselves, making excuses for their social ineptness?<p>What exactly defines nerd anyway? Not being able to talk straight to people? Doing weird things? But what is weird? Maybe building your own radio with nobody to talk to was weird, but what if you used your electronics skills to build fancy effects for your electric guitar and proceeded to rock the school?<p>Maybe it is rather the other way round: being unpopular causes nerdiness (in some lucky cases). I guess you can be smart and popular at the same time, but if you are not popular, it really frees a lot of time for thinking. And if you are lucky, you'll start thinking about something that comes in useful later on.

I saw Banjamin Nugent, author of "American Nerd: The Story of My People", on a talk show a few weeks ago. He mentioned that nerdiness can be a kind of 'hyperwhiteness', a refusal to adopt the black-influenced lingo and styles of cool kids.<p>He talks about that theory -- credited to a UC Santa Barbara linguist, Mary Bucholtz -- a bit in this recent interview with the LA Times:<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-nerd15-2008jun15,0,4078333,full.story" rel="nofollow">http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-nerd15-2008jun15...</a>

I have noticed the same phenomenon in the black and hispanic community as wumi. I think PG's explanation is still valid though. Kids choose popularity over intelligence because becoming successful by being smart seems to be more difficult than becoming successful by being popular. There have not been many visible examples of blacks and hispanics who became successful by being smart so when a child has to choose between intelligence and popularity they are more likely to choose popularity.<p>I'm going to hypothesize that there is a correlation between unpopularity of nerds and the probability of success through intelligence. The less likely it is that people will become successful by being smart the more likely people will try to be successful by being popular. In the competition to become popular the first ones to lose are the ones who don't care about being popular: nerds.<p>There are a lot more examples of smart and successful blacks and hispanics now than there were a generation ago. I bet that black nerds will become more popular soon. Of course, they'll still be unpopular because they're nerds.

I think this discussion is about 2 or 3 decades out of date.<p>Currently the issue isn't whether you are black, white, hispanic, or whatever. It's whether you are male or female. Women have taken over in the high schools and colleges. University enrollment is almost 2/3rds female nationwide and the gap is growing.....<p>Our problem right now isn't race, it's gender. Boys are dropping out in droves and at very early ages.<p>If you go into any government office right now you will see most of the employees will be women. I routinely go into offices now where there will be 20 or 30 women working and zero men. The men serve as janitors and gardeners. It's all they are qualified for.<p>Problem is getting worse and public school administrators are totally blind to the issue.

I think white society views black people are more masculine and physical, asian people as less so.<p>You might not like that, but that doesn't affect whether it's true or not.<p>The result is that black people are expected to excel at the physical. When they don't (instead favoring the intellectual) they're viewed as not making use of this gift.

Wumi, color does not have much to do with popularity.<p>Popularity depends on what you do better than the average guy and where you do it.<p>In America (where Hollywood and Sports are kings) if you play football better than 98% of your schoolmates you are likely to be popular. The same does not hold truth for a top programmer within is high school.<p>In some parts of your continent, yo could be the best soccer player in the neighborhood, it would not matter. The kid who gets the girl is the kid who scores As in school, although that kid is not much worried about girls.

This whole 'nerd' vs 'jock' meme seems to be a fairly typical situation of 'invest' vs 'consume'. A young kid has no other assets apart of time. You can spend you time being popular NOW, at the expense of studies and other form of self-enrichment. Sports (with their short fitness time-span) are not really an investment, unless you are a really talented athlete.<p>So, by investing your time wisely as a kid you have a good chance of reaping monetary rewards later -- in term of a good job or even your own business.<p>An additional bonus for geeks comes in a form of above average growth rate for knowledge industry. We are living through a kind of 'industrial revolution' that is changing the shape of traditional industries. The rate of return that an internet software business can deliver is unmatched. And it can only be run by a geek, somebody who has spent countless hours bending his mind around recursion rather than flexing his muscles in front of girls.<p>And of course, "the girls will come chasing", after you reap economic rent from your investment.

1. People are in groups for purposes. Example: A soccer team is a group for the purpose of playing soccer.<p>2. Leadership is contextual to the purpose of a group. A great soccer player is likely to be a leader on a soccer team, but if she is a bad musician, she won't be a leader in a band, no matter how charismatic or likeable she is.<p>3. Popularity is leadership without authority.<p>4. Lacking an external evaluation function, a group implicitly invents one.<p>This implies that nerds would actually be popular in groups with an evaluation function for smartness.<p>The solution is to create critical masses of people brought together in the context of a need to be smart.

Was so happy to see this BLACK NERD thread but ultimately, I have decided the article just ain't right.<p>For example, this is wrong: HE SAID&#62;&#62;&#62;For blacks, it goes above and beyond just clothes — sneakers (Air Force ones, Jordans, etc.), jewelry, hairstyle, shape ups, belt buckles, chains, tattoos, diamond studs, do rags, fitted caps — which makes popularity that much more exclusive and more difficult to attain.&#60;&#60;&#60;<p>Are you kidding me? Where where you on the 4th of July when black folk of all economic backgrounds were out cooking out outside across America, with their families and enjoying Being a Family my Friend?<p>And he said: &#62;&#62;If you ever watch a black family (and this holds trues from Latinos whom I’ve spent time with as well) they spend much more time worrying about the material and outwardly appearance — driving the right car, clothes, accessories, hair, etc. Paul alludes several times throughout the essay (and indeed, in his response,&#60;&#60;<p>Naw, this ain't right either because my son, aged 16 (and we all black right) spent a lot of time learning how to drive Boston streets, thru downtown, into Cambridge, past Somerville and back to our burbs and all the way along we discussed why all the music he was playing on the car CD sounded to me like "FALL OUT BOY" or "HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS" and he said -- Daddy now, its all original! His playlist has several hundred tracks, mostly different bands...<p>"I know it is but I'm sorry son, I said, but with some exceptions in the tracks playing, I haven't heard anything original from your 52 track playlist, that to me did not sound like FALL OUT BOY or HAWTHORNE HEIGHTS."<p>So, he defended it over and over and said - "No, they don't 'em sound like them dad." Yeah, right. I listen to over a hundred new tracks every month, all genres and I do know better!!<p>I was itching to get some RAP/HIP HOP even if it was that hypnotic track by Lil Wayne talking about Lolipops.<p>Personally, I love the FOB, HH stuff but I don't want to give overdue credits to their copiers! Well, he does and so went the discussion.<p>That's a small diverse taste of Black Life from BLACK NERDS in America Mr. davidadewumi! Your piece screamed of a lack of diversity in the African American American family.<p>So, you are right and you are so wrong too, which is my ultimate conclusion -- you like a viewpoint that adequately explains how diverse we all are, no matter what color we are.

I never understood the (North) American "high school popularist fetichism". Must be a cultural self spreading virus (meme). I wonder how can you get rid of it? Because i haven't see such behaviour in South America, there the division is rather blured, the nerds are friends with everbody else, an the populars aren't so "elitists" and bulliers... that reminds me this clever bully fight back story: <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2007/09/18/pink-tshirts-students.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2007/09/18/pink-t...</a>

To copy the comment from your post, a large reason that these 'nerds' are unpopular are they way they defer to authority and suck up to the teacher. Even till now, I really dislike those people. Those nerds are conformist and learn exactly what they are told to learn.<p>The cool kids are the ones that do things their own way. By virtue of that, they get to lead. If I were in a 2 seater plane that crashes on an island that has a dinosaur on it, I'd prefer to have a non-confirmist rebel type with me instead of a shake-in-my-boots where-is-my-teacher type!<p>That's nerd versus cool. Conformist vs Rebel.

Maybe black kids show a lot more bigotry in all forms, since they are not restrained in almost any way in that sense (they are answerable for sexism though). A white person that says he or she hates black people is considered a bigot, but a black person that says he or she hates white people isn't really criticized. Same probably goes for hating nerds. Incidentally, in black society, being a nerd is sometimes termed "acting white."

Steve Urkel.

Let's assume you are a male. To be popular you have to be attractive to females. To be attractive to females you have to be (strong or rich or ruthless) and (not stupid)=A and B. Definition of nerd:"Person that unconciously is labelled as stupid by the average person even though they conciously realize that he is the opposite". Since the judgment(by the females) mentioned above is unconciously made it follows that nerds are unpopular.

i think humans are experts in spotting "the to stupid to mate with". if you are clever enough chances are the average person will think you are odd enough to be labelled stupid.