Nerds and Jocks

Preaching to choir. Hacker News is like the nerdiest of nerds.<p>Seriously, I came from Ukraine when I was 12 and being an out-of-shape immigrant and a nerd made my life in American school a living hell.<p>The problem I remember having the most was isolation. It's interesting because people did make fun of me in Ukraine all the time, but we made fun of everyone and were pretty much all friends, we conversed a lot, even when we were fighting.<p>In U.S. it's just different, people ignore you. Spending 8 hours in a place where no one talks to you except for teacher (and several accidental buddies) is pretty miserable. I often thought it'd be easier if I was bullied, at least someone would fucking notice me. Took me a around 4-5 years before I became a misantrophist and just started hating everyone by default and that's sort of how I managed living here.

"This is what happens when you don’t stigmatize engineers: you get a country full of engineers, self-identifying as engineers, growing up dreaming of being engineers."<p>Er, no, this is what happens when the rest of the world won't allow you to have an army because of what you did when you had one.<p>Your engineers have nowhere else to go but into the private sector where they are much more visible.<p>In the U.S., many of the best and brightest end up in the military or government service. We don't know what many of them do. I guess that's the price we're still paying for winning World War II.

Let's keep things in perspective. America is 10 million square kilometers, 4 million square miles, so there are lots of communities that value smarts.<p>My freshman year college roommate was on his HS football team, captain of the math team, and knew the difference between synecdoche and metonymy.<p>That said, it's appalling how freely people joke that they're bad at arithmetic, when they wouldn't joke so freely that they're bad at, say, being able to read.

Question: does the nerd vs. jock divide <i>seriously</i> exist?<p>I live in India, and back here being a nerd means you're a sort of minor celebrity. Doing well in school? You're the talk of the neighborhood. Doing well in school <i>and</i> captain of the school Cricket/Football/Foo team? You're a minor god. Doing all this and <i>not</i> aspiring to be an engineer? O NOES THE WORLD IZ ENDING!!1! U <i>HAZ</i> TO B ENGINEER!!1!<p>Of course, being a hacker does not count for much. People understand a perfect marksheet. Nobody understands elegant Python. One of the reasons I'm "good at computers, but needs to work harder on academics".

A few random comments ...<p>Sports are something that require initial talent followed by hard work and dedication to reach the point where you can earn a sensible living. However, some sports can be spectacles. People can watch and appreciate the skill and excitement. Getting large numbers of people watching can generate money, which can support the teams and players, and so talent/work/skill gets converted into money.<p>Engineering, math, science, etc., are something that require initial talent followed by hard work and dedication to reach the point where you can earn a sensible living. Turning them into a spectacle seems unlikely. Hence they will never generate mass appeal, or money from popularisation. People will never watch a scientist at work and appreciate the skill, and so will never, by that route, aspire to be a scientist (mathematician, engineer, hacker, physicist, etc).<p>All people know of science, and math in particular, is that it's hard, and they can't see the point. With sports they can see the potential for adulation, and enormous sums of money. Hence the "youth of today" aspire to be sports stars. Or celebrities.<p>Where are the celebrity geeks?<p>I have, and on occasion wear with pride, a "Nerd Pride" badge given to me by Gerald Jay Sussman. Maybe we should all be proud to say we're geeks/nerds/hackers/engineers and wear such labels with confidence.<p>For reference, Ron Graham worked his way through graduate school by performing in a circus with a trampoline troupe. Bela Bollobas represented Oxford University at modern pentathlon, and Cambridge University at fencing. Paul erdos was astonishingly good at table tennis, and these are not isolated examples. Many distinguished scientists and mathematicians are extremely good at sports.

John Hodgman talked about the jock/nerd thing recently at the White House Correspondent's dinner. Most of the video is off-topic, but the conclusion has a similar theme to this post.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW7OPByRGDY" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW7OPByRGDY</a>

What a load of bull. This comment is slander against the article because there's no substance there to even refute. Just nonsensical social and economic claims.<p>You should be better than to vote up any article which has "nerds" in the title, YC.

Nerds. Represent.<p>That's one of the best things about being in Silicon Valley. Nerds have won the battle, and we rule here. It's actually a good thing to be a nerd here. "Coolness" tends to be based on what new technologies you're playing with and what you're building.<p>When I lived in Chicago, it was clear that the jocks ruled. Walking down Rush and Division (Sports Bar Mecca) on a Friday or Saturday night immediately gave me flashbacks of ninth grade. That was the year that I got 65 wedgies at boarding school.

This observation has finally stopped making me wonder why the Super Bowl is such an important event here in America. I'm not a foreigner either, I just have never understood (let alone bothered to understand) what motivates your average sports fan to tune into ESPN on day-to-day basis as if it were news. . .<p>I think given the condition one can not adopt or subscribe to this <i>cultural profile</i> of sports then one will inevitably pursue alternative cultural networks (enter the nerd) HN is just one of my many cultural outlets I tune into on a daily basis, thus I consider it part of my cultural profile.<p>This is why being a nerd, for me at least, is so appealing since <i>you</i> (the nerd) not only subscribe to more than one cultural network as a viewer (reader) or fan, but you can participate in your culture's network as a player by simply knowing a language, picking a project, using the project, knowing the project, checking out the project's source, and committing your changes accordingly.

This hilarious German saying from Judith (in the article's comments) deserved to be reposted here:<p><i>“Karohemd und Samenstau - der Mann studiert Maschinenbau.” “Checkered shirt and lack of sex - the man is studying engineering.”</i><p>(The German rhymes nicely - say this in your best Bruno accent).

Paul Graham's article about the phenomenon:<p><a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html</a>