What kind of Nerd are you?

Wil Wheaton was speaking at a convention over the weekend at the Calgary Comic Expo, and he gave a nifty little speech.




I follow the Wheaton's on Twitter, like a good little nerd, and Anne retweeted the link to this. I saw that people were saying it was a "must watch", so I watched it. And I may have teared up a bit. But it made me start to think, what kind of a nerd am I?


Well I've never seen Firefly or any of the Sherlock's. I've seen the Star Wars movies, but most things I know about it, I've learned from what others have said online. I only liked Star Trek: The Next Generation (in which Wil Wheaton played Wesley Crusher, unrelatedly). I've never played Dungeons and Dragons or any of the 'nerdy' games (video or otherwise). Needless to say, I'm not a good nerd.


In fact, I never would have ever really labeled myself as a nerd without stumbling across John and Hank Green. They basically just said, "It's okay that you aren't a _____, we think you're pretty awesome!" They introduced me to Nerdfightaria, and for the first time in the miserable middle/high school experience, I felt completely comfortable being me. Granted, I have only ever met one or two other Nerdfighters. But still, it's nice to have a place, especially on the internet, where you feel accepted for who you are. Nerdfighters have a website called Your Pants where you can just type in any sort of group and it will come up with all sorts of niches of Nerdfighteria. There are ones by state, gender, sexuality, religion, high school groups, occupation, and any other likes and interests you can think of. And you don't have to pick just one, you can be a part of as many of them as you'd like! I haven't visited there in a while, but I like to hope it's still as awesome as it was.
John Green has given the world some great quotes about being a nerd.

"Why is being a nerd bad? Saying I notice you’re a nerd is like saying, ‘Hey, I notice that you’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Linsey Lohan. Why is that? In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself."


"…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’."

And finally, as Wil Wheaton said,