# Paul Graham Essay on Nerds - Agree? Disagree? Worship him as a god? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 8, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-graham-essay-on-nerds-agree-disagree-worship-him-as-a-god/520488 "2009-12-08T19:54:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-graham-essay-on-nerds-agree-disagree-worship-him-as-a-god/520488/21 "2009-12-09T19:18:40Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Today’s high schools are filled with “cool” nerds because nowadays pop culture has made it “cool” to be a nerd. Wes Anderson, Napoleon Dynamite, indie rock, and the massive rise of technology are some of the pop culture elements which have evolved to give hipsters and hipsters-in-training social clout. You can be cool and be a nerd nowadays but you also have to be witty and well-dressed to pull it off. You also have to be technically adept, ideally at something that will pay your bills later on. The cool nerd is cool _because_ s/he is a producer and a consumer in the mainstream market. S/he is the Übernerd. The old style nerd, who might have been intelligent but had no social or economic traction, still exists. But s/he is now socially invisible or an accepted figure of fun: the Unternerd. Think of the collector, the cat lady, the basement dweller. They are more marginalized now than they were when they were just nerds. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-graham-essay-on-nerds-agree-disagree-worship-him-as-a-god/520488/22 "2009-12-09T19:23:17Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Not only do I agree, back in the day I translated the entire essay into French for my blog (with the author’s permission, of course), because I reckon its essential truths are universal and don’t just apply to the US school system. > > And I also agree with **Lynn** : being sociable is hard work if you’re not wired to be. To this day, I still can’t do small talk. I can do \*real \*talk and chat just fine, at least when I’m inclined to - but speaking for the purpose of speaking, without meaning or message ? That’s just…wuh ? I’ll agree with that. Übernerd and unternerd, eh? Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-graham-essay-on-nerds-agree-disagree-worship-him-as-a-god/520488/23 "2009-12-09T22:21:56Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Do you agree with his premises, that nerds are unpopular because they’re smart, and also because they simply don’t play the popularity game? That schools are just holding pens for adolescents? That teenagers would be better off and happier if given constructive work to do? I agree with some of it. On the issue of public schools, [I’ve made my opinion known](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=541790) before. Nevertheless, I agree with **Joe** that Graham goes overboard in that direction. Public schools have some great teachers, some lousy teachers, and a whole lot of mediocre teachers. They were not designed as holding pens, though they’ve certainly degenerated into holding pens in many places. I do think Graham is right about about two things. First of all, the relationship between teenagers and adults has changed a lot over the last century or so. There used to be a lot more crossover between the two groups, whereas now we’ve built a separate world for teenagers. The second point is closely related to that. Teenagers in a big, public high school don’t get much of a sense of life on the outside, and often don’t know that there are places that are vastly different than big, public high schools. As Graham says, that can contribute seriously to unhappiness and depression. (He’s also right that there’s nothing natural or innate about teenage moodiness.) As he mentions, these issues are much more common in the USA than in some other countries. In Germany, kids around age 11-12 are split into separate schools based on their aspirations. Those who plan on attending college attend Gymnasium (academic high school) while those who aren’t interested in higher education can enter vocational school. Also, the concept of apprenticeship still exists to some degree. That system allows some differentiation, while the American system traps everyone together. Some students simply don’t get any benefit from reading Ernest Hemingway or studying pre-calculus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/paul-graham-essay-on-nerds-agree-disagree-worship-him-as-a-god/520488.md?page=1)