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[joey_fan]

Anyone see this interesting article in the New York Times Magazine entitled "What is a Nerd"? This scholar sees a correlation between nerd-ness and white-ness:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/magazine/29wwln-idealab-t.html?ref=magazine

[larryc]

Well duh.

The seminal text on this phenomena is the cinema classic Undercover Brother.

[namazu]

I assume you've all seen the Weird Al video by now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbVtbc_XzrI&mode=related&search=


(The idea of nerdiness as "hyper-whiteness" is interesting, perhaps not new, since it seems to mirror observations about black kids getting ostracized for "acting white", but I'd have to look into the literature a bit more before deciding what merit the guy's article has.  I would be curious to know how the writer deals with the "model minority" sterotype of Asian(-American) kids, and where that fits into ideas of nerdiness.  Also, I'd be curious what regional variations he notes, if any.  Are standards for nerdiness in all-white areas of rural Iowa different from standards for nerdiness in St. Louis or Los Angeles?  What time trends are there?  Has greater connectedness via the internet and TV reduced regional and/or urban vs. suburban vs. rural variations?)

[namazu]

P.S. It's late and I'm shooting my mouth (fingers?) off on a topic fraught with implicit assumptions about race, otherness, hegemony (did he call the "cool" kids hegemonic?  does this contrast with the idea of "proper" English as taught in schools as hegemonic?), and other such things, so if I've said anything patently ridiculous or objectionable, please call me out on it.

[aviatrix2007]

Nice posts, namazu.

I was wondering about the "demographics of nerdiness" as well, as this article didn't seem to take into account regional/ethnic differences (e.g., I think these were all Californian white nerds, no?). Yes, the Asian/American thing is an interesting question...but what came to my mind was Jewishness.

Prof. Frink (sp?) on the Simpsons was revealed as Jewish, and the hyper-nerdy cousin of Kyle (?) on "South Park" is also hyper-Jewish (as opposed to hyper white).

The "Weird Al" vid. is great! He seems to bank on the humor of hyperwhiteness quite a bit -- in this white/nerdy video, but also in "Amish Paradise" and "Pretty Fly For a Rabbi" -- which seem to employ similar tropes of unhip whiteness...

[big_giant_head]

Aviatrix, are Jews not white?

[acrimone]

I would be curious to know how the writer deals with the "model minority" sterotype of Asian(-American) kids, and where that fits into ideas of nerdiness. 

You can't be a nerd if you know the seven deadly forms of the Shaolin Master.

Just sayin'.

[namazu]

Yes, the Asian/American thing is an interesting question...but what came to my mind was Jewishness.

Hmm...yeah, that's interesting, too.  The common thread, perhaps, is the cultural insistence on formal education (and whatever other cultural norms tend to accompany that, shared by many groups).

Aviatrix, are Jews not white?

Not all, anyway!  (There are, after all, Ethiopian Jews and Indian Jews, converts like Sammy Davis Jr., etc.)

But even among the majority Ashkenazi (E. European ancestry) Jews in the U.S., ones who today might check the "Caucasian" box on an employment form might in the past have been considered non-white.  (And by some accounts, probably both internal and external to the group, Jews still aren't "really white".)   

There was a book I once saw in the U. bookstore called How Jews Became White or something like that, which looked like an interesting read.  (I didn't actually have a chance to read it, but would guess it traced the history of Jews in the U.S. and how they went from being "The Other" to "white".)  Even until the mid-20th Century, there were frequently quotas on university admissions for Jews in the U.S. (can't have too many of "their kind", now, can we?).  Not sure how the Jews' experience compares to, say, that of Italians or Irish or other immigrant groups that were historically considered "different" as well, despite coming most recently from Europe. 

This is all tied up in the history of how people have thought about and defined "race", after all, another fraught subject about which many people here probably have more and better things to say than I do.  Now nerdiness, I've done some, uh, fieldwork on that...

You can't be a nerd if you know the seven deadly forms of the Shaolin Master.

So true, Acrimone, so true.

[aviatrix2007]

Yes - namazu has a good points on the "aren't Jewish people white?" question.

But I was thinking about how "Jewishness is part of the joke" when it comes to TV-representations-of-white-nerdiness. Some shows that go out of their way to indicate or at least imply its nerdy characters also happen to be Jewish--e.g., from "The Simpsons": Professor Frink (middle name "Nerdelbaum"); Rachel Cohen (Lisa's imaginary friend "who just got into Brandeis"); Artie Ziff (annoying millionaire who is asked if he knows why people are so irritated by him and he responds: "anti-Semitism?"), etc.

Not to mention Mort Goldman on "Family Guy":
http://www.planet-familyguy.com/pfg/characters/44/MortGoldman/

The homophobic, anti-Semitic character Cartman on "South Park" can't control his amusement when he first meets Kyle's hyper-nerdy cousin not b/c the cousin is hyper-white but b/c he's ridiculously hyper-Jewish, etc.

I see these shows trying to use "Jewishness" as a proxy marker for "nerdishness" -- or, if we give these cartoons credit, they ironically interrogate and re-negotiate available stereotypes about Jewish and white identity through the prism of nerd-dom.

[aviatrix2007]

Here's an article on the "Asian nerd" phenom:

http://news-service.stanford.edu/pr/92/920302Arc2386.html

And a forum on black nerds:

http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum-writers/index.cgi?noframes;read=465

[kishter]

I assume you've all seen the Weird Al video by now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbVtbc_XzrI&mode=related&search=

Hilarious.

And, is that Donny Osmond?  Classic.

[elsie]

I assume you've all seen the Weird Al video by now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbVtbc_XzrI&mode=related&search=

Hilarious.

And, is that Donny Osmond?  Classic.

And the product he's buying from the dealer? The infamous Star Wars Holiday Special!

Hee! Pure geekitude!

[namazu]

But I was thinking about how "Jewishness is part of the joke" when it comes to TV-representations-of-white-nerdiness. Some shows that go out of their way to indicate or at least imply its nerdy characters also happen to be Jewish--e.g., from "The Simpsons": Professor Frink (middle name "Nerdelbaum"); Rachel Cohen (Lisa's imaginary friend "who just got into Brandeis"); Artie Ziff (annoying millionaire who is asked if he knows why people are so irritated by him and he responds: "anti-Semitism?"), etc.
[...]
I see these shows trying to use "Jewishness" as a proxy marker for "nerdishness" -- or, if we give these cartoons credit, they ironically interrogate and re-negotiate available stereotypes about Jewish and white identity through the prism of nerd-dom.

I think you're on to something there.  (And I love the last line, though I'm still trying to parse it...I see the ironic interrogation, but I don't see much "re-negotiating" going on, just re-hashing.)

I've done some poking around, and people have argued that the association of Jewishness with "nerdiness" can be attributed in part to a) Einstein et al., b) Woody Allen, and c) the interaction of gender stereotypes with ethnic stereotypes and cultural norms.   

Here's an article from Slate by Franklin Foer on "Nerd vs. Nebbish", which is an interesting distinction to make.
There were also some ideas in these comments on a blog post on the originally-referenced article.  One of the more interesting ones had something to say about the role of immigrant scientists in the mid-20th Century in influencing stereotypes.
And here there was a comment on machismo vs. nerdiness.

It looks like the book I mentioned earlier, which is by Karen Brodkin, got poor reviews from critics and Amazon reviewers alike for being repetitive, neglecting relevant issues, and making assertions that were poorly supported in the book.

[joey_fan]

Wow, this is all really interesting. aviatrix has some intriguing observations/hunches, and I think namazu has a point on the whole Woody Allen angle...

Who thought nerdiness could be so complex?

But I was thinking about how "Jewishness is part of the joke" when it comes to TV-representations-of-white-nerdiness. Some shows that go out of their way to indicate or at least imply its nerdy characters also happen to be Jewish--e.g., from "The Simpsons": Professor Frink (middle name "Nerdelbaum"); Rachel Cohen (Lisa's imaginary friend "who just got into Brandeis"); Artie Ziff (annoying millionaire who is asked if he knows why people are so irritated by him and he responds: "anti-Semitism?"), etc.
[...]
I see these shows trying to use "Jewishness" as a proxy marker for "nerdishness" -- or, if we give these cartoons credit, they ironically interrogate and re-negotiate available stereotypes about Jewish and white identity through the prism of nerd-dom.

I think you're on to something there.  (And I love the last line, though I'm still trying to parse it...I see the ironic interrogation, but I don't see much "re-negotiating" going on, just re-hashing.)

I've done some poking around, and people have argued that the association of Jewishness with "nerdiness" can be attributed in part to a) Einstein et al., b) Woody Allen, and c) the interaction of gender stereotypes with ethnic stereotypes and cultural norms.   

Here's an article from Slate by Franklin Foer on "Nerd vs. Nebbish", which is an interesting distinction to make.
There were also some ideas in these comments on a blog post on the originally-referenced article.  One of the more interesting ones had something to say about the role of immigrant scientists in the mid-20th Century in influencing stereotypes.
And here there was a comment on machismo vs. nerdiness.

It looks like the book I mentioned earlier, which is by Karen Brodkin, got poor reviews from critics and Amazon reviewers alike for being repetitive, neglecting relevant issues, and making assertions that were poorly supported in the book.

[namazu]

Who thought nerdiness could be so complex?

:)

I think there's definitely something to the gender stereotype piece of this, too, perhaps separate from the "hyper-whiteness" idea, that we haven't touched on so much here, but that was discussed a bit in some of the links above.