Who’s a Nerd is a blog that analyzes popular culture in terms of nerdiness and anti-nerdiness prejudice.

The blog’s author, Ben, is an artist and amateur historian who meticulously documents the use of the term “nerd” in film, television, literature, and comic books. He also covers issues such as “nerd segregation,” where nerds are forced to socialize only with other nerds, and “anti-nerd bullying,” where nerds are shunned by cool people.

For Ben, being a nerd isn’t about what smart people do; it’s about how we react to them. And he believes that our attitude towards nerds affects the way we treat science and technology.

Who’s a Nerd? is about the way nerdiness and anti-nerdiness prejudice are reflected in popular culture, and the way popular culture gets used by people to express their own status in the hierarchy of nerddom.

A lot of the time I’m writing about popular culture, and because I’m a nerd I sometimes find it hard to tell the difference between things I like and things that are nerd-approved. When I read the NYT’s analysis of the Harry Potter series, for example, it sounds like they’re saying it’s good because it’s nerdy and then they try to backpedal out of it, but I’m still hearing the word “nerd” ringing in my ears.

This is a problem because if you want to talk about something important, you need to be able to tell when you like something even though that thing is not objectively good. For example, if you love the Twilight books or You’ve Got Mail or The Notebook but hate Pride & Prejudice or The Sound of Music or Spiderman 3, then you might feel bad about yourself. But if your feelings lie beyond your control, that’s not your fault. You can’t help what moves you.

You have to train yourself to identify nerdiness in order to be sure it’s not doing the selecting for you. And no one knows nerdiness like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World ‘s Scott Pilgrim .

The most interesting thing about the recent kerfluffle between the Church of Scientology and the free-speech advocates at South Park, is that it’s not surprising. The surprise is that someone even had to point out that religious beliefs are off limits as a target for satire.

To me, this is a sign that an interesting change has taken place in the social status of nerdiness. When I was in school, nerds were people who wore thick glasses, played Dungeons & Dragons and read things like _The Lord of the Rings_: unpopular people who indulged in obscure interests and didn’t have many friends. And I think Hollywood was reflecting the same culture when it mocked them as well: Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, Real Genius – these were movies about kids who weren’t good at sports but found a way to win through brains alone. They were smart-kid movies.

Nerd is now more closely associated with high tech than with fantasy or science fiction. The kinds of people who are called nerds now are more likely to work for Google than for Tolkien’s publisher; they’re more likely to be interested in video games than comic books; they’re more likely to hang out on Reddit than at gaming conventions or bookstores. But I’m not sure Hollywood has

In the interest of not being totally creepy, we have to define our terms. “Folk art” is a term that’s used pretty loosely. It typically refers to art made by individuals or small groups of not-necessarily-professional artists, and these individual artists are usually associated with rural or provincial areas, rather than urban areas.

These things are true of folk art more often than not, but they’re not necessarily true of all folk art:

1. Folk art tends to be handmade, by untrained artists. 2. Folk art tends to be produced in a context where the artist will have no professional career as a result of their work. 3. Folk art tends to be created for the purpose of being sold or exchanged for goods and services (this is optional). 4. Folk art tends to be connected to local traditions and culture. 5. Folk art tends to be made for its own sake as an expression or representation of the artist’s worldview and experience, rather than being made as a commissioned piece for someone else (this is optional). 6. Folk art tends to be made from common and inexpensive materials (this is optional). 7. Folk art tends to have an “authentic” quality in that it is presented as an immediate outpouring of the