More Science: Nerds May Be Found Nearly Everywhere

And what makes them nerds? They're "hyperwhite," it seems.

There may be something to that -- if a black student who's somewhat bookish is described by his peers as "acting white," then I guess full-out nerdism could be said to be "hyperwhite." But one element that makes a nerd a nerd is technical prowess and mad skillz, and I wouldn't be as giddy as this researcher is to term such a thing "hyperwhite" as if it's an insult. There may indeed be an insult there, but not the one this researcher thinks.

The researcher, who has spent twelve years studying nerds, by the way, says nerds are "hyperwhite" partly due to their rejection of hip-hop and black culture, which non-nerd "pseudowhites" are, it seems, into.

She's spent twelve years studying nerds and hasn't come across any nerds that are into rap? Really? Because from my more limited and less-rigorous experience, nerds tend to be big into that as well as metal. And nerds, being sort of obsessive, get really into anything they're into at all.

But apparently all those nerds walking around with stinky NWA t-shirts were exlcuded from the category of "nerd," simply because by embracing black pop culture they were no longer "hyperwhite" and hence no longer nerds at all.

The entire mostly white staff at Rolling Stone is ga-ga over rap. Nerds? Well, I've seen pictures. My preliminary conclusion is "Hells yeah."

Twelve years to conclude that white is kinda nerdy and black is kinda cool. I question the funding.

Via Instapundit who has more.

Nerds Just Don't Dig On Rap: Embrace the hyperwhiteness.

Hyperwhite Or Hyperyellow? someone questions how this researcher overlooked the Asian Nerd Hordes at UC.

On a related note: sweaty Chinese feller electrocuted by his computer.

Apparently he didn't bother to turn it off before opening the case.

If I were to guess why he did such an insane thing, my guesses would run towards things like "not wanting to interrupt a download of either porn or the movie Stargate in progress" and "not wanting to logout of WoW, where he only had six minutes left on an auction for the Sword of Misfortune."

posted by Ace at 04:15 PM

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