Why Nerds are Unpopular | Paul Graham

By Daniel Miessler on June 15th, 2010: Tagged as Culture | Geek

I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story: there is a strong correlation between being smart and being a nerd, and an even stronger inverse correlation between being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems to make you unpopular.

Why? To someone in school now, that may seem an odd question to ask. The mere fact is so overwhelming that it may seem strange to imagine that it could be any other way. But it could. Being smart doesn’t make you an outcast in elementary school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, as far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most other countries. But in a typical American secondary school, being smart is likely to make your life difficult. Why?

via paulgraham.com

Crushing on Paul Graham tonight.

Posted via web from danielmiessler.com | posterous

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Jack-David-Baucum/1447609630 Jack David Baucum

    Cool in who's eyes though? I think we often mis-use the word cool. I think I was rather cool, within my group. Now, to the jocks and preps I wasn't cool. Most people define cool by what the jocks and preps thought, but what makes them the cool kids who decide who is and isn't cool? Why wasn't my group of friends considered the authority on cool and not? Or another group that I wasn't part of? Nothing really.
    Those guys sucked IMHO. And in the end most of them grew up to follow the trends I was doing way before them, that they laughed about.


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