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“The Big Bang Theory” Normalized Nerd Culture

walrus01 7y ago
No, it really didn't. I've seen it described by someone else as "the big bang theory is blackface for nerd culture".
falcolas 7y ago
It normalized an easy-to-digest parody of nerd culture, perhaps. Nothing honked me off more than people watching BBT and thinking they understood "people like me".
- doctorRetro 7y ago
  Agreed, but even then, I'd argue that particular parody of nerd culture has already long since been normalized. Maybe all BBT did was broaden it a little bit, but a parody it remained.
- Godel_unicode 7y ago
  It's always amusing to me that people who pride themselves on emotional intelligence and inclusiveness will ask things like: "is your (nerd) friend we're going to dinner with more Sheldon or Leonard?". If you press them on this, you then get some flavor of "ok but you know what I mean..."
  - Retra 7y ago
    "Why are you so socially awkward" -- person who mistakenly thinks this is a 'graceful' conversation starter.
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  - vokep 7y ago
    Its a bit irritating, but empathizing with someone that might ask that...I'm not sure what the problem is? I would know exactly what they meant.
    - Godel_unicode 7y ago
      If you don't get it, I can't explain it to you.
      - vokep 7y ago
        I...do get it though? Or...well I guess I don't get why this is a problem?
- Tehchops 7y ago
  This. The first season at least dabbled in a more honest take. Season >=2 went with whatever was palatable and popular enough to get more viewers.
- Fishman343 7y ago
  Yes, there's a big difference between riding the zeitgeist and actually influencing it. There is something oddly nice about an older person saying "Oh, just like Sheldon!" (or sometimes Moss from the IT Crowd) if I mention dungeons and dragons or online games. It might be a very simplified and / or exploitative version of nerd culture but at least there's an instant point of reference for us both.
- devindotcom 7y ago
  Surely the same could be said of nearly any network sitcom involving a subculture or demographic. That's kind of the idea of broad entertainment. The problem comes when the parody comes at the expense of the culture - that's exploitation. But by the time BBT was airing and popular, nerds were, and remain, to a certain extent a privileged class, not an oppressed one. They have high-paying jobs, ordinary successful lives, and look back at the old stereotypes of pocket protectors and social awkwardness with a sort of bemusement. Nerds are not a vulnerable class and haven't been in a long time. Nor is "nerd culture" particularly cohesive. That may not be the case when the group being parodied is genuinely being oppressed or discriminated against and is often not in a position to push back against that. Exploitation in that case can be real and harmful.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    > Surely the same could be said of nearly any network sitcom involving a subculture or demographic. That's kind of the idea of broad entertainment. No, it isn't quite the same thing. ESR actually points out the specific problem with BBT in this excerpt from the blogpost I linked: > Bleagh. This is supposed to be a show about geniuses? It’s not. It’s a show about a dimwit’s idea of what bright people are like. The slowest person in my peer group could out-think and out-create any of these sad-sack imitations of “smart” on any day of the week. These actors are not bright, and don’t know how to fake it on screen. (emphasis added). The comparison to blackface that someone else made, however inherently contentious (for eminently understandable reasons) is indeed on point.
  - com2kid 7y ago
    > Nerds are not a vulnerable class and haven't been in a long time. The ones who get a CS degree and get a good high paying job, sure. The ones still in middle school? Not so much. The ones who aren't programmers? Not so much. The nerds growing up in communities where free thinking and geeky passions are looked down upon, sometimes violently? Not so much. And those kids will reach adulthood dealing with some rather nasty issues. Everything from not having learned great socialization skills, to a poor self image, to a lot of stuff in-between. Stereotypes are bad, having a show that treats people as 1 dimensional disposable arch-types that exist only to be laughed at, is bad, no matter who the subject matter is.
- 2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
  It normalized an easy-to-digest parody of nerd culture, perhaps. Isn’t this true of almost all subcultures that get co-opted? This sort of thing reminds me of IFLScience. No one ever loved science. Certain parts of it just became popular.
javery 7y ago
Nerdploitation
closetohome 7y ago
I find this show actively uncomfortable to watch. It doesn't normalize anything, it just mocks it using caricatures and awful stereotypes within the framework of an extremely traditional and lazily written sitcom.
- Jtsummers 7y ago
  It's a series filled with Steve Urkel-level parodies of nerds. I chuckled at Urkel as a teenaged nerd in the 90s. Especially when they (sometimes) humanized him more it was ok, instead of just having him the butt of every joke. But a series where the main characters are all the butts of the joke and supposed to represent me (according to other people) isn't really that funny.
  - slantyyz 7y ago
    >> But a series where the main characters are all the butts of the joke While I get that there's a pecking order even among nerds, I'm frequently put off by how badly the main characters treat Stuart, the comic shop owner.
  - mcphage 7y ago
    > It's a series filled with Steve Urkel-level parodies of nerds. Not really. Steve Urkel was a nerd, but in the show that just meant “annoying personality”. The characters in Big Bang Theory might have annoying personalities at times, but at least had interests and attitudes that demonstrated they were actually nerds, not just annoying.
    - asark 7y ago
      Urkel was into engineering and science and such, right? I mean IIRC he built that machine that turned him into Stefan. Maybe a robot at one point? Dunno, that's long enough ago to be pretty fuzzy, but I remember "making stuff with math and science shit" being among his nerdy traits.
      - mcphage 7y ago
0815test 7y ago
Relevant post from the ESR blog http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7451 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7451 Or, Why The Big Bang Theory Normalized the wrong sort of Nerd Culture.
verteu 7y ago
No more than blackface "normalized" African-American culture.
- krapp 7y ago
  I mean... disgusting as it was, it kind of did.
  - wafflesraccoon 7y ago
    Blackface normalised the racist stereotype of African Americans, not necessarily actual African American culture.
mbesto 7y ago
Disagree. If anything I think it reinforced nerd stereotypes even worse - all it did was shine a light on a culture that was basically in the shadows. Nerd culture has been perpetuated by a variety of factors: 1. Twitch / livestreaming / YT - e.g. sub counts = "look at how many people actually do like gaming" 2. Affinity groups to video games - e.g. NBA players love Fortnite (among other professional sports...see HyperX commercials with Embiid, Hayward, etc.) 3. Marvel movies - comic book reading is the ultimate nerd fascination. Marvel movies are consistently the most watched movies in the last decade. 4. Commercial success of tech startups - Zuck/Gates are the ultimate nerds who are now the envy of every banker on wall st.
- just_myles 7y ago
  + 1 for Marvel movies. You can't even go to the cons anymore they're so expensive.
- cm2012 7y ago
  I think number 4 is the biggest here, but I agree with your whole list.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  Gates/Jobs are the biggest factors for sure.
  - Grazester 7y ago
    Jobs never struck me as a nerd. More like the cool preppy kid that would drive a BMW to school if they could have afforded one.
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- z3c0 7y ago
  I disagree as well - I think the author is confusing "normalization" with "popularization". Big Bang Theory is for people to laugh at nerdiness, not with it. Along with the cases that you've listed, I think a clear case of normalization would be Stranger Things and DnD.
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thrower123 7y ago
The weirdest thing about sitcoms, to my mind, is how they are always focused in on this group of 4-8 close friends who live in close proximity and spend all their time together. It just doesn't match up with anything I've seen - real people drift around, interact with a bunch of different people, do their own thing. Maybe there are people that live like that, but I just haven't seen it.
kleiba 7y ago
BBT is based on displaying stereotypes and then ridiculing them. As someone who studied CS and now works in IT, I've met quite a few people who actually have to deal with the very issues that this show makes fun of, and let me tell you: being a social outsider is not as much fun in the real world. I have a hard time imagining how in this day and age the same ridiculing of stereotypes would fly without a giant backlash if the show were about: - Women - Homosexuals - Non-white people - ... But apparently, "nerds" are a safe enough as a group that coming up with a skewed portrayal of them that lends itself to making fun of is okay. Yeah, you go ahead and laugh about those tech freaks... why should the school bullies get all the fun...
- gamache 7y ago
  A friend of mine calls BBT "nerd blackface", and I think it's a pretty snappy description.
  - neutronicus 7y ago
    You should be careful about repeating this - a lot of people find the comparison very, very offensive.
    - stormbrew 7y ago
      Because it very much is. Blackface isn't bad because it's just stereotype driven mocking. It's bad because people in a position of power (white people) profited from pretending to be people who had none (black people) while simultaneously reinforcing stereotypes that help keep them powerless. Nerds and comedy writers do not in any way form or shape share this dynamic.
      - mcguire 7y ago
        To an extent, yes. And no. I mean, sure, I'm all for lawyer jokes. (What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a bottom-dwelling mud-sucker and the other is a fish.) And when they complain, I can point out that the alternative is that we erect the guillotines in the parking lot. On the other hand, there are a lot of people to whom the nerd stereotype more-or-less applies, but who are not tech billionaires, prominent scientists, or otherwise powerful. And they're the ones who get to pay the consequences of the stereotypes. If you are a Silicon Valley millionaire, that you spend time arguing that the Hulk can beat Superman is a quaint eccentricity. But if you aren't BBT is just another source of ammunition against you.
spudlyo 7y ago
I wonder if past generations felt this too -- this feeling that the as you get older, popular culture seems to twist itself to pander to your tastes and attitudes. I had assumed that I had this feeling because I was in the most sought after advertising demographic. Now that I'm into my 50s though, it seems like it's still happening, and perhaps even faster than before. As we enter 2019, celebrities are rushing to play Dungeons and Dragons, The Big Bang Theory has better ratings than NFL football, Game of Thrones is the top HBO show, and the most popular movie in America is from a comic book. It's a weird world. Nowadays I'm a bit saddened that my attitudes have shifted to become more close-minded, like my fathers. Adults playing Dungeons and Dragons are somewhat pathetic, comic books are boring kids stuff, and "fantasy" is for people who have dull lives. I don't subscribe to all of that, but remembering how angry I was at my father for belittling the fantasy escapism that I was so wrapped up in, it's odd to find myself agreeing with some of his sentiments.
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fhbdukfrh 7y ago
It normalized the stereotype of nerd culture. Aside from being incredibly unfunny it completely misrepresented nerd culture and that's why it was so popular amongst the largely nerd-free network tv audience. For a more accurate picture still taken to absurd extremes watch Mike Judge's silicon valley on HBO.
nydel 7y ago
I find this piece on toxic masculinity in The Big Bang Theory much more interesting than the show or this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs (The Adorkable Misogyny of The Big Bang Theory by Pop Culture Detective) I'm happy for people who can enjoy The Big Bang Theory but I find it difficult personally.
yarrel 7y ago
And "Friends" normalized NYC.
- nydel 7y ago
  ha! incredibly apt. clapclap.
draw_down 7y ago
I find the show unbearably corny, but it always seems to be on when I go visit my mom. So it certainly has an audience. I don’t think the subject matter is even all that relevant to what the show is. It would be equally painful if they were all truckers or lawyers or whatever.
jayess 7y ago
I tried watching this show once and it wasn't about nerds, it was about what non-nerds think nerds are. The laugh track on top of that drove me crazy. It was unwatchable. I genuinely don't understand how it was so popular.
- tzs 7y ago
  It didn't have a laugh track. They used laughter from the live audience. They did edit that to do things like take out people with really weird laughs, and they often used the laughs from a different take than the one that made it into the final edit because no matter how funny a joke was on the first take, it will not seem very funny on the 10th take.
- dpcx 7y ago
  It's always interesting to me to hear people complain about the "laugh track" in shows like BBT, but then herald Monty Python as if it were some paragon of comedy, considering it also contains a "laugh track." I'm not speaking about your comment in particular; I have heard from many folks that they hated BBT because of the recorded laughter.
devilmoon 7y ago
TBBT is a show written by non-nerds trying to describe what nerds are, and failing miserably. I have tried more than once to watch it and every time I felt actual physical discomfort at how bad the whole thing was; Even though the show is not strictly about nerds but rather a parody of SV culture, I find HBO's Silicon Valley to be so much better at describing nerds than TBBT - at the very least I can actually laugh at the jokes and there are slight hints that the writers actually know what they are talking about.
- wj 7y ago
  Having lived in LA for 15 years I met and became friends with some writers. I can't speak for the BBT writers but a lot, if not most, of the writers I met were pretty nerdy. Sometimes you need to write what makes your audience laugh rather than what makes you laugh. They earn a paycheck just like the rest of us. I couldn't watch it due to the laugh track.
tzs 7y ago
So many people complain about the characters...but when I was a student at Caltech pretty much everything that people complain is unrealistic or wrong about nerds on BBT was there in people I knew. It's just more concentrated in the BBT characters whereas it was spread among a dozen or two people that I knew. What bugs me as a Caltech alum is that Sheldon had an office at one point that had a geology lab directly above on the next floor, which is ridiculous.
- P_I_Staker 7y ago
  They're heavily caricatured. There seems to be the implication that this is just how engineers / nerds are. Sometimes, sure, plenty of those people exist. However, in my experience, it's not that widespread. It's way more common for engineers / nerds to be way more socially adjusted, and well rounded. Making a show where the characters embody the worst stereotypical traits of their subjects causes distortion to the point of becoming unrealistic. In my experience only around 1 in 5 or fewer would even begin to approach these extremes; however if you watched the show you'd expect the numbers to be stacked in the other direction.
pfarrell 7y ago
A great quote I remember reading about BBT (maybe in comments here on HN) was in relation to Arrested Development. Big Bang Theory is a dumb show about smart people. Arrested Development is a smart show about dumb people. I've never been able to watch BBT. I could never get past the feeling that I was being laughed at.
- lwhsiao 7y ago
  I believe this is the figure you're remembering: http://i.imgur.com/IT2K6F8.png http://i.imgur.com/IT2K6F8.png
anonymfus 7y ago
It is not just Sheldon who is extremely sexist in their group. Here are Pop Culture Detective's video essays highlighting misogynistic and toxic-masculine behaviour of all these "nerd" characters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7NRONADJ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7NRONADJ4
bdz 7y ago
The Windows 7 episode was when I stopped watching it. Just horrible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3qn92R0SE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3qn92R0SE
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curtis 7y ago
I haven't watched The Big Bang Theory regularly in a long time but I always enjoy it when I catch it in re-runs. A lot of people claim to hate it because it makes fun of "nerd stereotypes". I never found it insulting, though. Exaggerated, sure, but it's a sitcom, it's supposed to be exaggerated. A lot of the fun of the show is the characters "taking the piss out of each other" [1]. Not everyone will like that kind of humor but it's pretty common in sitcoms and a lot of people seem to enjoy it. It seems to be common for people who dislike BBT to complain that it ridicules nerds as a class. I don't think that's right at all. Does anyone think that "Scrubs"[2] ridiculed doctors and other healthcare professionals as a general class? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_piss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_piss [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubs_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubs_(TV_series)
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gnicholas 7y ago
Pretty sure I first saw this highly-relevant diagram on HN: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2dwmvx/handy_dandy_venn_diagram_for_your_tv_watching/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2dwmvx/handy_dandy_v...
elagost 7y ago
This show made me realize that there are two distinct groups of people with zero middle ground: Those who enjoy or at least don't see anything wrong with it, and those who feel they are represented (poorly) in the show, and intensely dislike it. The first group usually tends to compare the second group to the show's characters ("he's such a Sheldon") and doesn't see anything wrong with that, either.
inamberclad 7y ago
It always struck me as a show about smart people, for dumb people.
saipii 7y ago
I'm confused by this thread. Are people still social outsiders just for being "nerds"? I feel like people are mixing up being socially awkward and being nerdy. It's much easier to be a social outsider when you're socially awkward. I don't think I've ever seen a nerd who is socially strong be outed from a group just for being nerdy... This is coming from someone who was nerdy and socially awkward for much of middle and highschool and didn't really have friends. Once I started working on my social abilities (which is not easy, to be fair), making friends was easy.
coldtea 7y ago
Yeah, no. Nerd culture was normalized years before BBT came along... Somewhere in the early-mid 00s.
anonanon321 7y ago
I'm hardly offended by the show despite being a nerd. I think it's because I'm Chinese and there are no characters that I strongly associate with. In fact, I can't recall many asian characters on the show. "Fresh Off the Boat" on the other hand...I can see myself being very uncomfortable watching.
- conradfr 7y ago
  But ... Fresh off the boat is adapted from an autobiography, especially the first season.
  - anonanon321 7y ago
    I'm not saying it's bad or anything. Just that in the same way some people find watching TBBT uncomfortable (and I don't), this show may do the same thing for me.
viseztrance 7y ago
As a geek I honestly hated TBBT. I would love to see a show that portrays smart people having street smarts without going the mary sue trope.
anonanon321 7y ago
"The Big Bang Theory" Normalized North American Nerd Culture
knolax 7y ago
This entire thread sounds like the "gamers are the most oppressed group on earth" meme. Maybe it's a generational thing, but "Nerd Culture" was normalized when people stopped caring about the concept of nerds. I don't think I've met anyone under 30 irl who strongly identifies as a nerd the way people in this thread do.
conradfr 7y ago
I guess this thread is one more proof of why there's less and less funny shows coming from the U.S. Nerds, scientists, engineers or developers can be make fun of like everybody else. Sure BBT is not really a good show, especially after the first few seasons, sure it jokes about adults reading comics, but they also got hot wifes, go to the ISS and get Nobel prize. The most damning thing is that people in this very thread praise Silicon Valley. You do realize that, besides being more realistic and better written, the people on this show are also way more ridiculous and despicable than in BBT? But somehow you're less offended, interesting. I wonder if support people are offended by IT Crowd ahah.
nullandvoid 7y ago
A little off topic but a genuine question. Am I the only one who cannot stand shows with canned laughter? My other half thinks it's odd but I hate punch lines being ruined / unfunny jokes having a laugh track over them. Which unfortunately makes big bang theory pretty unwatchable for me among others :(
eigenspace 7y ago
While I find TBBT kinda annoying, I find people whinging about how horrible it is much much more annoying.

No, it really didn't. I've seen it described by someone else as "the big bang theory is blackface for nerd culture".

It normalized an easy-to-digest parody of nerd culture, perhaps. Nothing honked me off more than people watching BBT and thinking they understood "people like me".

doctorRetro 7y ago
Agreed, but even then, I'd argue that particular parody of nerd culture has already long since been normalized. Maybe all BBT did was broaden it a little bit, but a parody it remained.
Godel_unicode 7y ago
It's always amusing to me that people who pride themselves on emotional intelligence and inclusiveness will ask things like: "is your (nerd) friend we're going to dinner with more Sheldon or Leonard?". If you press them on this, you then get some flavor of "ok but you know what I mean..."
- Retra 7y ago
  "Why are you so socially awkward" -- person who mistakenly thinks this is a 'graceful' conversation starter.
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- vokep 7y ago
  Its a bit irritating, but empathizing with someone that might ask that...I'm not sure what the problem is? I would know exactly what they meant.
  - Godel_unicode 7y ago
    If you don't get it, I can't explain it to you.
    - vokep 7y ago
      I...do get it though? Or...well I guess I don't get why this is a problem?
Tehchops 7y ago
This. The first season at least dabbled in a more honest take. Season >=2 went with whatever was palatable and popular enough to get more viewers.
Fishman343 7y ago
Yes, there's a big difference between riding the zeitgeist and actually influencing it. There is something oddly nice about an older person saying "Oh, just like Sheldon!" (or sometimes Moss from the IT Crowd) if I mention dungeons and dragons or online games. It might be a very simplified and / or exploitative version of nerd culture but at least there's an instant point of reference for us both.
devindotcom 7y ago
Surely the same could be said of nearly any network sitcom involving a subculture or demographic. That's kind of the idea of broad entertainment. The problem comes when the parody comes at the expense of the culture - that's exploitation. But by the time BBT was airing and popular, nerds were, and remain, to a certain extent a privileged class, not an oppressed one. They have high-paying jobs, ordinary successful lives, and look back at the old stereotypes of pocket protectors and social awkwardness with a sort of bemusement. Nerds are not a vulnerable class and haven't been in a long time. Nor is "nerd culture" particularly cohesive. That may not be the case when the group being parodied is genuinely being oppressed or discriminated against and is often not in a position to push back against that. Exploitation in that case can be real and harmful.
- 0815test 7y ago
  > Surely the same could be said of nearly any network sitcom involving a subculture or demographic. That's kind of the idea of broad entertainment. No, it isn't quite the same thing. ESR actually points out the specific problem with BBT in this excerpt from the blogpost I linked: > Bleagh. This is supposed to be a show about geniuses? It’s not. It’s a show about a dimwit’s idea of what bright people are like. The slowest person in my peer group could out-think and out-create any of these sad-sack imitations of “smart” on any day of the week. These actors are not bright, and don’t know how to fake it on screen. (emphasis added). The comparison to blackface that someone else made, however inherently contentious (for eminently understandable reasons) is indeed on point.
- com2kid 7y ago
  > Nerds are not a vulnerable class and haven't been in a long time. The ones who get a CS degree and get a good high paying job, sure. The ones still in middle school? Not so much. The ones who aren't programmers? Not so much. The nerds growing up in communities where free thinking and geeky passions are looked down upon, sometimes violently? Not so much. And those kids will reach adulthood dealing with some rather nasty issues. Everything from not having learned great socialization skills, to a poor self image, to a lot of stuff in-between. Stereotypes are bad, having a show that treats people as 1 dimensional disposable arch-types that exist only to be laughed at, is bad, no matter who the subject matter is.
2muchcoffeeman 7y ago
It normalized an easy-to-digest parody of nerd culture, perhaps. Isn’t this true of almost all subcultures that get co-opted? This sort of thing reminds me of IFLScience. No one ever loved science. Certain parts of it just became popular.

javery 7y ago

Nerdploitation

closetohome 7y ago

I find this show actively uncomfortable to watch. It doesn't normalize anything, it just mocks it using caricatures and awful stereotypes within the framework of an extremely traditional and lazily written sitcom.

Jtsummers 7y ago
It's a series filled with Steve Urkel-level parodies of nerds. I chuckled at Urkel as a teenaged nerd in the 90s. Especially when they (sometimes) humanized him more it was ok, instead of just having him the butt of every joke. But a series where the main characters are all the butts of the joke and supposed to represent me (according to other people) isn't really that funny.
- slantyyz 7y ago
  >> But a series where the main characters are all the butts of the joke While I get that there's a pecking order even among nerds, I'm frequently put off by how badly the main characters treat Stuart, the comic shop owner.
- mcphage 7y ago
  > It's a series filled with Steve Urkel-level parodies of nerds. Not really. Steve Urkel was a nerd, but in the show that just meant “annoying personality”. The characters in Big Bang Theory might have annoying personalities at times, but at least had interests and attitudes that demonstrated they were actually nerds, not just annoying.
  - asark 7y ago
    Urkel was into engineering and science and such, right? I mean IIRC he built that machine that turned him into Stefan. Maybe a robot at one point? Dunno, that's long enough ago to be pretty fuzzy, but I remember "making stuff with math and science shit" being among his nerdy traits.
    - mcphage 7y ago

0815test 7y ago

Relevant post from the ESR blog http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7451 http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=7451 Or, Why The Big Bang Theory Normalized the wrong sort of Nerd Culture.

verteu 7y ago

No more than blackface "normalized" African-American culture.

krapp 7y ago
I mean... disgusting as it was, it kind of did.
- wafflesraccoon 7y ago
  Blackface normalised the racist stereotype of African Americans, not necessarily actual African American culture.

mbesto 7y ago

Disagree. If anything I think it reinforced nerd stereotypes even worse - all it did was shine a light on a culture that was basically in the shadows. Nerd culture has been perpetuated by a variety of factors: 1. Twitch / livestreaming / YT - e.g. sub counts = "look at how many people actually do like gaming" 2. Affinity groups to video games - e.g. NBA players love Fortnite (among other professional sports...see HyperX commercials with Embiid, Hayward, etc.) 3. Marvel movies - comic book reading is the ultimate nerd fascination. Marvel movies are consistently the most watched movies in the last decade. 4. Commercial success of tech startups - Zuck/Gates are the ultimate nerds who are now the envy of every banker on wall st.

just_myles 7y ago
+ 1 for Marvel movies. You can't even go to the cons anymore they're so expensive.
cm2012 7y ago
I think number 4 is the biggest here, but I agree with your whole list.
friendlybus 7y ago
Gates/Jobs are the biggest factors for sure.
- Grazester 7y ago
  Jobs never struck me as a nerd. More like the cool preppy kid that would drive a BMW to school if they could have afforded one.
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z3c0 7y ago
I disagree as well - I think the author is confusing "normalization" with "popularization". Big Bang Theory is for people to laugh at nerdiness, not with it. Along with the cases that you've listed, I think a clear case of normalization would be Stranger Things and DnD.

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thrower123 7y ago

The weirdest thing about sitcoms, to my mind, is how they are always focused in on this group of 4-8 close friends who live in close proximity and spend all their time together. It just doesn't match up with anything I've seen - real people drift around, interact with a bunch of different people, do their own thing. Maybe there are people that live like that, but I just haven't seen it.

kleiba 7y ago

BBT is based on displaying stereotypes and then ridiculing them. As someone who studied CS and now works in IT, I've met quite a few people who actually have to deal with the very issues that this show makes fun of, and let me tell you: being a social outsider is not as much fun in the real world. I have a hard time imagining how in this day and age the same ridiculing of stereotypes would fly without a giant backlash if the show were about: - Women - Homosexuals - Non-white people - ... But apparently, "nerds" are a safe enough as a group that coming up with a skewed portrayal of them that lends itself to making fun of is okay. Yeah, you go ahead and laugh about those tech freaks... why should the school bullies get all the fun...

gamache 7y ago
A friend of mine calls BBT "nerd blackface", and I think it's a pretty snappy description.
- neutronicus 7y ago
  You should be careful about repeating this - a lot of people find the comparison very, very offensive.
  - stormbrew 7y ago
    Because it very much is. Blackface isn't bad because it's just stereotype driven mocking. It's bad because people in a position of power (white people) profited from pretending to be people who had none (black people) while simultaneously reinforcing stereotypes that help keep them powerless. Nerds and comedy writers do not in any way form or shape share this dynamic.
    - mcguire 7y ago
      To an extent, yes. And no. I mean, sure, I'm all for lawyer jokes. (What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? One is a bottom-dwelling mud-sucker and the other is a fish.) And when they complain, I can point out that the alternative is that we erect the guillotines in the parking lot. On the other hand, there are a lot of people to whom the nerd stereotype more-or-less applies, but who are not tech billionaires, prominent scientists, or otherwise powerful. And they're the ones who get to pay the consequences of the stereotypes. If you are a Silicon Valley millionaire, that you spend time arguing that the Hulk can beat Superman is a quaint eccentricity. But if you aren't BBT is just another source of ammunition against you.

spudlyo 7y ago

I wonder if past generations felt this too -- this feeling that the as you get older, popular culture seems to twist itself to pander to your tastes and attitudes. I had assumed that I had this feeling because I was in the most sought after advertising demographic. Now that I'm into my 50s though, it seems like it's still happening, and perhaps even faster than before. As we enter 2019, celebrities are rushing to play Dungeons and Dragons, The Big Bang Theory has better ratings than NFL football, Game of Thrones is the top HBO show, and the most popular movie in America is from a comic book. It's a weird world. Nowadays I'm a bit saddened that my attitudes have shifted to become more close-minded, like my fathers. Adults playing Dungeons and Dragons are somewhat pathetic, comic books are boring kids stuff, and "fantasy" is for people who have dull lives. I don't subscribe to all of that, but remembering how angry I was at my father for belittling the fantasy escapism that I was so wrapped up in, it's odd to find myself agreeing with some of his sentiments.

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fhbdukfrh 7y ago

It normalized the stereotype of nerd culture. Aside from being incredibly unfunny it completely misrepresented nerd culture and that's why it was so popular amongst the largely nerd-free network tv audience. For a more accurate picture still taken to absurd extremes watch Mike Judge's silicon valley on HBO.

nydel 7y ago

I find this piece on toxic masculinity in The Big Bang Theory much more interesting than the show or this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs (The Adorkable Misogyny of The Big Bang Theory by Pop Culture Detective) I'm happy for people who can enjoy The Big Bang Theory but I find it difficult personally.

yarrel 7y ago

And "Friends" normalized NYC.

nydel 7y ago
ha! incredibly apt. clapclap.

draw_down 7y ago

I find the show unbearably corny, but it always seems to be on when I go visit my mom. So it certainly has an audience. I don’t think the subject matter is even all that relevant to what the show is. It would be equally painful if they were all truckers or lawyers or whatever.

jayess 7y ago

I tried watching this show once and it wasn't about nerds, it was about what non-nerds think nerds are. The laugh track on top of that drove me crazy. It was unwatchable. I genuinely don't understand how it was so popular.

tzs 7y ago
It didn't have a laugh track. They used laughter from the live audience. They did edit that to do things like take out people with really weird laughs, and they often used the laughs from a different take than the one that made it into the final edit because no matter how funny a joke was on the first take, it will not seem very funny on the 10th take.
dpcx 7y ago
It's always interesting to me to hear people complain about the "laugh track" in shows like BBT, but then herald Monty Python as if it were some paragon of comedy, considering it also contains a "laugh track." I'm not speaking about your comment in particular; I have heard from many folks that they hated BBT because of the recorded laughter.

devilmoon 7y ago

TBBT is a show written by non-nerds trying to describe what nerds are, and failing miserably. I have tried more than once to watch it and every time I felt actual physical discomfort at how bad the whole thing was; Even though the show is not strictly about nerds but rather a parody of SV culture, I find HBO's Silicon Valley to be so much better at describing nerds than TBBT - at the very least I can actually laugh at the jokes and there are slight hints that the writers actually know what they are talking about.

wj 7y ago
Having lived in LA for 15 years I met and became friends with some writers. I can't speak for the BBT writers but a lot, if not most, of the writers I met were pretty nerdy. Sometimes you need to write what makes your audience laugh rather than what makes you laugh. They earn a paycheck just like the rest of us. I couldn't watch it due to the laugh track.

tzs 7y ago

So many people complain about the characters...but when I was a student at Caltech pretty much everything that people complain is unrealistic or wrong about nerds on BBT was there in people I knew. It's just more concentrated in the BBT characters whereas it was spread among a dozen or two people that I knew. What bugs me as a Caltech alum is that Sheldon had an office at one point that had a geology lab directly above on the next floor, which is ridiculous.

P_I_Staker 7y ago
They're heavily caricatured. There seems to be the implication that this is just how engineers / nerds are. Sometimes, sure, plenty of those people exist. However, in my experience, it's not that widespread. It's way more common for engineers / nerds to be way more socially adjusted, and well rounded. Making a show where the characters embody the worst stereotypical traits of their subjects causes distortion to the point of becoming unrealistic. In my experience only around 1 in 5 or fewer would even begin to approach these extremes; however if you watched the show you'd expect the numbers to be stacked in the other direction.

pfarrell 7y ago

A great quote I remember reading about BBT (maybe in comments here on HN) was in relation to Arrested Development. Big Bang Theory is a dumb show about smart people. Arrested Development is a smart show about dumb people. I've never been able to watch BBT. I could never get past the feeling that I was being laughed at.

lwhsiao 7y ago
I believe this is the figure you're remembering: http://i.imgur.com/IT2K6F8.png http://i.imgur.com/IT2K6F8.png

anonymfus 7y ago

It is not just Sheldon who is extremely sexist in their group. Here are Pop Culture Detective's video essays highlighting misogynistic and toxic-masculine behaviour of all these "nerd" characters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-hOigoxHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7NRONADJ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L7NRONADJ4

bdz 7y ago

The Windows 7 episode was when I stopped watching it. Just horrible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3qn92R0SE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3qn92R0SE

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curtis 7y ago

I haven't watched The Big Bang Theory regularly in a long time but I always enjoy it when I catch it in re-runs. A lot of people claim to hate it because it makes fun of "nerd stereotypes". I never found it insulting, though. Exaggerated, sure, but it's a sitcom, it's supposed to be exaggerated. A lot of the fun of the show is the characters "taking the piss out of each other" [1]. Not everyone will like that kind of humor but it's pretty common in sitcoms and a lot of people seem to enjoy it. It seems to be common for people who dislike BBT to complain that it ridicules nerds as a class. I don't think that's right at all. Does anyone think that "Scrubs"[2] ridiculed doctors and other healthcare professionals as a general class? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_piss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taking_the_piss [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubs_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubs_(TV_series)

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gnicholas 7y ago

Pretty sure I first saw this highly-relevant diagram on HN: https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2dwmvx/handy_dandy_venn_diagram_for_your_tv_watching/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/2dwmvx/handy_dandy_v...

elagost 7y ago

This show made me realize that there are two distinct groups of people with zero middle ground: Those who enjoy or at least don't see anything wrong with it, and those who feel they are represented (poorly) in the show, and intensely dislike it. The first group usually tends to compare the second group to the show's characters ("he's such a Sheldon") and doesn't see anything wrong with that, either.

inamberclad 7y ago

It always struck me as a show about smart people, for dumb people.

saipii 7y ago

I'm confused by this thread. Are people still social outsiders just for being "nerds"? I feel like people are mixing up being socially awkward and being nerdy. It's much easier to be a social outsider when you're socially awkward. I don't think I've ever seen a nerd who is socially strong be outed from a group just for being nerdy... This is coming from someone who was nerdy and socially awkward for much of middle and highschool and didn't really have friends. Once I started working on my social abilities (which is not easy, to be fair), making friends was easy.

coldtea 7y ago

Yeah, no. Nerd culture was normalized years before BBT came along... Somewhere in the early-mid 00s.

anonanon321 7y ago

I'm hardly offended by the show despite being a nerd. I think it's because I'm Chinese and there are no characters that I strongly associate with. In fact, I can't recall many asian characters on the show. "Fresh Off the Boat" on the other hand...I can see myself being very uncomfortable watching.

conradfr 7y ago
But ... Fresh off the boat is adapted from an autobiography, especially the first season.
- anonanon321 7y ago
  I'm not saying it's bad or anything. Just that in the same way some people find watching TBBT uncomfortable (and I don't), this show may do the same thing for me.

viseztrance 7y ago

As a geek I honestly hated TBBT. I would love to see a show that portrays smart people having street smarts without going the mary sue trope.

anonanon321 7y ago

"The Big Bang Theory" Normalized North American Nerd Culture

knolax 7y ago

This entire thread sounds like the "gamers are the most oppressed group on earth" meme. Maybe it's a generational thing, but "Nerd Culture" was normalized when people stopped caring about the concept of nerds. I don't think I've met anyone under 30 irl who strongly identifies as a nerd the way people in this thread do.

conradfr 7y ago

I guess this thread is one more proof of why there's less and less funny shows coming from the U.S. Nerds, scientists, engineers or developers can be make fun of like everybody else. Sure BBT is not really a good show, especially after the first few seasons, sure it jokes about adults reading comics, but they also got hot wifes, go to the ISS and get Nobel prize. The most damning thing is that people in this very thread praise Silicon Valley. You do realize that, besides being more realistic and better written, the people on this show are also way more ridiculous and despicable than in BBT? But somehow you're less offended, interesting. I wonder if support people are offended by IT Crowd ahah.

nullandvoid 7y ago

A little off topic but a genuine question. Am I the only one who cannot stand shows with canned laughter? My other half thinks it's odd but I hate punch lines being ruined / unfunny jokes having a laugh track over them. Which unfortunately makes big bang theory pretty unwatchable for me among others :(

eigenspace 7y ago

While I find TBBT kinda annoying, I find people whinging about how horrible it is much much more annoying.