11 ms·

Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)

85 points by inglorian 17y ago

noonespecial 17y ago
Many good points but missing one important observation. The cliques in school are hierarchical in nature. All groups may be exclusive toward other members but a band geek cannot make a jock's life miserable as a pastime. Members of each clique can torment those in the "lower castes" with virtually no social cost for those actions. For fun, to fit in, because daddy never hugged them, whatever. The Nerds and programmers almost always find themselves on the bottom. Things look different when you're a Dalit.
- chacha102 17y ago
  Once you eliminate the jocks and cheerleaders, the hierarchy actually seems to disappear. The nerds still try to be alienated for the most part, but the without the focus on sports, I find that all the other cliques just become 'different' instead of one being higher than the other. That might just be at my school though.
  - GavinB 17y ago
    It all has to do with the perceived attractiveness of the group members, especially those composed primarily of females. If they attractive people are spread out among groups, the cliques are separate but equal. If they're concentrated, the cliques become hierarchical. A desired group can basically set the hierarchy by what they define as attractive. Most people don't actually want to leave the social group that they're in, as pg observed in one of his essays. The one exception is when their group is specifically a lesser version of another, usually the hangers-on.The nerds may really like programming and have no desire to play sports -- but they would love to date the attractive girls from any group. The verbal and physical abuse in the system comes from members of a group which has attractive members of the opposite sex trying to keep down the others. For example, the jocks know that the nerds would like to date the cheerleaders, and so the jocks act to keep their supremacy. It's high school, it's all about sex, what did you expect?
    - rms 17y ago
      That's a good point. My high school was oddly non-hierarchical and the reason was the attractiveness was diversified across cliques. The cheerleaders were actually regularly mocked for being ugly.
- dasil003 17y ago
  It really depends on the school. In my high school there was no dominant clique, so the situation was somewhat as the author described. Sure people made fun of nerds, mostly because they left themselves open to it by being different and socially awkward, but there was definitely no strict hierarchy amongst cliques. I think there is some truth to the idea that certain nerds create a sense of superiority as a defense mechanism (think Comic Book Guy), but that is not the root cause of the nerd's social status. After the opening section I think the rant goes completely off the deep end with a rapid succession of wrong-headed generalizations. It reads like an 18-year-old who just finished high school and now thinks he's got it all figured out. The idea that programmers define themselves by what they are not, or by nitpicking inconsequential details is laughable. Sure programmers may be a bit more prone to nasty protracted flamewars over subtle issues, but we don't define ourselves that way. Sure our communities form around tools moreso than ideas (though not exclusively), but that's simply a matter of necessity given the detail of using any particular tool well. Personally I find the notion that "I define myself as a programmer" offensive. Programming is something I do, and I do it reasonably well, but at the end of the day it's only one of many things I do, and it's certainly not "who I am."
  - HalcyonMuse 17y ago
    Judging by the rest of Mr. Marinich's content, I'd be surprised if you're very far off the mark. Here's what I found particularly ironic: most of the online stuff of his I read (well, skimmed) was pretty negative, hostile and generally involved lashing out at people. After about five minutes I couldn't help but think of Maddox.
    - rorymarinich 17y ago
      That's not irony. Irony would be if this piece was telling people not to be negative and hostile. I'm merely informing people that their negativity stems from bad places. I've written an explanation as to why I write the way I do before, but unfortunately with my "unalone" account noprocrasted for the next 2 months and my blog URL and theme changed it doesn't connect with how things were before. Here's a basic summary: on this blog, I write essentially everything that comes to mind. So yesterday, I wrote blurbs about passionate argument, the importance of efficient coding, misanthropy, Samuel Beckett, this particular piece, an update on my design progress. Two days ago it was on capitalism, pick-up artists (inspired by an HN post, actually), ADD, and the problems of young people dating? I'm not a particularly negative person. I love the life I have and the people I know. At the same time, however, I made a pretty conscious decision a little while ago that I'm writing this blog for myself rather than for other people. Back in January I rather expected this blog to fade away and be ignored entirely, once I started basically writing lengthy pieces on impulse, several times a day. The fact that readers have increased makes me a little uncomfortable. It means that I find pieces like this one on web sites I'd rather they weren't. This is not a good piece. It's dashed out in 20 minutes and posted without a look back. And yes, it's a negative piece; yes, I find myself writing a lot of lashy things. It's by no means the majority of what I write - my average post tends to be more optimistic in nature. But those lashy things are a part of my existing, and I've learned through the last few months that a lot of people go through certain experiences I used to think were mine and mine alone. So I write about things like young entrepreneurs in a way that could be seen as lashing out at them. I write about people with bad taste and people with no social skills and ugly people. That's a pretty big breach of polite writing, when I spend time talking about my dislike of people who aren't physically attractive. But that's kind of the point: I don't want this to be a polite blog. I'm in the process of creating a tech blog for my revised, good pieces, because I hate being put on Hacker News for shitty pieces. This is not a blog for hackers. It is a blog for myself and for every irrelevant thought that hits my head during the day, and the people who've assembled to read it are a ragtag bunch of personalities that I'd never expect to all center around a blog like mine. I'm grateful for that, and I love the people I've met through it, and I'm not going to be changing the format of the blog. Just keep in mind that what you're reading is written in a very specific style, one that leads to negativity and hostility, and that I'm very aware of the quality level of this stuff, which is why this didn't come as a link directly from me.
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  Are you so certain it's hierarchical in nature? The difference between a jock and a band geek is that the jock will resort to violence to defend himself. I've pranked jocks before with groups of band geeks. It often leads to a scuffle. When band geeks are strong enough to fight back, they don't get bullied either. You don't torment people because of your own psychological past. Usually it's done out of irritation. The meek, quiet type usually gets ignored in favor of the one who talks too much in class, not because people hate smart people, but because there are certain sorts who are really jerks about it and that irritates people. That's also why bullies tend to be on the smarter side of the spectrum. I knew kids in the studies (low-level) courses and kids in the advanced courses, and the ones who were more likely to mock a kid was all in the advanced courses. I've been in the mocking situation before, so it all works.
  - chairface 17y ago
    > The meek, quiet type usually gets ignored in favor of the one who talks too much in class, not because people hate smart people, but because there are certain sorts who are really jerks about it and that irritates people. Okay, wait a second. First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question. And secondly, are you honestly siding with a bully who beats on a kid for that kind of behavior? I mean, I understand that it can be irritating to hear from the same kid all the time, but frankly, the onus is on the bully to deal with this incredibly minor irritation in a less destructive way. Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me.
    - rorymarinich 17y ago
      My implication is that the tormented as not wholly innocent. Of course I don't agree with bullying. I'm not a huge fan of violence, particularly not for stupid shit like school. But there's an attitude amongst this type of person that says they are entirely not to blame for the harassment they get, just because they act smart or whatnot. I don't think that's the case. I used to get mocked a lot in school and looking back on it, I think that I deserved it entirely. Similarly, some people go out of their way to invite harassment, and they use that as a point about how people who harass other people suck. I'd even go so far as to call it reverse harassment. I certainly did that as well: I'd provoke people into making fun of me by going out of my way to be eccentric. It's stupid behavior and while it might not be as bad as actually harassing a person, it's still inexcusable. First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question. In one of my courses this semester, there's a kid with an irritating laugh and a loud voice who refuses to stop making comments about how Microsoft is dead and dying, how Linux is going to be huge by the end of 2009, how Apple is evil, how Firefox is the best web browser and adheres the best to web standards. Every discussion we have he jumps in on, interrupting students and advocating his own misinformed, sensationalist, frankly stupid opinions, under the guise that he's being a good participant by doing so. In one of my senior-year courses, there were honors students, kids ranked in the top 10 for our year, who, in round-circle literary discussions, would say things like "I think the pig on the stick is symbolic. I don't exactly know what it's for, but it seems like there's a reason for it being there." In that particular discussion, after I talked about how the pig's head represents in some ways an attempt at order that pretends to itself that it has meaning, that particular person jumped in saying, "Precisely what I was saying. It's that it's symbolic. And there was a reason, just like Rory added on." There is answering questions because you know the answers - and some people do that, and they're completely fine, and no matter how many they answer nobody seems to mind - and there are the people who are jerks about it. The obnoxious popping-up hand, the calls of "Ooh! Ooh!", the smarmy attitude about all of it. It's a jerk thing to do. It's just as bad as the snobby girl who makes fun of fat kids, or the fashion guru who sneers at people who wear Gap (or whatever fashion gurus sneer at). And just like I don't think teasing and sneering is stuff that deserves violence, being a jackass in class isn't something that you should be beaten up over - but neither is it completely harmless and mild. Being somebody who likes to be scathing at times, I find that I go after those wannabe teacher's pets just as much as I go after other sorts of people. Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me. Just to be entirely clear: my implication is that there is blame to be found on both sides. That is nearly always my implication in these scenarios. I think the tormentors are more at fault, in this case, but I can't bring myself to side entirely with the tormented.
quoderat 17y ago
This writer is really clueless as to what high school is like for those on the bottom of the heap -- I mean, really, no idea at all. For that reason, it's hard to listen to what else he has to say, no matter how relevant or (potentially) awesome. Obvious that he's never been the low end of the totem pole. It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks, the actors and actresses. Everyone.
- andreyf 17y ago
  It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks, the actors and actresses. Everyone. Everyone's mileage varies. I went to a decent public school in the suburbs, and most people in my social circle belonged to a couple of others tribes as well - I was pretty active in the business competitions (as well as programming). Most other "nerd elites" were in marching band, actors, singers, swimmers, fencers, jugglers, etc. Sure, there were plain old jerks, but they were a certain a minority, and easy to ignore.
- tylermenezes 17y ago
  It seems to be different depending on where you are. The geeks at my high school (myself included) are, at least respected, and in the cases of many of my friends actually have a social life. (I'm too busy with the internet for that.) On the other hand, I know some people from other places who've had terrible experiences, so it's really hard to generalize.
- njoubert 17y ago
  It definitely varies. I was not all that invested in programming at all, spending most of my time biking and playing music, but as a "smart kid" there was lots of ostracizing going around, just because I didn't play the main sport that everyone plays. What I take away from this is the importance of growing up - you get through those stages and move into a more nurturing community of people that support what you create, not the details of how you created it.
  - eru 17y ago
mikedouglas 17y ago
Ugh, typography on that page is a mess. The title shadow is distracting, and the leading feels cramped. Off topic, but please fix.
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  What browser/OS are you using? The shadows have been tricky - on Safari they look vastly better than on other browsers, and I've been trying to get it not to look tacky. I might disable them entirely for non-Safari browsers. Agree with you about the leading. This is the first thing I've written where the title has dropped to two lines, and it looks icky compared to with one. This theme is very much a work in progress - just started coding it in early last week - so I'll tidy those things up.
ighost 17y ago
He makes a few decent points, but it really doesn't seem like he understands nerds or complex social interactions between different personality types very well.
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  Elaborate, if you don't mind.
gne1963 17y ago
If you guys have never seen the Dilbert cartoon "The Knack", have a look... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw It will lighten your mood after reading this post...
jmtame 17y ago
What makes a great writer? Someone who understands both angles, someone who has been both popular and a nerd. See Paul Graham's Why Nerds Are Unpopular, which was the first essay I ever read of Paul's in high school as a sophomore and that got me hooked on reading the rest of his: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
- thi 17y ago
  Having just come from there (it made for an interesting experience on my end), I can say that his article is indeed very well written.
shalmanese 17y ago
There's something ironic about a post on nerds being deliberately exclusionary which redirects IE browsers to a Safari download link.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  Where's the article? I get the Safari download splash, but I can't see or find the article. Reading the comments, I guess I don't care and aren't missing much.
- tlrobinson 17y ago
  This bit is particularly appropriate: Hell, programmers argue over web browsers. There is an elitist and closed-off system among hardcore coders that says certain things are better than others, usually for no reason, often for bad reasons.
  - Psyonic 17y ago
    Right.... as opposed to the rest of the population arguing over which (baseball team, basketball team, hockey team, football team, soccer team, nascar driver, music group, shoe label, clothing label) is better, which while I guess isn't "elitist and closed-off" definitely says certain things are better than others, usually for no reason, and often for bad reasons. Or in other words, so-called nerds have different interests than the rest of the population, and they act completely normal about those interests within their peer group.
    - dkarl 17y ago
      Everybody hates dorks who insist on talking about music labels or shoe brands to people who don't want to, but those types are pretty rare. Tech and gaming geeks are massively overrepresented here, and sports geeks to a lesser extent. When one guy goes on and on about his special interest to one or more people who are obviously not interested, but he doesn't get it, it's usually about technology, computer games, or sports. Despite the massive popular appeal of celebrities and fashion, I've never been stuck in a one-on-one conversation with somebody who couldn't figure out that those topics bored me. I've been stranded in group conversations as the lone person who wasn't interested, but that's entirely different. People even figure out pretty quickly that I don't know anything about "Lost" despite how improbably that is. You have to give "normal" people credit for being much, much better than the average computer nerd when it comes to talking your ear off about stuff you don't care about. (I guess there's another stereotypical dork: the middle-aged businessman who only know how to talk to other middle-aged businessmen, and who talks obsessively about cars, golf, or politics. I only encounter him at weddings, but you entrepreneurial types might run into him more often.)
volida 17y ago
"you need to be smart in order to be a part of the group" This is a wrong assumption, because there are people who are smart but are not (computer) nerds.
- andylei 17y ago
  the argument "you need to be smart in order to be part of the group" is the not the same as "being smart means you are in the group".
  - volida 17y ago
    On its own yes. But in the phrase used: "Cheerleader come over and ask about programming? Shot down. Invitation to a study group? Rejected. The most bitingly ironic comes when a person in a group of nerds gets an invitation to a party. If you’re one of the more social people in your scene, try it. Invite an anime person or a programmer - one of those people - out to an event. Chances are you’ll be declined. There’s every possibility you’ll be rejected impolitely. The whole concept of the nerd clique is based on elitism: you need to be smart in order to be a part of the group." I've read once about a cheerleader who became a rocket scientist. The article is based on wrong assumptions. People don't reject you because you belong to a "smart" group but rather because "computer nerds" tend to lack social skills (at some point in their early life at least), that make seem akward. or themselves reject specific attitude/people who they don't feel combatible, so it's a human behaviour thing that you should expect that those you reject they will reject you.
    - rorymarinich 17y ago
      ...That's almost exactly what my article was about. It was that smart people exist in every group, and so by trying to use intelligence as an excuse for rejection you're causing trouble where there shouldn't be any. I mean, considering I'm criticizing the nerd social atmosphere in a lengthy post, it's unlikely that I'm saying nerds suck because they're smart.
Dalziel 17y ago
I'm sorry that's complete BS. Yes there are arrogant nerds and especially more on the internet where the 'geeky' have held sway for longer. But the simple fact is that as noonespecial pointed out, the sporty 'popular' will be more confident in a group of nerds than the other way around because there is no risk for them. The nerds can't make their day-to-day life in school a living hell.
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  What's the risk for nerds? When I developed the attitude I've got now, the one that accepts my faults and doesn't immediately get nasty, the change in people was almost immediate. Most people really would rather like you than dislike you, and the instant you start accepting them, they start liking you back. The people who are real jerks and tormentors drop it after it stops affecting you - and that doesn't mean your responding harshly or ignoring it, it means your ignoring the fact that they're attempting to be tormentors. If you ask a bullying jock a question about his sports team, and start just talking to him about the stuff he does, they're completely nonplussed, and after just a little bit, they start treating you like a normal human being. There is an imaginary risk, and I agree with you that it's terrifying as hell to think that people are against you. I've been there. But it's not a real risk, and once you overcome that nonexistent worry - and that's absolutely not an easy thing to do - you realize that nobody is any more at risk than anybody else.
  - chairface 17y ago
    > What's the risk for nerds? The risk, of course, is that they'll screw something up and the tormentors will continue to torment. These are generally socially awkward people we're talking about. You're being rather silly to suggest that someone who isn't at home in social situations to begin with and has been ostracized for pretty much their entire life is not at risk of real failure in a social environment. I'm glad that you were successful in your social ladder climb. But you are pretending that _everyone_ will be successful. It's simply not a foregone conclusion - there are losers in this game, even among those who try their hardest not to be. > you realize that nobody is any more at risk than anybody else This is so very false that I don't even know where to begin. Are you saying that there are not real advantages and disadvantages in social situations? Can you not see that the captain of the football team is way less likely to be harassed than the math dweeb?
jgoosdh 17y ago
what a sad, angry little man...
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  Perhaps it's not my place to say this, since this is an attack on me, but it's sad that something like this got 4 points on Hacker News. It adds nothing to the conversation and is roundly negative. Now that you've insulted me and called me both angry and sad, I'd like you to explain yourself further so I can respond in kind.
  - TheAmazingIdiot 17y ago
    I cannot vouch for the "angry little man" comment, but you've run aground with massive sweeping generalizations that do not hold very true with many geeks. We all wern't made fun of in high school. Some of us even had plenty of jock friends and stayed away from the "introvert hate everybody clueless programmers group". And there's one really cool thing about being a "nerd": You learn a lot about a multitude of subjects. Because of that, you can learn of the interconnectedness between subjects. It's what I did, and I was able to help, say, a few cheerleaders on their advanced chemistry course, or watch a film while "critiquing" it. I also taught a few of these students biology... no no no, not sex (no, that would be a bit later). Winemaking. I mean, if you want to be popular, you stand out. Even if it is a 'little bit', you make yourself memorable. People of all sorts will look past general quirkiness if you're a cool guy. The toughest group to join was that nerd group, at least in my HS. I assume it was a mixture of not trusting or they thought I was too stupid. My SO however had a completely difference experience, in which there was really no real cliques (there were, in name usually).
    - rorymarinich 17y ago
      That's largely what I was trying to say. I use "nerd" in a very narrow sense: most nerdy people I don't consider to be nerds. I don't think I'm a nerd, for instance. The toughest group to join was that nerd group, at least in my HS. I assume it was a mixture of not trusting or they thought I was too stupid. That's what I was trying to say. If "popular" really meant "exclusive", then nerds would be the most popular people around. As I said in my essay: everybody nowadays is a nerd. Doesn't matter what you get involved in, you're a nerd. I suspect that was true 50 years ago, because Lennon/McCartney were as nerdy brilliant as they come and they still became sex icons. So when I refer to nerds I refer not to people who do nerdy things, but to the nerds that aggressively classify themselves as nerds and invite persecution and antagonizing by doing do.
sachmanb 17y ago
seems as if he has a problem with introverts
- jeffesp 17y ago
  Him and the rest of our society. Edit: Not to seem too negative, but I have just run into this attitude in most people that aren't introverts. There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides of that coin, but I feel like the introvert side gets labeled as the bad one.
  - TheAmazingIdiot 17y ago
    I had a good talk about introvert/extrovert differences with my philosophy professor. He explained that different cultures had differences in which one was perceived better. In places like the US, extroversion is accepted and liked. However, in places like Germany, introversion is well respected and as an equal to extroversion. I asked why and he said that he really didn't know. It's just the difference in culture.
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  Not necessarily with introverts, but with introverts who believe that their introversion is why people don't like them. There are introvert athletes and actors and musicians, but they're more popular in society. One of the quote-unquote coolest kids I know is a drummer who just never talks. He's incredibly shy. He smiles when people talk to him and says nothing, and for whatever reason people just absolutely love him. So introversion in and of itself isn't the issue.
- dkarl 17y ago
  Introverts don't necessarily have bad social skills. The average introvert is kind of an anti-nerd -- the same elements are there, but the causation is inverted. An introvert's self-imposed isolation comes off as snobbery, which creates a social challenge for them. Nerds are socially challenged, which leads to social isolation, which they try to frame as high standards (i.e., justified snobbery.) The Introvert: introversion => social isolation => perceived snobbery => social challenges The Nerd: socially challenged => social isolation => pretense of snobbery or introversion
mmiller 17y ago
I think he makes a good point in that nerds tend to exclude themselves, but I think it's a defense mechanism from being rejected. Believe me, when I was in jr. high and high school (more than 20 years ago, now) I wanted to "join the crowd" badly. I wasn't allowed in, and I felt awkward every time I tried to join in. I just didn't fit the social milieu. I didn't feel the need to exclude others (there's a difference between this and excluding yourself). If someone else wanted to be my friend I gladly accepted them. So I don't get this whole thing about how "nerds exclude everyone else." That wasn't my experience.
derefr 17y ago
> Cheerleader come over and ask about programming? Shot down. Invitation to a study group? Rejected. The most bitingly ironic comes when a person in a group of nerds gets an invitation to a party. If you’re one of the more social people in your scene, try it. Invite an anime person or a programmer - one of those people - out to an event. Chances are you’ll be declined. There’s every possibility you’ll be rejected impolitely. I agree completely that nerds do this. I did this. But I never did it to be "elite", or to keep the other person "below" me. Instead, I always assumed that the cheerleader (or whomever it was) was playing a very nasty practical joke on me—that if I accepted, they'd laugh in my face and wander away, or worse, I'd show up at the party to find myself a scapegoat for some random act of civil unrest previously committed that night by the partygoers. And yes, I even made friends only with other nerds—but only because I could tell, by the fear they showed toward the other groups, that they were a prey, not a predator, species, and were thus unlikely to harm me if I associated with them. (If you can't tell, I was bullied for my entire elementary school life before entering high-school; I imagine I would have had quite a different outlook otherwise. Thankfully, by grade 11 or so, the concept of "clique" had dissolved in my high-school, so I did get to discover what a mentally-healthy high-school experience was like.)
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  But I never did it to be "elite", or to keep the other person "below" me. Instead, I always assumed that the cheerleader (or whomever it was) was playing a very nasty practical joke on me—that if I accepted, they'd laugh in my face and wander away, or worse, I'd show up at the party to find myself a scapegoat for some random act of civil unrest previously committed that night by the partygoers. And yes, I even made friends only with other nerds—but only because I could tell, by the fear they showed toward the other groups, that they were a prey, not a predator, species, and were thus unlikely to harm me if I associated with them. I was going to elaborate upon that but decided against it. Yes: nerds don't do things to be exclusive. They're not particularly snobby people. Their reactions tend to stem from alienation and paranoia: they act like that because they either don't think that other people like them at all, or because they want to maintain an image of some exclusivity on their own part. The problem with that attitude is that it encourages people to be nasty back and to avoid your social group. And the people in a group of nerds that do notice that tend to start getting negative attitude from the rest of the group. I wasn't alone in this. One of my friends was part of the bookworm group of pretty people who studied too much, and I thought he was a twofaced backstabbing liar. That was eighth grade, and I'd like to think I've matured since then, but I certainly understand where you're coming from.
strlen 17y ago
This is rambling and seems to be entirely empirically false. On top of it makes a vice out of "nerdiness" and a virtue of "coolness" ("uncool asshole") without any sort of argument to back it.
tutwabee 17y ago
"The response that I try to lob into these discussions, reduced to its crudest form, is: Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of one of the largest web sites on the planet, and his web site is beautiful, and it brings joy to a lot of people, so apparently being a good programmer isn’t what makes you design beautiful things that make people happy, in which case being a good programmer sounds like a fucking waste." Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook. His coding abilities cannot be judged unless it is known how much of the Facebook code he actually wrote. I assume the majority of it was not written by him.
- noamsml 17y ago
  Also, though Facebook is clearly a resounding success, I'm not sure I'd use the words "beautiful" and "makes people happy". More like "useful" and "makes people connected".
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    It makes people happy. My mother has found old high school friends - old high school crushes, even - and met up with people who left her life a long time ago. A friend of mine in Washington D.C. uses it to organize all her groups of friends for her homecoming party. I used Facebook for writing my notes before I decided to make everything I wrote public, and I bonded with a lot of people over issues I'd never thought other people cared about. It's used for organizing protests and finding phone numbers and occasionally hooking up. Connections lead largely to happiness. I think Facebook is one of the best-looking sites that's ever been, though the last two redesigns haven't been too tight. The original layout, with the links on the side and the two-column profile, was one of those things that vastly inspired me when I was younger. The level of order it forced on its users was stunning, especially compared to MySpace. Now it's been tuning down some of the things I liked - especially the "How do you know this person" syntax - but it's still more usable than any other site that huge. The fact that people can intuitively figure out how to post photos, videos, events, groups, notes, friend people, fan pages, add applications, all without any advice - my grandfather figured it all out without help - is one of those things that's so impressive that it's easy to ignore because you take it for granted. Meanwhile, a lot of the things that have become common in sites - the thing that stands out to me is the resizing textfields - were first popularly used in Facebook. When I wrote for AllFacebook my main interest was scouring the site, clicking everything I could, looking for those finesses. So it's beautiful in terms of dedication to usability if nothing else.
andreyf 17y ago
I don't get it. I went to a public school, and it was nothing like this - sure, we had our little tribes, and our little dramas, but most people belonged to several of them - I took lots of business and marketing classes and was a programmer nerd. Many other programmer nerds were actors, in marching band, and in the choir. The class president and swim team captain took AP CompSci, wasn't too bad of a programmer himself, and an exceptionally nice guy, to absolutely everyone. Sure, there were dicks, but who cares about them?
- jimbokun 17y ago
  "Sure, there were dicks, but who cares about them?" The real problem seems to be school violence and bullying, and it seems that in the U.S., at least, this is a non-trivial problem. Dicks you can just ignore are one thing. Dicks who beat up kids smaller than them or pick out kids to ambush with their buddies, cannot be ignored. Sounds like this was not the case at your school, which is great. But it changes everything when violence is involved, and explains why unpopular "nerds" could display exclusion and paranoia, literally as a survival mechanism. In schools where violence is not widespread, I think Rory's comments have more validity.
deleted 17y ago
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ideamonk 17y ago
I think his problem is with the people who label themselves as nerds and programmers. The author should go by a person's _work_ to decide how good one is. Not by the air, debates and the talks!
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  I do. My particular group of friends includes nerds and hipsters and radical liberals and libertarians and volleyball players and a whole bunch of people who I hang out with because of who they are and what they do. This isn't my writing about a dislike of nerds. This is my writing to certain nerds explaining why their situation is what it is.
noamsml 17y ago
Can't say this mirrors my experience of geeks at all, but then again, I went to a school where all cliques were extremely loose-knit and accepting (it was just part of the school culture).
rue 17y ago
Americans have a fundamentally different relationship with their High School days from anyone else. Popular culture certainly is not helping shed the obsession, the sense that High School is the defining time in one's life[1]. Somehow it seems that all these stories tie into that theme: the expectations, the sense that one must live their High School role thenceforth, the contemporary judgments made based on factors from High School and so on. [1] Adolescence is obviously formative just like anything else; I trust you can make the distinction.
yef 17y ago
I'm frustrated that the #2 link on Hacker News right now is a rambling rehash of How To Win Friends and Influence People, the first book listed here: http://ycombinator.com/lib.html http://ycombinator.com/lib.html
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  Is that what HTWFAIP is about? I've never read it. (Also: is it a good read, or is it overrated?) (Also also: I agree. This should not be here.)
  - tvon 17y ago
    It's pretty much a universal top 10 book on the subject of general success for people whose top 10 books anyone cares about. I want to read it, so far I've just used the audio book and enjoyed it, but didn't really focus on it as much as I would have if I had read it.
    - asciilifeform 17y ago
      My question is, where can I get the uncensored version of this book mentioned by Paul Graham?
  - yef 17y ago
    I'd recommend it as a general life-skills sort of book, which can also be applied toward career success in sales or management. If you don't want to read it, just find the summary online, apply it, and see if your life changes. It's harder to implement than it sounds, at least in my experience.
    - rorymarinich 17y ago
      Heh. That's usually how it is. If you actually follow the advice, it works, but it's hard. I forget who said this but it's true: "The secret to success is no secret."
  - hunterjrj 17y ago
jodrellblank 17y ago
When you go online and want to learn programming, you run into the uncool assholes. The ones who’ll take "How to I make a web site that people can join" not as an admission of some guy who doesn’t care about the details but as a sign of weakness. I’ve seen responses to that question that range from "You obviously aren’t ready" to "It depends on how you want the site to scale." What bullshit! No no no. That's me, but it's not because of anything to do with spotting "a sign of weakness". Let me try to use a non-car analogy: Imagine I'm a carpenter (I'm not) and you come up to me and ask "how do I build a staircase?". The kinds of thoughts going through my head might be: 1) A staircase is obviously wood, cut to shape, then fixed together. It's also obviously quite a big thing. There's no need to answer with the low level "obvious" things like "you will need a large workshop", if you want to build a staircase you probably already have woodworking tools and experience and now want a bigger project, so an answer telling you basic outline steps would be insultingly patronising and unhelpful. Also, an answer covering enough steps from scratch would take far too long for a forum post or discussion reply, so if I make the judgement that you don't have any of the experience and haven't considered it at all then you might get a dismissive "with a lot of work" reply. (OK, maybe if we met informally and you asked, you might be just making conversation, but nobody goes to a technical forum and asks how to build a website just to make friends, do they, so that doesn't apply). 2) On the other hand, if you have spotted the obvious then you're asking one question but meaning another - maybe what kind of wood can I use to make it look nice, what building regs must it comply to, how can I reinforce it, what fireproofing treatments work well? What styles of bannister were popular in Victorian times? There could be a lot of fun stuff, but again too many directions to go in all in one answer - this is where you get the "it depends what style you want" answer. It's not bullshit, it's better than that, it's skipping straight to acknowledgement, acceptance and directed at whichever obstacle or major design consideration comes to mind first. So, "how do you build a website that people can join" leads me to think something like: A website people can join means giving them a form to fill in, keeping their details, and providing a login prompt later. This is obvious to anyone who has used a couple of websites with signup forms. So either you understand the steps of a site you can signup to and would have Googled until you found out more about those steps and asked a more specific question (What's HTML? What's a webhost? What happens to information in a form once I click submit? How can I keep it around?), or you're really asking for design and obstacle avoidance suggestions, e.g. scaling, security, server load, etc. Hence the replies: You haven't Googled for the basics, that suggests you aren't ready for the amount of work involved, or you aren't really asking such a basic question so you don't get a basic answer.
endlessvoid94 17y ago
Most (not all) of the responses here seem to absolutely confirm this essay's main points. The posters here generally are taking some kind of offense to this, and feel the need to shoot it full of holes. In the meantime, this behavior is only reinforcing the point to anyone who happens to not be a programmer. It's actually quite striking.
- bena 17y ago
  If someone came on here and said something blatantly false such as "Gravity doesn't exist. Here's a bunch of technobabble explaining why it doesn't. Anyone who doesn't agree is a douche and part of the conspiracy to hide the truth." Would the multitudes of people coming to refute his points confirm his point that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth? Or would it mean that he just may be wrong.
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    Bullshit. Gravity is a provable part of science. The social sciences are harder to deal with. Meanwhile, you want proof? I'll offer myself and every single person I know who's willing to be social as proof. I'm friends with guys with weird hair and glasses who use Digg and they were an accepted part of high school because they didn't go out of their way to be exclusive and closed-off. When I decided to stop being a dick to people just to preempt their disliking me, I found out that I was rarely disliked. (In fact, I went to a further extreme, because I'm quick to call people out for saying stupid things and I like colorful insults, and yet people didn't mind so much as I continued to get along with them.) Show me the person who makes an active attempt to stop being hated - not by being "cool" but by starting to act friendly towards people - and fails after a few weeks' effort and I'll consider your experiment a potential refutation. Would the multitudes of people coming to refute his points confirm his point that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth? I said "Nerds are in denial" and a lot of people jumped on board to deny it. I'm not saying that proves it either way, because I don't presume to judge people by their comments online, but it's not exactly evidence of my wrongdoing.
    - bena 17y ago
rbanffy 17y ago
"Cheerleader come over and ask about programming? Shot down" In what planet did you grow up?
banned_man_2_0 17y ago
It made some good points, but was far too black-and-white, and I lost all respect for the essay when the writer started fellating Mark Zuckerberg.
chanux 17y ago
Hehe the guy missed the point. It's those nerds & programmers who made the world for him (people like him) to do their cheesy things on top of.
illustraden 17y ago
One time, this guy at my school made it to Hollywood in American Idol and the school paper did a bit on that and a friend at that time became irate. Like, RAGING, throwing things against the wall. He said he did cooler things in programming-he had hurricane coding skills. As opposed to something as utterly inane as American Idol and nobody wrote an article on him. After graduating, I make it a point to avoid people like that. I'm completely traumatized from being surrounded by those people every day for 4 years. My friends now don't know what the heck i'm talking about when something triggers those memories and I marvel about how obnoxious those people were. Then she sent me this article, and she asked me, you mean like this? And I said YES!

85 points by inglorian 17y ago

Many good points but missing one important observation. The cliques in school are hierarchical in nature. All groups may be exclusive toward other members but a band geek cannot make a jock's life miserable as a pastime. Members of each clique can torment those in the "lower castes" with virtually no social cost for those actions. For fun, to fit in, because daddy never hugged them, whatever. The Nerds and programmers almost always find themselves on the bottom. Things look different when you're a Dalit.

chacha102 17y ago
Once you eliminate the jocks and cheerleaders, the hierarchy actually seems to disappear. The nerds still try to be alienated for the most part, but the without the focus on sports, I find that all the other cliques just become 'different' instead of one being higher than the other. That might just be at my school though.
- GavinB 17y ago
  It all has to do with the perceived attractiveness of the group members, especially those composed primarily of females. If they attractive people are spread out among groups, the cliques are separate but equal. If they're concentrated, the cliques become hierarchical. A desired group can basically set the hierarchy by what they define as attractive. Most people don't actually want to leave the social group that they're in, as pg observed in one of his essays. The one exception is when their group is specifically a lesser version of another, usually the hangers-on.The nerds may really like programming and have no desire to play sports -- but they would love to date the attractive girls from any group. The verbal and physical abuse in the system comes from members of a group which has attractive members of the opposite sex trying to keep down the others. For example, the jocks know that the nerds would like to date the cheerleaders, and so the jocks act to keep their supremacy. It's high school, it's all about sex, what did you expect?
  - rms 17y ago
    That's a good point. My high school was oddly non-hierarchical and the reason was the attractiveness was diversified across cliques. The cheerleaders were actually regularly mocked for being ugly.
dasil003 17y ago
It really depends on the school. In my high school there was no dominant clique, so the situation was somewhat as the author described. Sure people made fun of nerds, mostly because they left themselves open to it by being different and socially awkward, but there was definitely no strict hierarchy amongst cliques. I think there is some truth to the idea that certain nerds create a sense of superiority as a defense mechanism (think Comic Book Guy), but that is not the root cause of the nerd's social status. After the opening section I think the rant goes completely off the deep end with a rapid succession of wrong-headed generalizations. It reads like an 18-year-old who just finished high school and now thinks he's got it all figured out. The idea that programmers define themselves by what they are not, or by nitpicking inconsequential details is laughable. Sure programmers may be a bit more prone to nasty protracted flamewars over subtle issues, but we don't define ourselves that way. Sure our communities form around tools moreso than ideas (though not exclusively), but that's simply a matter of necessity given the detail of using any particular tool well. Personally I find the notion that "I define myself as a programmer" offensive. Programming is something I do, and I do it reasonably well, but at the end of the day it's only one of many things I do, and it's certainly not "who I am."
- HalcyonMuse 17y ago
  Judging by the rest of Mr. Marinich's content, I'd be surprised if you're very far off the mark. Here's what I found particularly ironic: most of the online stuff of his I read (well, skimmed) was pretty negative, hostile and generally involved lashing out at people. After about five minutes I couldn't help but think of Maddox.
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    That's not irony. Irony would be if this piece was telling people not to be negative and hostile. I'm merely informing people that their negativity stems from bad places. I've written an explanation as to why I write the way I do before, but unfortunately with my "unalone" account noprocrasted for the next 2 months and my blog URL and theme changed it doesn't connect with how things were before. Here's a basic summary: on this blog, I write essentially everything that comes to mind. So yesterday, I wrote blurbs about passionate argument, the importance of efficient coding, misanthropy, Samuel Beckett, this particular piece, an update on my design progress. Two days ago it was on capitalism, pick-up artists (inspired by an HN post, actually), ADD, and the problems of young people dating? I'm not a particularly negative person. I love the life I have and the people I know. At the same time, however, I made a pretty conscious decision a little while ago that I'm writing this blog for myself rather than for other people. Back in January I rather expected this blog to fade away and be ignored entirely, once I started basically writing lengthy pieces on impulse, several times a day. The fact that readers have increased makes me a little uncomfortable. It means that I find pieces like this one on web sites I'd rather they weren't. This is not a good piece. It's dashed out in 20 minutes and posted without a look back. And yes, it's a negative piece; yes, I find myself writing a lot of lashy things. It's by no means the majority of what I write - my average post tends to be more optimistic in nature. But those lashy things are a part of my existing, and I've learned through the last few months that a lot of people go through certain experiences I used to think were mine and mine alone. So I write about things like young entrepreneurs in a way that could be seen as lashing out at them. I write about people with bad taste and people with no social skills and ugly people. That's a pretty big breach of polite writing, when I spend time talking about my dislike of people who aren't physically attractive. But that's kind of the point: I don't want this to be a polite blog. I'm in the process of creating a tech blog for my revised, good pieces, because I hate being put on Hacker News for shitty pieces. This is not a blog for hackers. It is a blog for myself and for every irrelevant thought that hits my head during the day, and the people who've assembled to read it are a ragtag bunch of personalities that I'd never expect to all center around a blog like mine. I'm grateful for that, and I love the people I've met through it, and I'm not going to be changing the format of the blog. Just keep in mind that what you're reading is written in a very specific style, one that leads to negativity and hostility, and that I'm very aware of the quality level of this stuff, which is why this didn't come as a link directly from me.
rorymarinich 17y ago
Are you so certain it's hierarchical in nature? The difference between a jock and a band geek is that the jock will resort to violence to defend himself. I've pranked jocks before with groups of band geeks. It often leads to a scuffle. When band geeks are strong enough to fight back, they don't get bullied either. You don't torment people because of your own psychological past. Usually it's done out of irritation. The meek, quiet type usually gets ignored in favor of the one who talks too much in class, not because people hate smart people, but because there are certain sorts who are really jerks about it and that irritates people. That's also why bullies tend to be on the smarter side of the spectrum. I knew kids in the studies (low-level) courses and kids in the advanced courses, and the ones who were more likely to mock a kid was all in the advanced courses. I've been in the mocking situation before, so it all works.
- chairface 17y ago
  > The meek, quiet type usually gets ignored in favor of the one who talks too much in class, not because people hate smart people, but because there are certain sorts who are really jerks about it and that irritates people. Okay, wait a second. First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question. And secondly, are you honestly siding with a bully who beats on a kid for that kind of behavior? I mean, I understand that it can be irritating to hear from the same kid all the time, but frankly, the onus is on the bully to deal with this incredibly minor irritation in a less destructive way. Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me.
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    My implication is that the tormented as not wholly innocent. Of course I don't agree with bullying. I'm not a huge fan of violence, particularly not for stupid shit like school. But there's an attitude amongst this type of person that says they are entirely not to blame for the harassment they get, just because they act smart or whatnot. I don't think that's the case. I used to get mocked a lot in school and looking back on it, I think that I deserved it entirely. Similarly, some people go out of their way to invite harassment, and they use that as a point about how people who harass other people suck. I'd even go so far as to call it reverse harassment. I certainly did that as well: I'd provoke people into making fun of me by going out of my way to be eccentric. It's stupid behavior and while it might not be as bad as actually harassing a person, it's still inexcusable. First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question. In one of my courses this semester, there's a kid with an irritating laugh and a loud voice who refuses to stop making comments about how Microsoft is dead and dying, how Linux is going to be huge by the end of 2009, how Apple is evil, how Firefox is the best web browser and adheres the best to web standards. Every discussion we have he jumps in on, interrupting students and advocating his own misinformed, sensationalist, frankly stupid opinions, under the guise that he's being a good participant by doing so. In one of my senior-year courses, there were honors students, kids ranked in the top 10 for our year, who, in round-circle literary discussions, would say things like "I think the pig on the stick is symbolic. I don't exactly know what it's for, but it seems like there's a reason for it being there." In that particular discussion, after I talked about how the pig's head represents in some ways an attempt at order that pretends to itself that it has meaning, that particular person jumped in saying, "Precisely what I was saying. It's that it's symbolic. And there was a reason, just like Rory added on." There is answering questions because you know the answers - and some people do that, and they're completely fine, and no matter how many they answer nobody seems to mind - and there are the people who are jerks about it. The obnoxious popping-up hand, the calls of "Ooh! Ooh!", the smarmy attitude about all of it. It's a jerk thing to do. It's just as bad as the snobby girl who makes fun of fat kids, or the fashion guru who sneers at people who wear Gap (or whatever fashion gurus sneer at). And just like I don't think teasing and sneering is stuff that deserves violence, being a jackass in class isn't something that you should be beaten up over - but neither is it completely harmless and mild. Being somebody who likes to be scathing at times, I find that I go after those wannabe teacher's pets just as much as I go after other sorts of people. Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me. Just to be entirely clear: my implication is that there is blame to be found on both sides. That is nearly always my implication in these scenarios. I think the tormentors are more at fault, in this case, but I can't bring myself to side entirely with the tormented.

quoderat 17y ago

This writer is really clueless as to what high school is like for those on the bottom of the heap -- I mean, really, no idea at all. For that reason, it's hard to listen to what else he has to say, no matter how relevant or (potentially) awesome. Obvious that he's never been the low end of the totem pole. It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks, the actors and actresses. Everyone.

andreyf 17y ago
It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks, the actors and actresses. Everyone. Everyone's mileage varies. I went to a decent public school in the suburbs, and most people in my social circle belonged to a couple of others tribes as well - I was pretty active in the business competitions (as well as programming). Most other "nerd elites" were in marching band, actors, singers, swimmers, fencers, jugglers, etc. Sure, there were plain old jerks, but they were a certain a minority, and easy to ignore.
tylermenezes 17y ago
It seems to be different depending on where you are. The geeks at my high school (myself included) are, at least respected, and in the cases of many of my friends actually have a social life. (I'm too busy with the internet for that.) On the other hand, I know some people from other places who've had terrible experiences, so it's really hard to generalize.
njoubert 17y ago
It definitely varies. I was not all that invested in programming at all, spending most of my time biking and playing music, but as a "smart kid" there was lots of ostracizing going around, just because I didn't play the main sport that everyone plays. What I take away from this is the importance of growing up - you get through those stages and move into a more nurturing community of people that support what you create, not the details of how you created it.
- eru 17y ago

mikedouglas 17y ago

Ugh, typography on that page is a mess. The title shadow is distracting, and the leading feels cramped. Off topic, but please fix.

rorymarinich 17y ago
What browser/OS are you using? The shadows have been tricky - on Safari they look vastly better than on other browsers, and I've been trying to get it not to look tacky. I might disable them entirely for non-Safari browsers. Agree with you about the leading. This is the first thing I've written where the title has dropped to two lines, and it looks icky compared to with one. This theme is very much a work in progress - just started coding it in early last week - so I'll tidy those things up.

ighost 17y ago

He makes a few decent points, but it really doesn't seem like he understands nerds or complex social interactions between different personality types very well.

rorymarinich 17y ago
Elaborate, if you don't mind.

gne1963 17y ago

If you guys have never seen the Dilbert cartoon "The Knack", have a look... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw It will lighten your mood after reading this post...

jmtame 17y ago

What makes a great writer? Someone who understands both angles, someone who has been both popular and a nerd. See Paul Graham's Why Nerds Are Unpopular, which was the first essay I ever read of Paul's in high school as a sophomore and that got me hooked on reading the rest of his: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

thi 17y ago
Having just come from there (it made for an interesting experience on my end), I can say that his article is indeed very well written.

shalmanese 17y ago

There's something ironic about a post on nerds being deliberately exclusionary which redirects IE browsers to a Safari download link.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
Where's the article? I get the Safari download splash, but I can't see or find the article. Reading the comments, I guess I don't care and aren't missing much.
tlrobinson 17y ago
This bit is particularly appropriate: Hell, programmers argue over web browsers. There is an elitist and closed-off system among hardcore coders that says certain things are better than others, usually for no reason, often for bad reasons.
- Psyonic 17y ago
  Right.... as opposed to the rest of the population arguing over which (baseball team, basketball team, hockey team, football team, soccer team, nascar driver, music group, shoe label, clothing label) is better, which while I guess isn't "elitist and closed-off" definitely says certain things are better than others, usually for no reason, and often for bad reasons. Or in other words, so-called nerds have different interests than the rest of the population, and they act completely normal about those interests within their peer group.
  - dkarl 17y ago
    Everybody hates dorks who insist on talking about music labels or shoe brands to people who don't want to, but those types are pretty rare. Tech and gaming geeks are massively overrepresented here, and sports geeks to a lesser extent. When one guy goes on and on about his special interest to one or more people who are obviously not interested, but he doesn't get it, it's usually about technology, computer games, or sports. Despite the massive popular appeal of celebrities and fashion, I've never been stuck in a one-on-one conversation with somebody who couldn't figure out that those topics bored me. I've been stranded in group conversations as the lone person who wasn't interested, but that's entirely different. People even figure out pretty quickly that I don't know anything about "Lost" despite how improbably that is. You have to give "normal" people credit for being much, much better than the average computer nerd when it comes to talking your ear off about stuff you don't care about. (I guess there's another stereotypical dork: the middle-aged businessman who only know how to talk to other middle-aged businessmen, and who talks obsessively about cars, golf, or politics. I only encounter him at weddings, but you entrepreneurial types might run into him more often.)

volida 17y ago

"you need to be smart in order to be a part of the group" This is a wrong assumption, because there are people who are smart but are not (computer) nerds.

andylei 17y ago
the argument "you need to be smart in order to be part of the group" is the not the same as "being smart means you are in the group".
- volida 17y ago
  On its own yes. But in the phrase used: "Cheerleader come over and ask about programming? Shot down. Invitation to a study group? Rejected. The most bitingly ironic comes when a person in a group of nerds gets an invitation to a party. If you’re one of the more social people in your scene, try it. Invite an anime person or a programmer - one of those people - out to an event. Chances are you’ll be declined. There’s every possibility you’ll be rejected impolitely. The whole concept of the nerd clique is based on elitism: you need to be smart in order to be a part of the group." I've read once about a cheerleader who became a rocket scientist. The article is based on wrong assumptions. People don't reject you because you belong to a "smart" group but rather because "computer nerds" tend to lack social skills (at some point in their early life at least), that make seem akward. or themselves reject specific attitude/people who they don't feel combatible, so it's a human behaviour thing that you should expect that those you reject they will reject you.
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    ...That's almost exactly what my article was about. It was that smart people exist in every group, and so by trying to use intelligence as an excuse for rejection you're causing trouble where there shouldn't be any. I mean, considering I'm criticizing the nerd social atmosphere in a lengthy post, it's unlikely that I'm saying nerds suck because they're smart.

Dalziel 17y ago

I'm sorry that's complete BS. Yes there are arrogant nerds and especially more on the internet where the 'geeky' have held sway for longer. But the simple fact is that as noonespecial pointed out, the sporty 'popular' will be more confident in a group of nerds than the other way around because there is no risk for them. The nerds can't make their day-to-day life in school a living hell.

rorymarinich 17y ago
What's the risk for nerds? When I developed the attitude I've got now, the one that accepts my faults and doesn't immediately get nasty, the change in people was almost immediate. Most people really would rather like you than dislike you, and the instant you start accepting them, they start liking you back. The people who are real jerks and tormentors drop it after it stops affecting you - and that doesn't mean your responding harshly or ignoring it, it means your ignoring the fact that they're attempting to be tormentors. If you ask a bullying jock a question about his sports team, and start just talking to him about the stuff he does, they're completely nonplussed, and after just a little bit, they start treating you like a normal human being. There is an imaginary risk, and I agree with you that it's terrifying as hell to think that people are against you. I've been there. But it's not a real risk, and once you overcome that nonexistent worry - and that's absolutely not an easy thing to do - you realize that nobody is any more at risk than anybody else.
- chairface 17y ago
  > What's the risk for nerds? The risk, of course, is that they'll screw something up and the tormentors will continue to torment. These are generally socially awkward people we're talking about. You're being rather silly to suggest that someone who isn't at home in social situations to begin with and has been ostracized for pretty much their entire life is not at risk of real failure in a social environment. I'm glad that you were successful in your social ladder climb. But you are pretending that _everyone_ will be successful. It's simply not a foregone conclusion - there are losers in this game, even among those who try their hardest not to be. > you realize that nobody is any more at risk than anybody else This is so very false that I don't even know where to begin. Are you saying that there are not real advantages and disadvantages in social situations? Can you not see that the captain of the football team is way less likely to be harassed than the math dweeb?

jgoosdh 17y ago

what a sad, angry little man...

rorymarinich 17y ago
Perhaps it's not my place to say this, since this is an attack on me, but it's sad that something like this got 4 points on Hacker News. It adds nothing to the conversation and is roundly negative. Now that you've insulted me and called me both angry and sad, I'd like you to explain yourself further so I can respond in kind.
- TheAmazingIdiot 17y ago
  I cannot vouch for the "angry little man" comment, but you've run aground with massive sweeping generalizations that do not hold very true with many geeks. We all wern't made fun of in high school. Some of us even had plenty of jock friends and stayed away from the "introvert hate everybody clueless programmers group". And there's one really cool thing about being a "nerd": You learn a lot about a multitude of subjects. Because of that, you can learn of the interconnectedness between subjects. It's what I did, and I was able to help, say, a few cheerleaders on their advanced chemistry course, or watch a film while "critiquing" it. I also taught a few of these students biology... no no no, not sex (no, that would be a bit later). Winemaking. I mean, if you want to be popular, you stand out. Even if it is a 'little bit', you make yourself memorable. People of all sorts will look past general quirkiness if you're a cool guy. The toughest group to join was that nerd group, at least in my HS. I assume it was a mixture of not trusting or they thought I was too stupid. My SO however had a completely difference experience, in which there was really no real cliques (there were, in name usually).
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    That's largely what I was trying to say. I use "nerd" in a very narrow sense: most nerdy people I don't consider to be nerds. I don't think I'm a nerd, for instance. The toughest group to join was that nerd group, at least in my HS. I assume it was a mixture of not trusting or they thought I was too stupid. That's what I was trying to say. If "popular" really meant "exclusive", then nerds would be the most popular people around. As I said in my essay: everybody nowadays is a nerd. Doesn't matter what you get involved in, you're a nerd. I suspect that was true 50 years ago, because Lennon/McCartney were as nerdy brilliant as they come and they still became sex icons. So when I refer to nerds I refer not to people who do nerdy things, but to the nerds that aggressively classify themselves as nerds and invite persecution and antagonizing by doing do.

sachmanb 17y ago

seems as if he has a problem with introverts

jeffesp 17y ago
Him and the rest of our society. Edit: Not to seem too negative, but I have just run into this attitude in most people that aren't introverts. There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides of that coin, but I feel like the introvert side gets labeled as the bad one.
- TheAmazingIdiot 17y ago
  I had a good talk about introvert/extrovert differences with my philosophy professor. He explained that different cultures had differences in which one was perceived better. In places like the US, extroversion is accepted and liked. However, in places like Germany, introversion is well respected and as an equal to extroversion. I asked why and he said that he really didn't know. It's just the difference in culture.
rorymarinich 17y ago
Not necessarily with introverts, but with introverts who believe that their introversion is why people don't like them. There are introvert athletes and actors and musicians, but they're more popular in society. One of the quote-unquote coolest kids I know is a drummer who just never talks. He's incredibly shy. He smiles when people talk to him and says nothing, and for whatever reason people just absolutely love him. So introversion in and of itself isn't the issue.
dkarl 17y ago
Introverts don't necessarily have bad social skills. The average introvert is kind of an anti-nerd -- the same elements are there, but the causation is inverted. An introvert's self-imposed isolation comes off as snobbery, which creates a social challenge for them. Nerds are socially challenged, which leads to social isolation, which they try to frame as high standards (i.e., justified snobbery.) The Introvert: introversion => social isolation => perceived snobbery => social challenges The Nerd: socially challenged => social isolation => pretense of snobbery or introversion

mmiller 17y ago

I think he makes a good point in that nerds tend to exclude themselves, but I think it's a defense mechanism from being rejected. Believe me, when I was in jr. high and high school (more than 20 years ago, now) I wanted to "join the crowd" badly. I wasn't allowed in, and I felt awkward every time I tried to join in. I just didn't fit the social milieu. I didn't feel the need to exclude others (there's a difference between this and excluding yourself). If someone else wanted to be my friend I gladly accepted them. So I don't get this whole thing about how "nerds exclude everyone else." That wasn't my experience.

derefr 17y ago

> Cheerleader come over and ask about programming? Shot down. Invitation to a study group? Rejected. The most bitingly ironic comes when a person in a group of nerds gets an invitation to a party. If you’re one of the more social people in your scene, try it. Invite an anime person or a programmer - one of those people - out to an event. Chances are you’ll be declined. There’s every possibility you’ll be rejected impolitely. I agree completely that nerds do this. I did this. But I never did it to be "elite", or to keep the other person "below" me. Instead, I always assumed that the cheerleader (or whomever it was) was playing a very nasty practical joke on me—that if I accepted, they'd laugh in my face and wander away, or worse, I'd show up at the party to find myself a scapegoat for some random act of civil unrest previously committed that night by the partygoers. And yes, I even made friends only with other nerds—but only because I could tell, by the fear they showed toward the other groups, that they were a prey, not a predator, species, and were thus unlikely to harm me if I associated with them. (If you can't tell, I was bullied for my entire elementary school life before entering high-school; I imagine I would have had quite a different outlook otherwise. Thankfully, by grade 11 or so, the concept of "clique" had dissolved in my high-school, so I did get to discover what a mentally-healthy high-school experience was like.)

rorymarinich 17y ago
But I never did it to be "elite", or to keep the other person "below" me. Instead, I always assumed that the cheerleader (or whomever it was) was playing a very nasty practical joke on me—that if I accepted, they'd laugh in my face and wander away, or worse, I'd show up at the party to find myself a scapegoat for some random act of civil unrest previously committed that night by the partygoers. And yes, I even made friends only with other nerds—but only because I could tell, by the fear they showed toward the other groups, that they were a prey, not a predator, species, and were thus unlikely to harm me if I associated with them. I was going to elaborate upon that but decided against it. Yes: nerds don't do things to be exclusive. They're not particularly snobby people. Their reactions tend to stem from alienation and paranoia: they act like that because they either don't think that other people like them at all, or because they want to maintain an image of some exclusivity on their own part. The problem with that attitude is that it encourages people to be nasty back and to avoid your social group. And the people in a group of nerds that do notice that tend to start getting negative attitude from the rest of the group. I wasn't alone in this. One of my friends was part of the bookworm group of pretty people who studied too much, and I thought he was a twofaced backstabbing liar. That was eighth grade, and I'd like to think I've matured since then, but I certainly understand where you're coming from.

strlen 17y ago

This is rambling and seems to be entirely empirically false. On top of it makes a vice out of "nerdiness" and a virtue of "coolness" ("uncool asshole") without any sort of argument to back it.

tutwabee 17y ago

"The response that I try to lob into these discussions, reduced to its crudest form, is: Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of one of the largest web sites on the planet, and his web site is beautiful, and it brings joy to a lot of people, so apparently being a good programmer isn’t what makes you design beautiful things that make people happy, in which case being a good programmer sounds like a fucking waste." Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook. His coding abilities cannot be judged unless it is known how much of the Facebook code he actually wrote. I assume the majority of it was not written by him.

noamsml 17y ago
Also, though Facebook is clearly a resounding success, I'm not sure I'd use the words "beautiful" and "makes people happy". More like "useful" and "makes people connected".
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  It makes people happy. My mother has found old high school friends - old high school crushes, even - and met up with people who left her life a long time ago. A friend of mine in Washington D.C. uses it to organize all her groups of friends for her homecoming party. I used Facebook for writing my notes before I decided to make everything I wrote public, and I bonded with a lot of people over issues I'd never thought other people cared about. It's used for organizing protests and finding phone numbers and occasionally hooking up. Connections lead largely to happiness. I think Facebook is one of the best-looking sites that's ever been, though the last two redesigns haven't been too tight. The original layout, with the links on the side and the two-column profile, was one of those things that vastly inspired me when I was younger. The level of order it forced on its users was stunning, especially compared to MySpace. Now it's been tuning down some of the things I liked - especially the "How do you know this person" syntax - but it's still more usable than any other site that huge. The fact that people can intuitively figure out how to post photos, videos, events, groups, notes, friend people, fan pages, add applications, all without any advice - my grandfather figured it all out without help - is one of those things that's so impressive that it's easy to ignore because you take it for granted. Meanwhile, a lot of the things that have become common in sites - the thing that stands out to me is the resizing textfields - were first popularly used in Facebook. When I wrote for AllFacebook my main interest was scouring the site, clicking everything I could, looking for those finesses. So it's beautiful in terms of dedication to usability if nothing else.

andreyf 17y ago

I don't get it. I went to a public school, and it was nothing like this - sure, we had our little tribes, and our little dramas, but most people belonged to several of them - I took lots of business and marketing classes and was a programmer nerd. Many other programmer nerds were actors, in marching band, and in the choir. The class president and swim team captain took AP CompSci, wasn't too bad of a programmer himself, and an exceptionally nice guy, to absolutely everyone. Sure, there were dicks, but who cares about them?

jimbokun 17y ago
"Sure, there were dicks, but who cares about them?" The real problem seems to be school violence and bullying, and it seems that in the U.S., at least, this is a non-trivial problem. Dicks you can just ignore are one thing. Dicks who beat up kids smaller than them or pick out kids to ambush with their buddies, cannot be ignored. Sounds like this was not the case at your school, which is great. But it changes everything when violence is involved, and explains why unpopular "nerds" could display exclusion and paranoia, literally as a survival mechanism. In schools where violence is not widespread, I think Rory's comments have more validity.

deleted 17y ago

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ideamonk 17y ago

I think his problem is with the people who label themselves as nerds and programmers. The author should go by a person's _work_ to decide how good one is. Not by the air, debates and the talks!

rorymarinich 17y ago
I do. My particular group of friends includes nerds and hipsters and radical liberals and libertarians and volleyball players and a whole bunch of people who I hang out with because of who they are and what they do. This isn't my writing about a dislike of nerds. This is my writing to certain nerds explaining why their situation is what it is.

noamsml 17y ago

Can't say this mirrors my experience of geeks at all, but then again, I went to a school where all cliques were extremely loose-knit and accepting (it was just part of the school culture).

rue 17y ago

Americans have a fundamentally different relationship with their High School days from anyone else. Popular culture certainly is not helping shed the obsession, the sense that High School is the defining time in one's life[1]. Somehow it seems that all these stories tie into that theme: the expectations, the sense that one must live their High School role thenceforth, the contemporary judgments made based on factors from High School and so on. [1] Adolescence is obviously formative just like anything else; I trust you can make the distinction.

yef 17y ago

I'm frustrated that the #2 link on Hacker News right now is a rambling rehash of How To Win Friends and Influence People, the first book listed here: http://ycombinator.com/lib.html http://ycombinator.com/lib.html

rorymarinich 17y ago
Is that what HTWFAIP is about? I've never read it. (Also: is it a good read, or is it overrated?) (Also also: I agree. This should not be here.)
- tvon 17y ago
  It's pretty much a universal top 10 book on the subject of general success for people whose top 10 books anyone cares about. I want to read it, so far I've just used the audio book and enjoyed it, but didn't really focus on it as much as I would have if I had read it.
  - asciilifeform 17y ago
    My question is, where can I get the uncensored version of this book mentioned by Paul Graham?
- yef 17y ago
  I'd recommend it as a general life-skills sort of book, which can also be applied toward career success in sales or management. If you don't want to read it, just find the summary online, apply it, and see if your life changes. It's harder to implement than it sounds, at least in my experience.
  - rorymarinich 17y ago
    Heh. That's usually how it is. If you actually follow the advice, it works, but it's hard. I forget who said this but it's true: "The secret to success is no secret."
- hunterjrj 17y ago

jodrellblank 17y ago

When you go online and want to learn programming, you run into the uncool assholes. The ones who’ll take "How to I make a web site that people can join" not as an admission of some guy who doesn’t care about the details but as a sign of weakness. I’ve seen responses to that question that range from "You obviously aren’t ready" to "It depends on how you want the site to scale." What bullshit! No no no. That's me, but it's not because of anything to do with spotting "a sign of weakness". Let me try to use a non-car analogy: Imagine I'm a carpenter (I'm not) and you come up to me and ask "how do I build a staircase?". The kinds of thoughts going through my head might be: 1) A staircase is obviously wood, cut to shape, then fixed together. It's also obviously quite a big thing. There's no need to answer with the low level "obvious" things like "you will need a large workshop", if you want to build a staircase you probably already have woodworking tools and experience and now want a bigger project, so an answer telling you basic outline steps would be insultingly patronising and unhelpful. Also, an answer covering enough steps from scratch would take far too long for a forum post or discussion reply, so if I make the judgement that you don't have any of the experience and haven't considered it at all then you might get a dismissive "with a lot of work" reply. (OK, maybe if we met informally and you asked, you might be just making conversation, but nobody goes to a technical forum and asks how to build a website just to make friends, do they, so that doesn't apply). 2) On the other hand, if you have spotted the obvious then you're asking one question but meaning another - maybe what kind of wood can I use to make it look nice, what building regs must it comply to, how can I reinforce it, what fireproofing treatments work well? What styles of bannister were popular in Victorian times? There could be a lot of fun stuff, but again too many directions to go in all in one answer - this is where you get the "it depends what style you want" answer. It's not bullshit, it's better than that, it's skipping straight to acknowledgement, acceptance and directed at whichever obstacle or major design consideration comes to mind first. So, "how do you build a website that people can join" leads me to think something like: A website people can join means giving them a form to fill in, keeping their details, and providing a login prompt later. This is obvious to anyone who has used a couple of websites with signup forms. So either you understand the steps of a site you can signup to and would have Googled until you found out more about those steps and asked a more specific question (What's HTML? What's a webhost? What happens to information in a form once I click submit? How can I keep it around?), or you're really asking for design and obstacle avoidance suggestions, e.g. scaling, security, server load, etc. Hence the replies: You haven't Googled for the basics, that suggests you aren't ready for the amount of work involved, or you aren't really asking such a basic question so you don't get a basic answer.

endlessvoid94 17y ago

Most (not all) of the responses here seem to absolutely confirm this essay's main points. The posters here generally are taking some kind of offense to this, and feel the need to shoot it full of holes. In the meantime, this behavior is only reinforcing the point to anyone who happens to not be a programmer. It's actually quite striking.

bena 17y ago
If someone came on here and said something blatantly false such as "Gravity doesn't exist. Here's a bunch of technobabble explaining why it doesn't. Anyone who doesn't agree is a douche and part of the conspiracy to hide the truth." Would the multitudes of people coming to refute his points confirm his point that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth? Or would it mean that he just may be wrong.
- rorymarinich 17y ago
  Bullshit. Gravity is a provable part of science. The social sciences are harder to deal with. Meanwhile, you want proof? I'll offer myself and every single person I know who's willing to be social as proof. I'm friends with guys with weird hair and glasses who use Digg and they were an accepted part of high school because they didn't go out of their way to be exclusive and closed-off. When I decided to stop being a dick to people just to preempt their disliking me, I found out that I was rarely disliked. (In fact, I went to a further extreme, because I'm quick to call people out for saying stupid things and I like colorful insults, and yet people didn't mind so much as I continued to get along with them.) Show me the person who makes an active attempt to stop being hated - not by being "cool" but by starting to act friendly towards people - and fails after a few weeks' effort and I'll consider your experiment a potential refutation. Would the multitudes of people coming to refute his points confirm his point that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth? I said "Nerds are in denial" and a lot of people jumped on board to deny it. I'm not saying that proves it either way, because I don't presume to judge people by their comments online, but it's not exactly evidence of my wrongdoing.
  - bena 17y ago

rbanffy 17y ago

"Cheerleader come over and ask about programming? Shot down" In what planet did you grow up?

banned_man_2_0 17y ago

It made some good points, but was far too black-and-white, and I lost all respect for the essay when the writer started fellating Mark Zuckerberg.

chanux 17y ago

Hehe the guy missed the point. It's those nerds & programmers who made the world for him (people like him) to do their cheesy things on top of.

illustraden 17y ago

One time, this guy at my school made it to Hollywood in American Idol and the school paper did a bit on that and a friend at that time became irate. Like, RAGING, throwing things against the wall. He said he did cooler things in programming-he had hurricane coding skills. As opposed to something as utterly inane as American Idol and nobody wrote an article on him. After graduating, I make it a point to avoid people like that. I'm completely traumatized from being surrounded by those people every day for 4 years. My friends now don't know what the heck i'm talking about when something triggers those memories and I marvel about how obnoxious those people were. Then she sent me this article, and she asked me, you mean like this? And I said YES!