Why nerd is now cool?

The nerd as an individual is born alongside with the development and diffusion of technology. Nerds were those teenagers completely lacking of charm, social and athletic skills, but totally found of innovation and hi-tech. If you didn’t have a date for the school prom and you hated gym class, but knew what was a Commodor 64 and how to use it, you probably were a nerd. During 80’s, nerds slowly started turning into something more specific, until they became a proper subculture. In the late 80’s being a nerd wasn’t all about good grades and passion for hi-tech anymore. This peculiar kind of teenager shared the love for board and card games, comic books, science fiction or fantasy novels, movies and videogames. That was maybe the first subculture not gravitating around music and style. Another fundamental aspect of this peculiar subculture is that nerds were crazy collectors. It’s a fact; almost every activity that could make you a nerd actually involved collecting: cards, board games, books, videogame cartridges, accessories and action figures. Yet the 90’s saw the nerd stereotype consolidating and slowly breaking into pop culture. The Simpson’s comic book guy is a perfect example of how society started being aware of the phenomenon and what was society’s outlook on nerds.For the first example of pop culture glorificating geeks we would have had to wait until 2007, when the now-infamous telefilm The Big Bang theory premiered. But when and how being nerd became cool and fashionable in mainstream culture? The answer is everything but easy.

The main reason is actually that nerd subculture was capable of influencing another category which was obsessed with collecting: streetwear and sneakers aficionados. Japan was the only country that could merge such different subculture and so it was. Infect all the aspects that defined the nerd niche in the West were way more spread and closer to mainstream culture in Japan. It’s strange to say, but the sub-cultural merging process started from toys. design toys. Medicom, a Japanese brand born in 1997, started producing the so-called KUBRIK toys. Mini figures very resembling to lego ones, but inspired by popular manga and anime characters. The KUBRIK line was later reshaped into the classic BEARBRICKS silhouette that became a cult. Japanese sneaker and streetwear fans started falling in love with design toys. Bearbricks series were inspired by both pop/mainstream culture and nerd culture characters and their popularity has been fundamental for this process of cultural contamination. Soon design toys became world-famous with a similar reaction from US and European street fashion lovers. It’s also to mention that during the late 90’s and early 00’s the streetwear and sneakers crowd around the world was increasingly growing. Also collaboration between design toys factory Medicom and notorious streetwear brands became a thing. Bape, Neighborhood, Stussy and Undefeated are just some of the names that had the chance to see their own branded Bearbrick.

Another important aspect was the ever-growing diffusion of videogames and home consoles during the same years. That led videogaming to affect a very large slice of young population. Just an ingredient was missing in order to turn nerd culture into a mainstream phenomenon, even capable of being cool and fashionable: the internet. Internet gave people the power to convert everything to mainstream. And so it was. With the appearance of streetwear and collectors blogs and discussion hubs, then Instagram influencers and YouTube channels. Streetwear has now become a major trend, even in it’s more nerdy and geek friendly sides. Also now videogames are a mass trend and are played by almost everyone. This is the reason why now we see as cool a lot of nerd related stuff and now you can see Gundams, Bearbricks and Kaws toys in every street culture magazine of influencer Instagram profile (we also have the chance to see Chanel or Gucci Bearbricks for the same reason.) This is why the new Nintendo mini NES limited release was featured on blogs such as Hypebeast or Highsnobirty and every wannabe cool-kid wanted one of those. This is why we see famous rappers and super-models playing videogames on YT advertising. It was a slow process, but it completely changed the way we approach to nerd subculture. Maybe we can’t define that a sub culure anymore (with the obvious exceptions).

Because now is everywhere for real, now is cool and shared by everyone. I want to leave you with one single question: “Is that a good or a bad ending?”.