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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28102 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 15, 2024

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One way to shame unmasculine men is to use the slur ‘nerd’ on them. This was the norm for a long time in Anglo-Saxon societies, and it sort of made sense. After all, nerds are interested in things and machines, not humans, who are anything but machines. The traits that make you a nerd, especially a hard-working and employable one, are exactly the traits that are useless, detrimental even, if you want to be a socially savvy, sexually successful cool guy. If you’re too boneheaded to correctly read the carefully calculated, covert signals women send out to you to indicate sexual interest without coming off to their social circle as dirty sluts, you’re not a real man.

I think you're really mischaracterizing past societies. Before the post-war sexual revolution, it really wasn't that common for people to hook up for casual sex, or to select their mates based on who you found sexy. Especially not for women- their careers were so limited, so they were really dependent on marrying a good husband who could provide for them, it kind of swamped any other criteria like looks or social savvy. At least for commoners; the nobility and nuveau-riche could afford to be more sexually playful.

If anything, it was the men choosing women on the basis of looks and social skills, so it became really important for women to learn how to wear pretty clothes, dance, sing, etc. The men could get away with wearing the same basic clothes and being kind of socially inept, as long as they were "a good man" (follows the basic religious laws) and had decent earnings. In that light, it makes sense that "incel" was originally coined by a woman- it was a serious problem to be an older woman with no career, no husband, and fading looks! But nowadays things have shifted, and it's the men trying desperately to appeal to women with flamboyant peacocking and mating calls or whatever, and the whole thing just seems so unnatural. It's basically forcing heterosexual men to act like women and gay men, and it's no surprise that a lot of women just aren't into it and a lot of men just can't learn the act.

The social conditions where 'nerd' is no longer normalized as a slur are indeed very, very recent in historic terms, whereas the Sexual Revolution was more than 50 years ago.

Well... when did "nerd" first become a slur? I genuinely don't know, but I don't think it's all that old either. I feel like it came on pretty quickly in the 80s, along with the sudden rise in microcomputers, Sci-fi movies, and DnD.

1951, apparently, so it strictly speaking predates the sexual revolution.

Yes, basically. I'd say it coincides with the appearance of teenagers as a separate consumer group, which happened in the early 1960s.

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