Social Neeerds (Neeerds, part II)

   Okay, check this. The stereotype would hold up either way, regardless of the existence of cons. One one side of the coin, looking from the public's perception to the nerd, there's either no social interaction, in which case no social life, or there is, in which case it is that all-consuming nerdystyle interaction and nothing else. On the other side of the coin, from the nerd to the public: either they do have hobbies, but they wouldn't have any interaction from that, or they don't hobbies, in which case they have no life's passion.

   So, far from the stereotype of the unsocial nerd, it's not nerdy until it is a social thing. A hobbyist can have a hobby, but it doesn't and indeed won't become nerdy until the hobbyist joins others. Nerd-dom is inherently a social thing. What would the word be for the opposite of that, where the hobby is an absolute secret and there's no social interaction? Oh, yeah. "Creepy." That'd be creepy.

   Does that mean that the only difference between creepy and nerdy, between perfectly socially healthy and acceptable and borderline illegal, is public support for it? Well, yeah, that's how these things work, but, let me rephrase that. That the only difference between being creepy and being nerdy is whether you tell people about your hobby? If making hair shrines had a convention, would it cease being a stalkerish thing to do? Or could that still be both? Okay, so creepy isn't always nerdy, nerdy isn't always creepy. Some things are in fact both, and many things are neither, and anything can be creepy when viewed in the wrong light or uncreepy when viewed in the right light.

http://wondermark.com/662/ Click to enlarge.

   Great. Going back to it, no, I'm not a nerd. But I'm a creep.