Nerds: A Popcultural History

When the information age was still in its infancy in the 1980s, nerds were considered misanthropic freaks and oddball geeks. While they wasted their free time working on complicated devices in their basements, subsisting on frozen pizzas, the high school studs were taking full advantage of their social privilege. But the success of new information technologies heralded in an unexpected victory for the nerd character. Nerds now joined forces with names like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The former outsiders became charismatic insiders: "nerdy" became the new "cool." But since the 1990s, the privileged white male nerd character has been scrutinized and politicized. Is the smart Silicon Valley nerd perhaps even becoming an old white man in these new discourses? Is the great age of this social figure, who was so important for a few decades, already over? In her book, the cultural studies scholar and blogger Annekathrin Kohout presents the eventful history of nerds, which is also a history of pop culture and the information society.