Black Nerd Problems: Essays - Softcover

Evans, William; Holmon, Omar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1982150246 ISBN 13: 9781982150242

Verlag: Gallery Books, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

A sharp, hilarious essay collection from the creators of Black Nerd Problems, this pop culture manifesto celebrates fandom and representation through a bold Black perspective that “will fill you with joy and give you hope for the future of geek culture” (Ernest Cline, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

When William Evans and Omar Holmon launched Black Nerd Problems, they set out to create a space for thoughtful, funny conversations about comics, gaming, television, and science fiction from the point of view of people of color. What began as a small corner of the internet quickly grew into a vibrant community hungry for fresh takes on everything from Mario Kart and Game of Thrones to X-Men and superhero blockbusters.

In this energetic collection of cultural criticism and personal essays, Evans and Holmon tackle representation in media, the politics of fandom, grief and masculinity, internet culture, and the evolving landscape of geek identity. Whether breaking down blockbuster franchises or examining real-world events through a nerd lens, they blend humor, insight, and unapologetic honesty.

Smart, irreverent, and deeply thoughtful, this book offers a powerful and entertaining look at modern geek culture—and who gets to belong in it.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

William Evans is an author, speaker, performer, and instructor known for founding the Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam and cofounding the popular website Black Nerd Problems. He has been a national finalist in multiple poetry slam competitions and was the recipient of both the 2016 Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant and the 2018 Spirit of Columbus Foundation Grant. The Callaloo and Watering Hole fellow is the author of three poetry collections and currently lives with his family in Columbus, Ohio. He is an MFA candidate at Randolph College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Omar Holmon lives as he writes, one nerd reference at a time. Recognized by Rutgers University as a distinguished Alumnus Poet, he is the author of the poetry collection We Were All Someone Else Yesterday and cofounder of the website Black Nerd Problems. Omar’s voice is one that makes a home across numerous demographics. Like A Beautiful Mind but with more comic book and movie quotes, Omar is able to find the correlation between pop culture and any body of work, using humor in his social commentary to make serious points.

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Re-Definition: Nerd Isn’t a Person, It’s a Spectrum Re-Definition: Nerd Isn’t a Person, It’s a Spectrum
OMAR HOLMON, aka Noah Webster’s Ghostwriter

BEFORE WE CAN get into this real rap raw nerd essays and content, it’s important to understand what we as authors mean when we refer to the term nerd. How we define the word may be different than how the reader defines it. So allow me to get my TED Talk monologue on to break the definition of the word nerd down by how it has come to be defined in dictionaries. *takes off my regular square-framed glasses and puts on my public-speaking PowerPoint presentation tortoiseshell-framed glasses*

The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a nerd as an “unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially: one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits.”

Dictionary.com defines a nerd as “1. a person considered to be socially awkward, boring, unstylish, etc.; 2. an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit: a computer nerd.”

As words evolve, they go through semantic change or, more fittingly, semantic progression. Semantic progression occurs when the modern meaning of a word is entirely different from its original meaning. Watch the breakdown: dope, as a noun, used to just refer to a “stupid” person (1850s); later on in time it became a reference to drugs (1880–1900s), but as an adjective it can refer to something as good or great (1980s). You can think of countless other words that you’ve seen evolve via idioms and slang, which varies across cultures and ethnicities. One word that hasn’t officially (as of me writing this in 2020) evolved in the dictionary is the term nerd.

Now, you may be reading this and thinking, “Where’s this goin’? Who gives a fuck? Why did he switch glasses when he was already wearing glasses?” Well, if you’re reading this book (that clearly says Black Nerd Problems on it) or just “glimpsing through it,” *Jeff Foxworthy voice* youuuuu might be a redneck nerd. Regardless, hear me out and watch how I flip this shit.

The only saving grace between both online dictionaries’ descriptions is their second definitions for the term: “one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits” and “an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby.” Growing up in the 2000s from my teen to college years, I came to understand the term and had the term broken down to me as “a person that knows a little bit about a lot of things,” whereas a geek knows a lot about one specific thing. For me, and I want to say for a lot us that identify as nerds, this is a commonplace interpretation of the word, but as far as I know, I haven’t ever seen that reflected on paper regarding the word in an “official” definition.

I stated all that to say this: it’s been a long time since the term nerd came in the context of a jock vs. an academic, or the popular high school quarterback pushing a scrawny kid into a locker, or the “mean girls” knocking books out of someone’s hands. Now in 2020, it ain’t really the Revenge of the Nerds movie setting for the context of the word—I’m hard-pressed to say if it ever was… and thank god ’cause even in that movie about underdog “nerds” trying to get their revenge, it’s full of misogyny and racial stereotypes. Speaking of stereotypes, media representation gotta be factored in the description for a nerd as well, right? A nerd is usually a male (which is usually sexist), typically white (which is typically racist), scrawny or fat (but in the derogatory fatphobic way), that’s (lest we forget) into some obscure hobby/thing no one else cares about. [Sidebar: If you’re reading this and wanting to say Steve Urkel from Family Matters as a breaking of the mold by being the first mainstream Black nerd, I question why Urkel, who debuted in 1989, gets that credit and not Dwayne Wayne from A Different World, who was a fucking mathematician and debuted two years before Urkel. Dwayne Wayne and Steve Urkel were both nerds, the only difference was Urkel played heavily on the exaggerated stereotypes of a nerd. So, is a nerd only recognized as a nerd when it comes with a full package of stereotypes? Never mind that the nerdy character Roger “Raj” Thomas from What’s Happening!! debuted in 1976. Wouldn’t he be both their OG? But I digress…]

Okay, so we got the origin/etymology of nerd down, right? Boom. Now dead all that. With the way the term has evolved and how it’s been incorporated in mainstream media, nerd is much more than a singular person, it’s a spectrum. Nerd has evolved more so into being a fan of a genre. That genre doesn’t have to just be comic books, movies. Sneakerheads are fans of sneakers and know them in explicit detail. They could be considered nerds. Hip-hop heads who know their entire history of the music genre can be considered nerds. Academic nerds. Cooking-show nerds. Sports fans are mos def nerds by being able to recount a player’s performance statistics like an RPG character. The list goes on. If you enjoy something, anything you want, if it excites you and you want other people to know of it and enjoy it, then you’re a fan of it, which also means you’re a fucking nerd for it. That sounds beautiful and inclusive on paper, doesn’t it? Sounds great on paper… Here’s the problem. To be a nerd means being part of a subculture. A cultural group or collective within a much larger culture that doesn’t adhere to the status quo, beliefs, or interests of the larger culture. If you’re a Black or POC nerd, then you’re in a subculture within a subculture (Inception shit). The problem is being a part of this subculture means you’re part of a minority, which then becomes attached to the identity of being a nerd.

So, when nerd shit starts becoming trendy, a divide occurs, with those nerds now being in an era where this thing only a few loved becomes loved by even more folks. This hobby that was part of the minority is now enjoyed by the majority. So, what happens when what you fan out for isn’t the obscure cool thing only a few know about anymore? It’s like having a favorite band or artist that was low-key for a long time suddenly blow up with a hit single. Its fan base widens and now they’ve got a larger reach. There’s that feeling of having been there riding for them before they sold out, as the cliché goes. As if everyone enjoying or having access to them now somehow dilutes the enjoyment for those there from the beginning. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Watch the breakdown: We get big-budget superhero movies yearly now. They’ve become the new Spaghetti Westerns. These superhero movies bring more folks to comic books, comic books become more common reading material and are even seen as a more mainstream-adjacent hobby and not seen as “just for kids.” Nerds that fucked with comics when it wasn’t associated with cool or trendy then feel like “It wasn’t accepted like that when I was coming up. Now that it is, how do I fit in?” Therein lies the problem.

Individually, that nerd is no longer part of a small underdog group; they become part of a larger group that likes comic books now. It’s like going from the Resistance to joining the Empire. There’s this fear of losing that cool subculture-minority identity that they’ve...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Gallery Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1982150246
• ISBN 13: 9781982150242
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande