Remember those 80’s movies your mom made you watch with her?  You know, the one where Molly Ringwald’s family forgets her birthday, Paul Gleason says, “Don’t mess with the bull, young man, or you’ll get the horns,” and then Ally Sheedy cheats on Judd Nelson with that wacky reporter.  In the end, Matthew Broderick isn’t ratted out by Jennifer Grey, and John Cusack gets the girl.  Wonderfully chichéd and horribly repetitive, each portray high school in stereotypes: you’ve got your jocks, your burnouts, your prom queen, your goths, your hicks, and, of course, your nerds.  Whether they are nameless extras proudly displaying pocket protectors or being played by Anthony Michael Hall, they are there somewhere, mark my words. 

I can easily go through my parents’ yearbooks and point out quite accurately who was cool and who was not, since stereotypes do hold a kernel of truth.  I say it with love, but the kid sporting giant coke bottle glasses was not captain of the football team.  Flash forward thirty years, however, and it’s a much different story.  Suddenly people with wayfarer glasses are “in” and your prom king and queen may actually be wearing them.  Geek is chic, or at least that’s what Pinterest is telling me.  So how did this happen?

Somehow, being a “nerd” is cool, but only if you’re not an actual nerd.  You see, being a nerd means you love creativity and weird concepts.  We nerds are the ones that stay up until one o’clock in the morning playing those video games harcore; we nerds are the ones that will talk your ear off about fictional characters; we nerds are the ones that read the book before Hollywood made the movie. 

The actual sign of nerdom- the undying love of ideas, has not become popular.  No, it is not our logos the world wants to copy, it’s our fashion choices.  You see, the classic nerd wears a button up shirt because it is what our parents buy us; the material world is too trivial for us to be bothered with.  We sport graphic T-shirts because we love what they promote and we have glasses with large frames because they cover up the fact that our lenses are an inch thick.  The fashionistas run around trying to emulate the nerd, but being a geek is a lifestyle.  What is born from this unfortunate union of imitation without committal, you ask?  The infamous hipster.
“Have you ever heard of the band Raw Meat?  They are so edgy.  I mean, they really get the political situation of the world right now,” says your average hipster.  Now maybe that person really, truly believes Raw Meat is able to convey all of the world problems in three minutes all to some kind of rhyme structure, but I highly doubt it.  However, if said person told me that the X-Men represent the current flaws in our American culture, I would completely agree with them.  You see, the X-Men are an embodiment of minorities and they are persecuted publically because of their unusualities.  We don’t lynch African Americans any more, but they sure are not treated fully as equals.  African Americans are dehumanized in our culture through jargon and conventionalized beliefs, and the X-Men are visual representations of this.  Do we understand that when we use the N-word in casual conversation we are cementing the perception that skin color can make you mentally inferior?  It was originally a term used to differentiate slaves from freemen; being the racist swine that we are, Americans have adopted this word to mean whatever we darn well please, even though historically it represents white supremacy.  The X-Men understand this, or at least the writers and artists at MARVEL comics do.  When people try to burn Nightcrawler on a stake because he looks like an actual devil, it is a parallel to our own prejudices against those who look different than us.  The X-Men have been mocked for their double entendre speeches and heavy-handed metaphors, but they stand for something.  Whereas we geeks value unique works of art because of their meaning, hipsters just latch onto something because it is unique.  Hipsters use the same terminology as us to seem intelligent, but they are just BSing it all.  They don’t really believe what they are saying anymore than you do, but don’t you dare contradict because then you obviously don’t understand.  It is insulting to nerds everywhere to be compared with them.  Hipsters are all lazy hypocrites that make mockery of what geeks stand for.  They are destroying what little credibility the world held for us; when a nerd tries to communicate their love and respect for Dungeons and Dragons, they should be taken seriously.  Star Wars is freaking amazing; I’m not saying that because I want you to think I understand the deep symbolism of Jar Jar Binks, I’m saying that because it’s a spectacular cinematic masterpiece.

Nerds are not trying to be “ironic.”  When we say that comics are the myths of our time, we sincerely mean it.  We are not trying to be cute; we realize that we and what we are talking about are uncool, and we are okay with it.  Hipsters need you to think that they are interesting.  They put up a facade to make you think that your opinion doesn’t matter, but it really does.  Nerds don’t care what you think of them; so long as Benedict Cumberbatch is Dr. Strange, we are happy.  The hipster style only works if you view them as uncrackable, aloof philosophers, but really they are pretentious, cynical jerks.  They are giving the nerd nation a bad name; I hope they drink their Indian clove tea before it’s cool and get burned. 

I forgive you in advance if you assumed that I was a hipster.  Hear me now when I say I am not.  That being said, it is hard to tell the difference these days.  Some hipsters have gotten very good at being geeky, and some geeks have become so insecure that they have adopted hipster personas.  Just remember the wise words of John Green, “. . . nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff . . . Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’”  If someone won’t shut up about Elf Quest, if someone feverishly plays World of Warcraft and tries relentlessly to get you to do the same, it’s safe to assume that they are nerds. 

Being a geek is not something to hide; you’ve got to let your freak flag fly.  If you like Avatar: The Last Airbender, I want to know because I want to ask you your opinion of Korra’s darker tone.  If you like Game of Thrones, I want to know so I can invite you to my Khal Drogo memorial.  The love of ideas is what binds us together, along with our uncanny ability to be enraptured by them.  Let us go hand in hand, not one before the other, and talk about what it means to be alive, because Star Trek taught us a lot, but not everything.  Sure, we nerds are still the bottom feeders of the high school social food chain, but its pretty nice down here and we’ve got plenty of character sheets to go around.