https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_for_Sad_Children
In some ways āoutdatedā, too edgy, but in some details maybe even more relevant today than it originally was.
(1/3 of humanity having no electricity is a bit exaggerated, in 2000 it was 1/5.)
PSA: tech bros and people who buy the lastest iphone are not nerds!
yeah this is all i could think about reading it. The nerds are using older products, often saving them from going to a landfill. Theyre reading books. The person buying an iphone every year is the opposite of a nerd
Exactly! I collect cassettes, books, and boardgames, and 95% of the time theyāre thrifted; itās the same with my clothes and instruments.
Iām actually planning on reviving my oldā¦ i think itās an iPod Touch 5? Itās not a very āgoodā device, but itāll serve well as a music player :3
tech bros are ānerds (derogatory)ā, geeks are ānerds (endearing)ā
Yet another example where geeks overlap with but are very much distinct from nerds
Honestly, Iām not sure this counts as being a geek, either, but Iām a nerd; I have no qualifications to say one way or the other.
In fact nerds donāt tend to care about fashion items as status symbols and if you buy an iPhone every year, youāre very much doing it to show everyone your updated camera bump layout, as they last a long time in reality, much like modern Android flagships. And I doubt most nerds care about a 10% performance uplift enough to spend money every year. Money that could be funneled into expensive hobbies
The ānerdsā I know spend days getting an obscure ROM to work on a 6 year old phone they got for free from a relative instead of chasing the latest tech. Having the newest and slimmest phone is about fashion, not hacking.
Or reverse-engineering the LEGO Island source code.
Or emulating a Wii U gamepad on a Pi Zero.
Or porting applications to Windows 95.
I might have an obsession with a certain YouTuber.
I am interested now, can you give the channel name or link please?
Thank you! Turns out I saw some of the videos, but never managed to subscribe. Today thatās changed. :)
This comic confuses the nerd, who has a 12 year old laptop with netbsd on it, a flipphone, and a PSP they use to emulate a game boy advance, with those cosplaying as one by buying the newest tech gadget as soon as it is out.
The techbros pushing the singulrity are not nerds either. Itās unclear if Musk ever really read Iain Banksā culture novels he keeps referencing, but if he did, he 100% missed their point.
Right? Using the term ānerdā in this context infuriates me
Jokeās on them, I have an actual Game Boy Advance. Bud still works after all these years.
You should try a DS, the screen is usable for us old people š!
Wait, did you say Advance ? Best fucking handheld ever built š
Iām kind of repeating myself, but the comic is pretty old (before 2014), and I think the culture and wordsā meanings have shifted a bit in the meantime.
No, i donāt think so. That use of the word nerd was as out of place 15 years ago as it is today.
Source: I was a nerd 15 years ago too.
Then replace the word in an image editor? Or if itās this old try to refine it a bit?
Itās not my work, I donāt want to (and donāt have much of a right to) meddle with it. If I even thought of updating it to my tastes, Iād do everything differently, far from changing just one word. Art canāt be updated.
The interesting part is, to me, how a few details do seem not at all outdated, despite many others being grating.
I must admit, now I understand even more clearly why the author deleted all of her work off the internetā¦
The first half of this comic started to have a point, but kinda lost me as soon as the author started condemning the idea of having hobbies.
weāve finally come full circle from āhaha nerds are awkward losers!ā through āactually nerds are fineā to āhaha nerds are just straight up ontologically bad!ā
The comic is from >10 years ago (ran 2007ā2014).
And was wrong then too. Extremely. Techbros existed back then too.
This is bringing real criticism of a group and blaming it on another group. Itās bad.
Some might claim itās more relevant today than it originally was
Some would be very obviously wrong
ānerdsā please, say techbro. No one thatās obsessed with computing is buying the thinnest macbookā¢. Nor are they incharge of making ot
this is wrong usage of nerd, it describes tech bros. the actual nerds have enough class conciousness to oppose consumptionism and capitalism
No true nerd fallacy
mrow :3
:3
Wanting a SteamDeck isnāt the same as being racist (since you brought it up). A lot of nerds like things outside of computers and phones. In fact, some of us are pretty resourceful and reusing older devices for less waste and more privacy.
Last year I gave away my Switch because I didnāt play it as much as I used to. Same with my old phone and hard drive. So spare me the self-righteous bullshit.
Also your comic sucks and is too wordy. Itās a comic draw better pictures.
Itās not my comic, see the description, itās a decade old.
I mean you could probably draw better than whoever made this comic since itās barely anything, but still the message of the comic is making assumptions about nerds and calling us racist for being nerds.
The comic was pretty popular back in the day, the minimal empty style had its charm, and worked well with the themes.
I suspect the comicās notion of ānerdā is just outdated. Or off the mark. Either way, the actual criticisms donāt apply to what we call nerds, but to something else, others have pointed out the better word would be tech bros.
If it were me I wouldnāt post something I disagreed with.
Oh yeah! Do drag queens next! They just got their 15 seconds of fame a decade ago too!
Drags are ruining the planet! Makeup just kills kids in the third world! And fast fashion! And those lights! On the mirrors and the stage! Girl! Global warming!
Buncha rich white men wasting their lives pretending! Wigs in the trash! Cigarettes! Wanting to make everyone werk themselves to death trying to slay everyone!
I donāt own a single computer newer than 2013. I keep a stack of old hardware people who upgrade throw away to ensure Iāll ALWAYS have a supply of old computers Iāll keep out of landfill.
Normal people spent decades IGNORING the warnings of nerds and buying the bullshit of tech bros, and now the nerds who tried to warn them get blamed for this mess? Piss off.
Hereās the thing, I donāt think the comic is Wrong. I tend to agree that consumption as an identity is fairly shallow and not particularly noble or beneficial to the enrichment of society or the individual.
However the comic falls short by only attacking one specific consumption hobby / identity. What about buying new trendy water bottles every season, or hobby dabbling, or movie buff, or social media scroller. Ultimately consumption as a whole is a pale reflection of production. Building, making, memeing, writing, exercise, photography, model building, Lego, Minecraft, Factorio. Helping others, volunteering, building relationships. These are the activities that enrich us and those around us.
This is why travel to sit in a hotel is fine and a little shallow and youāll have forgotten all about it in ten years. Travel and stay in a hostel and meet cool weird people in the common area and youāll remember them for the rest of your life.
Of course one canāt produce all day every day. The person that only ever produces will burn out, and lose a sense of why they produce. Consumption and production should be balanced. Iām the first one to crash on the sofa and watch some Star Trek after a long day at the digital mines.
At least this is my philosophy.
I donāt think work is production, hobby model building gives more production satisfaction.
Community labor gives satisfaction and benefits the community.
Productive labor gives satisfaction and benefits yourself.
Capitalist labor gives tokens instead of satisfaction and benefits the capitalist.
Under capitalist labor we consume using tokens to buy various forms of satisfaction, which turn hollow in our spirits leaving us hungry for more.
~Ranting MadWoman
The idea that the ānerd outā trend just turned into everyone sharing their favorite brands š
The comic was dumb when it came out and itās a lot more dumb now.
If only the jocks or the theatre kids could accumulate all the capital, then our society would be saved!
^(Saudi Princes, PDiddy, Rupert Murdoch, etc)
Those arenāt nerds dipshit, how about you confirm the coordinates before launching the missile
Get google imagesed with the worst quality screencap I can find
Donāt fucking put that shit on nerds. The artist isnāt describing nerds, theyāre describing capitalism and itās adherents. This isnāt about nerds. Eg I go through way fewer electronics and gadgetry than the average iPhone idiot specifically because Iām a nerd. My phone is like 7 years old and Iām about to put PostmarketOS on it to try for another 7. Iām painstakingly bootstrapping the firmware on my old Ikea and Hue lights so I never have to buy new ones. I havenāt bought a new computer in decades, I just franken-update as needed, not as desired. My car is a 2008 model because I know how awful the electronics are in new models and will do anything to avoid buying a new one.
Fuck this artist. Theyāre is a god damned coward apologist for capitalism and is throwing nerds under the bus to do it.
