The History of Nerd Rock
b'Nerd\\u2026noun\\u2026a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious\\u2026definition 2: a single-minded expert in a particular technical field...example: a computer nerd\\u2026\\nIt\\u2019s an old word, too\\u2026the, er, nerds at google have a thing called \\u201cthe ngram viewer\\u201d which scans the text of books going back to 1500\\u2026in other words, pretty much right back to the inventing of the printing press\\u2026\\nAccording to these nerds, \\u201cnerd\\u201d (the word) shows up for the first time in an book called \\u201ca true discourse of the assault committed upon the most noble Prince, Prince William of Orange, County of Nassau, Marquesse De La Ver & C,\\u201d by John Jarequi Spaniarde: with the true copies of the writings, examinations, and letters for sundry offenders in that vile and diuelifh (i have no idea what that word is) attempt\\u201d\\u2026\\nI can\\u2019t tell you what \\u201cnerd\\u201d referred to in that book because it\\u2019s written in old Spanish and i couldn\\u2019t be bothered to find a translation\\u2026I\\u2019d need a real etymological nerd for that\\u2026\\nThe word fell into disuse after about 1725 returning into the popular lexicon thanks to Dr. Suess in 1950\\u2026to him, a \\u201cnerd\\u201d was some kind of creature found in a zoo\\u2026\\nBut the following year, Newsweek magazine reported that \\u201cnerd\\u201d was being used in Detroit to describe an awkward sort of dude who wasn\\u2019t very cool\\u2026it kind of lingered in the slang world for the rest of the 50s and into the 60s before it really took off in 1974 with the TV series \\u201cHappy Days\\u201d\\u2026Fonzie was always calling Richie and Potsie \\u201cnerds\\u201d for being uncool dorks\\u2026so props to Henry Winkler\\u2026\\nBy the end of the 70s\\u2014and coinciding with the rise of the culture around the personal computer, consumer technology and \\u201cStar Wars\\u201d and other science fiction pursuits\\u2014the use of \\u201cnerd\\u201d became even more widespread\\u2026remember the \\u201cRevenge of the Nerds\\u201d movies in the 80s?...\\nBut now in our technological society, being called a nerd is a compliment\\u2026people aspire to be like Bill Gates and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg\\u2026look at shows like \\u201cThe Big Bang Theory\\u201d and \\u201cSilicon Valley\\u201d\\u2026we\\u2019re actually celebrating nerddom\\u2026people want to be nerds \\u2018cause\\u2014well, it\\u2019s kinda cool\\u2026the geeks have truly inherited the earth\\u2026\\nThis brings me to music\\u2026nerdishness is now so widespread that nerds even have their own genre of music\\u2026and as you might guess, it falls squarely in the world of alternative music\\u2026\\nThis, then, is a short history of what we unreservedly, unashamedly and unironically call \\u201cnerd rock\\u201d\\u2026\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'