For those who were there...
 

Hello, I'm writing an article about the rise of nerd culture, however I was kind of gone for most of the late 90's boom, and really didn't see how much of it came to be. I need some general answers, about how long has being a nerd been socially acceptable, and does anyone have any idea of the extent of it?

Ack, don't post in such a small font. I'm getting a headache here.

I just guessing as I don't know much about it, but I would say geekiness/nerdiness became acceptable when computers went mainstream. It used to be that computers were for eggheads, and didn't perform any function that normal people would find interesting. As computers became more advanced they were able to process sounds, pics, music, etc, and normal people started to get into it. The media caught on and made it popular.

Bill Gates and Windows 95. That's all you need to know.

Magic: The Gathering

just....Magic: The Gathering

I think that it was Pokemon.
Those mutant freaks made anime a well known genre. (so there's one nerd thing)

They also made a card game that was popular and most of its fans became addicted to other TCG and RPG games because they saw them while shopping for cards.(there's 2 more nerd things)

When kids found out that pokemon and other anime were manga(comics) before they got into manga and comic books.(and that's the big three)

One cannot discount the role of Final Fantasy 7 in all of this. It made Console RPGs more acceptable to mainstream. Or something.

Whatever.

So far you've all pointed out how each type of nerd each became more mainstream.

The more powerful and more fun computers brought computers into the mainstream.

Final Fantasy 7 made console RPGs more mainstream.

Pokemon, DBZ, the Kids WB, and Cartoon Network, all brought Anime into the mainstream, and the internet allowed people to view other kinds of anime/magna... and as that THAT was already mainstream, more anime phased in over time.

The fact that internet nerds/geeks/whatever you want to call them also had great numbers that played tabletop RPGs on the internet before it became mainstream. This exposed the 'normal' people to tabletop RPGs, and as that the leap from console RPG to tabletop is not that great, it became more accepted (if not to the degree of everything else mentioned.)


You can't really pin the rise of 'nerd culture' on any one thing. Many things, including--but not exclusive to--all of the things already listed here by both myself and others, have accounted for it.

And let's not forget the media blitz of the late nineties on 'hackers' and whatnot. The mere fact that the label was mentioned so often opened up a lot of interest, even if the real hackers were misrepresented.