I really am beginning to feel there was a somewhat "lower class," counterculture geek/nerd type in the 80s and early 90s that was neither the kiki nor bouba/STEM vs theater kid nerd thing
I also think this is a cassette futurist computing/used record stores/DIY punk/grunge zeitgeist specific to late 70s to early 90s nerddom that kinda just got pushed aside as nerd culture gentrified. I ran into so many class-weird somewhat richer nerds in the Bay Area whose main thing seemed to be about spending their time aggressively countersignaling that they weren't THIS kind of nerd
It's a feeling of growing up a kid in working class to middle class suburban spaces, who escapes into the public library and used record stores and headshops and runs d&d games in abandoned industrial spaces, has friends in garage bands, is into anime/manga while it's still considered seedy, and grew up on the content of late night 80s TV and old sci fi reruns, Night Flight and Heavy Metal Magazine and old weird sf and animation. And is part of a DIY underground of nerd culture that has more in common with other alt culture spaces than with the rest of nerd culture. I feel like a ton of them re-identified into goth or cyberpunk spaces and don't hang out in mainstream nerd spaces anymore.
Who runs games but bases their wizards on the old hippie at the head shop
Who's as likely to be in a stereotypical working class job as a middle income computer worker
ALT-NERD IS A THING, dammit
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