#nerdrevolution

- Rockstah, Panic Room

#HardcoreNerdcore boi I'm cheffin!! 😂😭😂 Get ready for March y'all!! #RapNerd #Beats #TGIF #nerdrevolution (at Beatlayer Studios)

Rockstah

Rockstah

Literally this has been one of the best days of my life. Also, voting helps kids. So vote. Political, school elections, homecoming royalty, whatever. Even if you think you are a minority, you’d be surprised by what you can achieve if everyone bands together to demonstrate their beliefs.

It would be difficult for anyone to deny that being nerdy has become cool nowadays. From Game of Thrones to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from Sherlock to Arrow, from Dragonball Z to The Last Airbender; nerd culture has become popular culture in an entirely unexpected and unprecedented manner. When the first Harry Potter book was released in 1997 very few people could have predicted the "Nerd Revolution" that would begin trickling in over the next decade before taking off and superimposing nerd culture onto popular culture in a way which suppressed and sidelined the previous anti-geek sentiment which was characteristic of the sports dominated popular culture which preceded it. Few could have seen it; sports and popular culture had been synonymous for decades. And then, suddenly, people turned round one day and looked at what was popular culture and saw movies based on comics, TV shows based on high fantasy, video games of all shapes and sizes. Trying to pinpoint when this change occurred is troublesome. Is it when, in 1997, the Harry Potter franchise began? Or later, in 2008, when The Dark Knight drew universal praise? Could 2011 be the date, when Game of Thrones' first season aired and millions were drawn into both the TV show and books? Perhaps 2012, when The Avengers brought together the MCU in an explosive amalgamation that held its epicentre in nerdom but rippled across the box office? Maybe all these dates and more held contribution. Harry Potter began what the Lord of the Rings films expanded upon in the late 1990's and early 2000's, raising a generation of children to see fiction and narrative as a viable cool alternative to sporting. The first dubbings of Dragonball Z into English facilitated this option of an ageless joy to replace the popular culture of the day. This all picked up traction from 2005 to 2010, with the popularisation of comic book films expanding on the popularity of the cartoons and cartoon films like Batman: The Animated Series, and the Justice League of America. But 2009 to 2015 is when nerd culture has, it seems, become popular culture. If a "Nerd Revolution" exists, this is when it occurred. The rom coms and buddy films that controlled the box office no longer held sway in the public eye. Instead, Star Trek relaunched, Marvel took its place as the guaranteed summer blockbuster, The Hobbit was turned into a series of films. And out side of movies, Arrow launched in 2011 followed by The Flash in 2014, Supernatural and The Big Bang Theory became hit shows with massive followings, anime shows like Attack on Titan and The Last Airbender gained cult followings in the west. Nerd culture is no longer distinct from popular culture. Instead, nerdom has hijacked popular culture and harnessed its ability to inspire and thrill for its own ends. Being a nerd isn't something to be mocked for anymore. People aren't laughed at for reading comics or playing video games or reading books. On the contrary, nowadays if you aren't up to date with the latest geekiness you will be greeted with shock and, perhaps, just a tinge of horror. So did we have a Nerd Revolution? It's hard to say, because it's hard to pinpoint exactly when being a nerd became being cool. It crept up on us without realising and then one day we looked back and saw just how things have changed.