Guest Post: Ned Vizzini on Why Nerds (Don't) Rule + Giveaway

Hello my lovely Tater Tots, I am here today a very awesome guest post from Ned Vizzini about Why Nerds Don't Rule.  I also have an ARC of his latest novel, The Other Normals to give to a lucky winner!! So please enjoy!

I was asked for this guest blog to write "Why Nerds Rule."

But I can't lie.

Nerds don't rule.

They never have; they never will. That doesn't mean I'm not one. I suppose since I wrote It's Kind of a Funny Story and my new book The Other Normals --

-- you might think I rule.

Don't be fooled.

Here's a question: whom do I rule? "Rule" is all good as a slang term, but if I, or any other nerd, is truly going to rule, I have to rule over someone. Power does not exist in the abstract. Power is power over other people.

And what's a nerd?

Main Entry: nerd
Function: noun
Origin : 1951, U.S. student slang, probably an alteration of 1940s slang nert "stupid or crazy person," itself an alteration of nut
[Online Etymology Dictionary]

A nerd doesn't have a power over anyone. A nerd is not a good thing to be. The word "nerd" does not connote happiness, freedom or joy. Growing up as a nerd was not, and is not, fun.

In the last 10 years, however, nerd culture has been fetishized. It has become not only good to be a nerd, but strange to question that nerd-dom was ever bad. This bizarro shift started with Spider-Man (2002) --


-- a film that made so much money that accountants at Sony looked at the numbers after opening weekend and said, "Holy crap, we made it all back!"

Spider-Man worked because it was perfectly constructed and cast, and because, for the first time, it used CGI to make a comic book look like how nerds thought it should look. In its wake, Hollywood began chasing the nerd dollar, and being a nerd became big business.

Now nerd-dom is celebrated on Attack of the Show, at Comic-Con, and on primetime TV (Castle). The Avengers is the biggest nerd event of the century (only the jocks behind Avatar could hold it off) and it really is okay for style icons to wear thick glasses and a vest:

So what's the problem?

The problem is that this is what being a nerd really means:

• sexual dismissal
• social neutering
• dandruff
• picking your nose
• saying stupid things and getting hit
• not getting into college because you're not good in the interview
• longing for the sweet embrace of death

Nerds don't rule. They suffer. And then they create.

Ned

The Giveaway

The Prize:
1 winner will receive an ARC copy of The Other Normals by Ned Vizzini.

Rules:

• You must be at least 13 to enter. 
• Contest is US Only and ends November 17, 2012
• Once contacted, the winner will have 48 hours to respond.
• The form must be filled out to enter.

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