Self‐made nerd: The revenge of the nerds as a new myth of American social mobility

This article is about the American cultural phenomenon known as the revenge of the nerds. The revenge of the nerds is a popular American myth of social mobility, in which the smart kids who excel in STEM fields grow up to be powerful and successful, while their peers, who made fun of them in school, end up being unsuccessful by American cultural standards (for instance, working low-paying dead-end jobs). To give an example of this narrative in action, one character tells another, In the TV pilot for a show based on the Revenge of the Nerds film series, that he will find college to be a “place where minds like ours are valued” and that the “kids back in high school [who] were cruel and envious … are wearing paper hats and making change” (Revenge of the Nerds TV series, 1991). In other words, the nerds are securing a prosperous future through education, while the formerly popular kids are working at fast food restaurants. This TV pilot example combines the two forms of the revenge of the nerds which I will discuss in this article. In other words, “the revenge of the nerds” is the social mobility myth, while “Revenge of the Nerds” is the 1984 comedy film that inspired three sequels and a TV Pilot.1 The revenge of the nerds was eventually adopted into the lexicon of popular American allusions, used by journalists, cultural commentators, and the general public (Kendall, 1999, p. 274). The revenge of the nerds is not just an amusing and recognizable phrase, however. It also has an influential narrative attached to it with profound implications regarding who deserves to succeed in contemporary American society. The protagonist of this narrative is the nerd, who is most often assumed to be a white man with valuable technological skills. While the concept of the nerd is not always associated with white men, the stereotype is heavily weighted toward whiteness and masculinity (Kendall, 2011). Therefore, the revenge of the nerds serves as a continuation of the presumed whiteness and maleness of American meritocracy myths like the self-made man without provoking the kind of controversy that would be caused by acknowledging that racial and gender bias directly. This article argues that the revenge of the nerds is a neoliberal revision of the self-made man, in that it continues to justify a particular distribution of wealth and power in American society by appealing to meritocracy through narratives which tie success to a particular form of masculinity thought to be especially well-suited to the capitalist ideology of the era, but the revenge of the nerds replaces the self-made man's emphasis on hard work with a focus on intelligence and specialized technological skills. The concept of the self-made man was, for most of American history, closely associated with whiteness and masculinity (Kimmel, 1996, p. 26), and it is the flexibility afforded to both whiteness and masculinity in American culture that have allowed the self-made man narrative to morph into the narrative of the revenge of the nerds. While the concept of the self-made man (or self-made person) has been durable throughout American history, and is still referenced to this day, Mary Paniccia Carden argues that “notions of self-making are flexible. They shift in response to historical contingencies and answer to varying cultural needs” (Carden, 2010, p. 27). This flexibility of self-making as a concept explains why the self-made man was able to be reimagined through the story of the revenge of the nerds. However, even though the self-made man is a flexible concept, and women and people of color have been able to take up the identity of being self-made, whiteness and masculinity are also flexible (Carroll, 2011, p. 10), and have been adapted through the revenge of the nerds in order to remain hegemonic, even as America's culture and economy continue to change rapidly and intensely. In fact, Lori Kendall has noted that, “The reconfiguration of hegemonic masculinity to include aspects of the once subjugated masculine stereotype of the nerd relates both to changes in economic and job prospects for middle-class white males, and to the growing pervasiveness of computers in work and leisure activities” (Kendall, 1999, p. 261). Through the nerd stereotype, white masculinity remains hegemonic in the sense of Raewyn Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity: “the configuration of gender practice. … which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (Connell, 2005, p. 77). While the self-made man narrative was supplanted by the revenge of the nerds due to cultural changes, the transformation also had a material economic basis. In addition to the “cultural needs” answered by the self-made man narrative (Carden, 2010, p. 27), the narrative also aligns with economic needs. Michael Kimmel explains how the idea of the self-made man has always been inextricably bound with the economy and the “volatile marketplace” (Kimmel, 1996, p. 17), so it stands to reason that a new idea of self-making would be needed for the shift from an industrial manufacturing economy to a computerized information economy. Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams have ably demonstrated the rise to power and influence of the technology industries as part of this process, and, as we can see in cultural representations of figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the individuals who were able to capitalize on this transformation often had their success through the revenge of the nerds narrative have the revenge of the nerds narrative their about nerd have a revenge of the nerds in the in which men their from social into an of their in order to find success in the technology p. have the revenge of the nerds narrative to the Revenge of the Nerds that and that the narrative how men who like were to as masculine through the of Michael both the film Revenge of the Nerds and the of the nerd stereotype, and explains how both to up white the even while most representations of nerds at the were However, while have the revenge of the nerds as a of nerds to has the revenge of the nerds meritocracy narrative back to the story of the American in the self-made The two meritocracy myths are both of have been and but up to the people who in myths would have people that them is and are not successful, it is always their In other words, by the of in deserves the and have (or The caused by of meritocracy have throughout American cultural This article will how the revenge of the nerds narrative is a of the self-made man which has the from an industrial manufacturing economy to a computerized information economy. 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