How nerds smothered American culture | Spectator USA

How nerds smothered American culture | Spectator USA:

• It is a morbid sign for a democracy when the electorate chooses superheroes to do its bidding, rather than politicians

"...‘It used to be that cool people looked down on nerds. Now I know a lot of cool people who pretend to be nerds.’

Alonso was right.
The nerds have taken over Hollywood, America and the world. 
...President Obama praised the trend:

‘I think America’s a nerdier country than it used to be when I was a kid – and that’s a good thing!’

Obama, with typical glibness, had forgotten a crucial general point about nerds: they are not happy people. 
There were good reasons why there was a stigma around being a nerd; those who loved stories about dragons and superheroes into adulthood tended to be nebbish, poorly-tailored and sexually inadequate.
They needed to escape into fantasy worlds because the real world was brutal, cruel and completely uninterested in playing tabletop wargames.

The wholesale nerdification of America began when the certainties and comforts of the 1990s gave way to the pessimism and paranoia of the post-9/11 world. 

...The bleak worldview of the traditional nerd – quietly seething, victimized, powerless, friendless, obsessed and solaced by trivia, disenchanted with the authorities and institutions that fail to protect them from predatory bullies – has become the worldview of many Americans.

...If many people in a society feel like outsiders and the major mass culture tells them loudly and constantly that this is a noble thing to be, then what kind of politics will you have?..."
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