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Old 10-10-2016, 01:24 PM   #232
sir_pudding
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
Default Re: bending stereotypes

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
It seems like the meaning of 'geek' and 'nerd' got diluted over time. I used to encounter it to mean someone who's very obsessive about a non-physical, non-social, cerebral/intellectual/etc. topic or topics, and tends towards the lower end of the physical and social spectra in general. Nowadays we have people talking about dancing geeks and MA geeks and the like, which is why I shifted towards using 'nerd' instead. I actually always considered the years spent on pole vaulting during my university years (and on firearms lately) to be the un-nerdy side of myself. But it seems like by now the word loses its precision, gradually becoming indistinguishable from 'aficionado' or 'fan'.
I don't that's the case here. Most people think things like the SCA, LARPS, or even HEMA are embarrassingly nerdy but that boxing definitely isn't. Certianly media portrayals of martial artists (who aren't boxers) outside of action genres often uses geek stereotypes, from Say Anything to Napoleon Dynamite.
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