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Blerd Life: Keeping It Real Like Steve Urkel


I've been a Blerd my entire life. From the time my mom taught me to read using her old X-Men comics, to my dad teaching me how to play Duke Nukem 3D, to watching all three lord of the rings movies with my grandma, this culture has been my life. But no matter how old I get, no matter where I go, there's always been one stigma that refuses to leave me and Blerds on the whole: that because we exist in a predominantly white subculture, that we’re automatically loved by white people and in turn hate our blackness. And who says it mainly? You hotep ass, faux revolutionary black people who assume that because you see us chilling amongst white people that we do it comfortably.

No, no we fucking don’t. To give you guys any sort of credit, yes, not only does Hollywood not respect black nerds in terms of portrayal, but really every POC who's a nerd on a TV show gets the shaft. I will never stop reminding people that The big bang theory for multiple seasons rendered its sole person of color on the show so socially inept that he couldn’t even SPEAK to women without getting drunk, but we’re supposed to laugh at a white guy who on one episode stalked the cast of “America’s next top model” really? Fucking really?

Say what you will about how incredibly goofy and annoying Steve Urkel was, at the end of the series, not only did he get the girl of his dreams, but he also mastered cloning, went into space, rode in a nuclear submarine and even went to Disney World. But sadly, the portrayal of black nerds hasn’t progressed far beyond ones like Urkel. We’re still the sidekick, we’re still the “Beta Male”, we’re still the goofy comic relief, and you can’t help but feel like we’re written as modern day tokens.

Hell, I may not be a woman, but I can only imagine that life for female blerds isn’t easier. How many times have we seen women who cosplay, game or read comics had malicious neckbeards and craven weeaboos jump in their mentions, and in worse cases spread their information and endanger their lives? Really, at this point, you can’t even argue against standing up to this kind of harassment as a guy as “caping for pussy” as the simple facts is that as much as I see so many of us black male nerds complain that women don’t like us. You can’t be out here being okay with women being harassed and still complain they don’t like us. As comic book companies, video game publishers and conventions become bigger and bigger in exposure, what no company looking for exponential profits wants is to be known as the company that caters mainly to a toxic and ultimately dangerous demographic. “Real fans” or not, once a company is known as marketing mainly to people who will alienate anyone new from buying their products, it will be the beginning of the end fiscally.

But again, even as I tell you this, there's always going to be black people who will argue that we hate ourselves or that we’re confused because of how we live; And at times you’d be right. Yeah, we all know those “All lives matter” ass Blerds that try to pretend that white nerds aren’t the main ones out here posting racist ass shit while having avis with anime girls wearing “make america great again” hats. Yeah, we all know those nerds that have nothing positive to say about black women nerds and will stay calling them ugly left and right, but worship the ground that some Rebel Wilson looking woman walks on. And as much as you’ll call me a dick for saying it, we all know those female blerds who write articles with opinions on men that make you wonder if every guy they associate with or just see is a Williamsburg black hipster. But all in all, you can’t lump us in with THOSE people when if you paid attention to us, you’d realize that many of us actively work to progress our image. And even after I or anyone points this out, I know you people will never learn. You’ll still say we worship white people even as we fight for more representation, you’ll call the men emasculated even as they fight for better portrayals of men, and you’ll call the women confused even as many create entire brands around being a black nerd. And why? Because we don’t scream on and on about how we we’re queens and kings in Africa? Because we don’t scare white people? Because we don’t spend all our time amongst “real” black folks?

Seriously, get over yourselves. Its 2016 and the old trope of black-checking nerds is done once you take into account how much work many of us are putting into just being apart of nerdom. Do some research for Horus’ sake.

This submission comes courtesy of @awkblerd who you can keep up with on Twitter. 

3 Comments

  1. This is like the 16th time this type of article has been on this site and I love it every time

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know this is old, but unfortunately, it still applies.

    ReplyDelete
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