What Makes a Nerdfighter?

[Pardeep Dhaliwal]

This topic is partly in response to John's most recent video where he explains how he believes nerdfighter is an entirely self-chosen identity. It's also partly in response to specific members of this forum. Of course, it would be supremely douchey for me to name specific names.

 

But the point is that when someone does a thing that seems un-nerdfigher-ly, isn't it fair to call it that? If a guy guns down a shopping mall and goes "hoo ha nerdfighters", don't we nerdfighters have a right to say "no, you are not what I believe this group should stand for"? 

 

We may not have much in the case of central dogma, but don't Hank and John themselves say every nerdfighter should try to decrease suck and increase awesome? And if that is the case, wouldn't any action that increases suck or decreases awesome be fundamentally decepticon in nature?

 

I dunno, am I just being an elitist?

[Val Smith]

I believe every Nerdfighter, who we know is made not of flesh and bone but of pure awesome, has a splinter of decepticon somewhere in their body, and every now and again, that splinter takes over for a moment or two.

Humans exist in shades of grey, and I think the important part is to leave the world more awesome than you found it. If you happen to increase the suck, you just have to do something supremely awesome to counter it and bring the awesome back into balance (or not, since there should always be more awesome than suck.).

I don't think people should get caught up in being awesome ALL THE TIME OR ELSE, because that just gets stressful.

Just don't be a dick, and do more good than you do bad.

[Maya Granger]

The world is not split up into good people Nerdfighters and Death Eaters decepticons.  I agree with Val; I think a nerdfighter should just try to improve the world in any way they can, whenever they can. If sometimes one's actions lead to things that might be increasing world suck, the only thing one can do is try to make things better if they can, without having to fear that they will be kicked out of the group for doing one horrid thing. 

 

 

[Pardeep Dhaliwal]

Yay nerd jokes. 

 

Also, of course I'm not saying we should become an exclusive group that reserves the right to boot whomever we please. No nerdfighter should have to be awesome all the time, but can't we at least tell them when they aren't? 

 

I mean, if hypothetically, there were some member of the forum who went "lol, star wars is for fags" every time someone made a star wars joke, we shouldn't immediately ban them, but shouldn't someone point out "hey man, as a nerdfighter, that's not how you should behave".

[Val Smith]

Well yeah, and I think that's part of decreasing World Suck.

If someone's being an ass, and you don't ask them to please stop, you're letting the suck keep happening. If you're not a part of the solution, you're a part of the problem.

[Caleb]

yeah someone should, terms like "fag" are offensive.  I wouldn't like it much if people went around saying "That's so guy who read's more books in a month than he has friends" I wouldn't like it much.  The same goes for retard and other commonly used insults.  if something is stupid call it stupid, not "gay", "fag", "retarded" etc.

[Captain Jacqui Sparrow]

I think that worldsuck is usually a relative term, but unless a person is seriously mentally ill to the point that they can't logically decide between right and wrong in big cases, I'd say that shooting up a shopping mall out of the blue is something that is quite obviously wrong and contributes to worldsuck and would increase worldsuck by so much that it'd pretty much mean that said shopping mall murderer wouldn't be able to be a nerdfighter no matter what they called themself. Some other things contribute to worldsuck so much that I think it would rob somebody of their nerdfighter status. Like, I read on NerdfighterSecrets once that somebody was a white supremacist and called themself a nerdfighter. I think that believing in racial superiority and supporting discrimination increases worldsuck enough that a person that does that shouldn't be considered a nerdfighter anymore. But unless you're a white supremacist/homophobe/sexist/transphobe/etc etc etc, or you go around killing people/beating people up, if you're epically nerdy and generally made of awesome, you're a nerdfighter. 

All people do worldsuck-increasing things sometimes, but if somebody doesn't do anything supermegaharmful and adopts the identity of nerdfighter, they should be considered one. To consider yourself somebody who likes learning and decreasing worldsuck pretty much means that you've done enough to be considered a nerdfighter. I mean, you have to be pretty epically nerdy to a)find out about nerdfighters, b)adopt the title of "nerdfighter" and c)associate with such a freakin nerdy group of people. :)