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two thousand seven hundred years or so ago the assyrian king ushabanapur was
initiating a program to gather copies of all books and his empire to his library
bookworm would have been an app description for him had books not been made of clay making them
slightly undesirable to worms anyway back to good old ash banapal they like to boast about
having complete mastery of all scribal arts in his own words ayashabanapol within the palace
understood the wisdom of naboo the god of learning all the art of writing of every kind i made myself
the master of them all i read the cunning tablets of sumer and the dark akkadian language which is
difficult to rightly use i took my pleasure in reading stones inscribed before the flood
such works as none of the kings who went before me had ever learnt remedies clever teachings i
wrote on tablets checked and collated and deposited within my palace for perusing
and reading so let's say he wasn't shy about being a bit of a nerd that said if you're
picturing him wearing thick glasses and a bow tie remember that he liked hunting lions for sport
that said he used his prodigious learning and nerdery to good end ruling what according to many
scholars constitutes one of the first true empires in the world due to its administrative innovations
its dominion reached egypt to the west and iran to the east and dear nerdy ash banapal was heralded
by his subjects as equal to the gods of course in our time overly obsessing over knowledge
and intellectual things is often associated with social awkwardness and introvertedness
and the culmination of all of this is the very definition of what we would call a nerd
or is it to begin with what exactly makes a nerd a nerd is it the obsession with a certain theme
like knowing everything about a specific genre such as all spaceship types in star trek or the
stats of the already alarming and still growing number of pokemon or perhaps religiously going
to comic con dressed up accordingly but a sports man might know everything about his favorite sport
talk about the last match all week long and go to the stadium dressed up as his favorite football
player that he's not considered a nerd but at the core is there really any difference in the public
consciousness probably as his interests are not categorized as nerdy but how did this come to
be emerging in a dr seuss book in 1950 the word nerd found its way into slang more specifically
the first documented case of nerd was in dr seuss's if i ran the zoo the specific text was
a knuckle a nerd and a seersucker too it was just over a year after the doctor's use book in 1951
in a newsweek magazine article that we find the first documented case of nerd being used similarly
to how we use it today as being synonymous with someone who was a drip or a square there are two
popular hypotheses as to where the word derived from the first is that it was perhaps derived from
drunk spelled backwards knurd this was fitting to describe people who studied instead of going
out with friends and partying a somewhat more popular hypothesis suggests that it came from
a modification of nut specifically nerd which meant stupid or crazy person and was common in
the 1940s directly before the term nerd showed up whatever the case the word nerd ended up becoming
relatively popular in the 1960s and the 1970s and was hugely popularized by the tv show happy days
where it was used frequently wherever it derived from exactly it was used as a sort of shorthand to
refer to students in schools or other people who were socially awkward and obnoxiously intelligent
mostly in the fields of maths and science but the meaning quickly changed into a type of slur
that could apply to someone even if they didn't have the social characteristics of a nerd but
were for example super interested in books and learning for middle school children
ultimately being dubbed a geek or nerd is still not always welcome in fact evidence indicates
that such epithets lead children to under achieve purposely to avoid these labels especially with
girls as to why the stigma the obvious explanation is that this is related to the teenage psychology
of rebellion against authority figures which includes teachers and the school systems in
general those good at the subjects taught and those who become the favorite of the teachers are
therefore regarded as uncool particularly if to a wide range of students a subject seems
not very applicable in real life and therefore causes utter confusion and subsequent rejection
in order to avoid feeling stupid of course the number of reasons why nerds sometimes unpopular
is decidedly large and can be easily linked to things like anti-intellectualism as well as simple
stereotypical social awkwardness at times but our interest here lies primarily in the evolution
of the implied theme from kings associated with gods for their intellectual prowess to the modern
day stereotypical physically and socially fragile intellectuals on this note the drastic stereotype
is especially strange since for most of history the bullies i.e the various warlords in history
predominantly love to be or be thought of was what essentially boils down to nerds if
we look at history's champion of the nerds plato founder of the academy and promoter of philosophy
music and mathematics we can read that he was an accomplished wrestler actually and prepare for
your mind to be a little bit blown here the name plato is just a nickname allegedly given to him by
his wrestling coach meaning broad because of his stature one of his ideas prolifically described in
his work the republic was that the perfect ruler should be a philosopher king so not surprisingly
the nerd wanted the world to be ruled by nerds but this type of role model should also be strong and
have a built body since it was believed that the outer image reflects the mind controlling
it plato's teacher the philosopher socrates is also portrayed as having shown great bravery and
valor as a soldier in the battle of potter dayer in 432 bc balancing his spiritual greatness as
a thinker this mentality has survived in various axioms such as a healthy mind and a healthy body
so it's not surprising that in the movie man of steel young clark kent reads the republic
while being bullied by kids from school ok but all that concerns people with a tendency
towards knowledge what about the bullies how did they manifest in the old days those warlords and
rulers and were they actually the same people we might classify as nerds a strange concept that of
the nerdy bully but nonetheless apt in this case well the tendency to show off and shout one's
prowess to everyone is probably as old as humanity today this is done with instagram photos then with
statues and speeches within the literary civilizations this would sometimes be transposed
in an effort to show one's intellectual prowess as well to see how this works let's look at the
land of sumer the ruler would build large temples on the like and of course would show himself doing
so in carvings etc so that his contemporaries and we in the future would admire him for designing
and building such a magnificent structure even of course if the depiction is symbolic and he didn't
actually lift a finger himself for example here is an example from around 2500 bce where king
ernashi let himself be portrayed on the upper left corner carrying a funny basket used by workers to
transport bricks as the building procedure became more complex the rulers funding the projects were
more admired for it but at the same time they all knew he was really deserving of the respect
and that was not so much the big guy with the money but rather the architect the guy doing all
the maths and planning so much so that one sees some of these early bronze age engineers being
deified such as imhotep no not the mummy guy the architect of the giza pyramid as another example
300 years after anashi one of his successors gudea shows himself participating in the building of
the temple but this time he is holding a plan fancying himself as an architect in the same
vein another well-known ruler followed this path and that was the roman emperor hadrian personally
overtaking the design of many works such as the temple of venus in rome furthermore kings
fancied themselves as king priest a priest had access to the divine powers and the respect and
often fear of the people ancient kings would try and combine the positions of head of religion and
head of state and the same person themselves so for example in egypt the pharaoh was the consort
of the gods depicted in relevant size to them in war carvings in rome ever since augustus the
roman emperors besides being the head of state would also serve as the pontifex the head of the
priesthood something that the consuls the heads of state in the roman republic had not previously
done of course for simple very direct practical reasons gathering books and knowledge would help
expand research in areas such as war technology or medicine so naturally the seeking of knowledge in
itself became a prestigious affair knowledge as ever was power now do you remember ashabanapal
from the intro the king who prided himself on all the books that he gathered he was not the only one
ptolemy in alexandria haranel rashid in baghdad the medici in florence all kings and dukes who
liked to appear refined and civil would sponsor the gathering of books not only supporting
intellectuals but also trying to be intellectuals with some well-known epic fails such as
the roman emperor nero moving on from then since the clash between the bishop ambrosius and emperor
theodosius in the late 400s a.d and continuing to medieval times the responsibility over divine
things and also about keeping and expressing opinions about anything concerning knowledge
was in the priest's hands again with books being copied and studied by monks etc the king would
seek the connection with the divine but now with exceptions not usually as directly as in the past
where claiming descendancy from a god or being head of the priests himself was all the rage in
slay more modern times simply gaining the blessing of the pope or priests was sufficient the ruler
himself would instead tend to focus on building up the image of the capable warrior so the
ideal of plato and indeed clark kent to combine wisdom and strength and appreciate both equally
was eventually left behind priests would prompt asceticism and focus on the divine caring for the
appearance of the body was regarded as vanity and generally frowned upon in what we could call the
academic world of the day which was mainly the priesthood this type of isolated academic immersed
the whole day in his books and never seeing sunshine and exercise would continue and slowly
start to fit the more nerdy stereotype we think of today the sort of absent-minded socially awkward
professor with the renaissance and enlightenment the torch of knowledge was transferred to new
bearers the scientists around which the stereotype of the isolated obsessive types
frankenstein developed although appreciated as the force behind progress and in cases such as
einstein even becoming celebrities scientists were even regarded with some arrogance as isolated from
the rest of the working class as the type that does not get their hands dirty or even inept
at more practical matters of life whether that was actually true or not to the disappointments
of ancient philosophers like plato and seneca the search for knowledge was disconnected from
the concept of striving to become a complete being and the effort to build oneself physically as well
as intellectually rather it became about entering the best most prestigious university studying for
exams until the best grades were near-inevitable and publishing papers biannually and let's not
forget the time constraints that come with this sort of pressure with the competitive nature of
this academic world even since school it therefore seems like the best idea for the so inclined
students to leave behind a potentially rich social life in the hopes of accomplishment in academia
or so goes the stereotype this all has ultimately culminated in the idea of the bookworm or nerd
generally being skinny physically weak glasses wearing and socially awkward among countless other
reasons related to the ridiculous shenanigans that occur among school-aged individuals this
resulted in the label not always a sought-after one and often even more socially stigmatized among
females this also often sees girls unfortunately abandon the sciences and fields like engineering
at an early age even if they have a particularly strong aptitude and interest in them but that's a
major topic for another day all of this said all is not lost for the one-time rulers of earth and
now lowly bullied nerds the world over with the advent of frankly kick-ass technologies and
other practical and extremely prevalent applications of engineering
maths and science literally staring us in the face right now as you watch this video as well as the
widespread popularity of comic book heroes and sci-fi and fantasy at an all-time high
being openly nerdy in the modern world is slowly starting to shift back from being a label one
would want to avoid as much as possible in order to keep your lunch money to something worn as
a badge of pride that's not even to mention the number of nerds who've retaken the mantle
of kings of the world via starting various tech and other companies sometimes within a few years
vaulting themselves by their brains and ultra nerdy focus into being among the richest people
in history much like their kingly forebears superiority complexes occasionally are included
now for a bonus fact the first documented case of geek dates all the way back to 1916. at the time
the term was used to describe sideshow freaks and circuses specifically it was typically attributed
to those circus performers who were known for doing crazy things like biting their heads off of
small live animals or eating insects live things like that these performances were often called
geek shows the word itself geek came from the word geck which was originally a low german word
which meant someone was a fool a freak a simpleton before geek nerd dork etc the proper term for
these ragamuffins were dewdroppers waldows and slackers other old common slang words
that are somewhat similar in meaning are panty waste oil can drip stinkeroo mileage
zilch and dud so really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit
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