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Self‐made nerd: The revenge of the nerds as a new myth of American social mobility

2024; Wiley; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/jacc.13592

1542-734X

Ben Latini,

Cybernetics and Technology in Society

This article is about the American cultural phenomenon known as the revenge of the nerds. The revenge of the nerds is a popular American myth of social mobility, in which the smart kids who excel in STEM fields grow up to be powerful and successful, while their peers, who made fun of them in school, end up being unsuccessful by American cultural standards (for instance, working low-paying dead-end jobs). To give an example of this narrative in action, one character tells another, In the TV pilot for a show based on the Revenge of the Nerds film series, that he will find college to be a "place where minds like ours are valued" and that the "kids back in high school [who] were cruel and envious … are wearing paper hats and making change" (Revenge of the Nerds TV series, 1991). In other words, the nerds are securing a prosperous future through education, while the formerly popular kids are working at fast food restaurants. This TV pilot example combines the two forms of the revenge of the nerds which I will discuss in this article. In other words, "the revenge of the nerds" is the social mobility myth, while "Revenge of the Nerds" is the 1984 comedy film that inspired three sequels and a TV Pilot.1 The revenge of the nerds was eventually adopted into the lexicon of popular American allusions, used by journalists, cultural commentators, and the general public (Kendall, 1999, p. 274). The revenge of the nerds is not just an amusing and recognizable phrase, however. It also has an influential narrative attached to it with profound implications regarding who deserves to succeed in contemporary American society. The protagonist of this narrative is the nerd, who is most often assumed to be a white man with valuable technological skills. While the concept of the nerd is not always associated with white men, the stereotype is heavily weighted toward whiteness and masculinity (Kendall, 2011). Therefore, the revenge of the nerds serves as a continuation of the presumed whiteness and maleness of American meritocracy myths like the self-made man without provoking the kind of controversy that would be caused by acknowledging that racial and gender bias directly. This article argues that the revenge of the nerds is a neoliberal revision of the self-made man, in that it continues to justify a particular distribution of wealth and power in American society by appealing to meritocracy through narratives which tie success to a particular form of masculinity thought to be especially well-suited to the capitalist ideology of the era, but the revenge of the nerds replaces the self-made man's emphasis on hard work with a focus on intelligence and specialized technological skills. The concept of the self-made man was, for most of American history, closely associated with whiteness and masculinity (Kimmel, 1996, p. 26), and it is the flexibility afforded to both whiteness and masculinity in American culture that have allowed the self-made man narrative to morph into the narrative of the revenge of the nerds. While the concept of the self-made man (or self-made person) has been durable throughout American history, and is still referenced to this day, Mary Paniccia Carden argues that "notions of self-making are flexible. They shift in response to historical contingencies and answer to varying cultural needs" (Carden, 2010, p. 27). This flexibility of self-making as a concept explains why the self-made man was able to be reimagined through the story of the revenge of the nerds. However, even though the self-made man is a flexible concept, and women and people of color have been able to take up the identity of being self-made, whiteness and masculinity are also flexible (Carroll, 2011, p. 10), and have been adapted through the revenge of the nerds in order to remain hegemonic, even as America's culture and economy continue to change rapidly and intensely. In fact, Lori Kendall has noted that, "The reconfiguration of hegemonic masculinity to include aspects of the once subjugated masculine stereotype of the nerd relates both to changes in economic and job prospects for middle-class white males, and to the growing pervasiveness of computers in work and leisure activities" (Kendall, 1999, p. 261). Through the nerd stereotype, white masculinity remains hegemonic in the sense of Raewyn Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity: "the configuration of gender practice. … which guarantees (or is taken to guarantee) the dominant position of men and the subordination of women" (Connell, 2005, p. 77). While the self-made man narrative was supplanted by the revenge of the nerds due to cultural changes, the transformation also had a material economic basis. In addition to the "cultural needs" answered by the self-made man narrative (Carden, 2010, p. 27), the narrative also aligns with economic needs. Michael Kimmel explains how the idea of the self-made man has always been inextricably bound with the economy and the "volatile marketplace" (Kimmel, 1996, p. 17), so it stands to reason that a new idea of self-making would be needed for the shift from an industrial manufacturing economy to a computerized information economy. Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams have ably demonstrated the rise to power and influence of the technology industries as part of this process, and, as we can see in cultural representations of figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, the individuals who were able to capitalize on this transformation often had their success stories told through the revenge of the nerds narrative (Gilbert & Williams, 2022). Many scholars have rehearsed the basic revenge of the nerds narrative within their research about nerd or geek masculinity. Some scholars have described a revenge of the nerds in the real world, in which nerdy men channeled their resentment from past social rejection into an exploitation of their unique skills in order to find success in the technology industry (Banet-Weiser, 2018, p. 131). Other scholars have connected the revenge of the nerds narrative to the Revenge of the Nerds films that popularized it, and explained that the narrative demonstrates how men who felt like nerds, or were considered nerds, found unconventional ways to prove themselves as masculine through the mastery of technologies (Condis, 2018, pp. 20–21; Salter & Blodgett, 2017, pp. 3–4). Michael Boynton addresses both the film Revenge of the Nerds and the real-world history of the nerd stereotype, and explains how both served to shore up white male entitlement during the Reagan era even while most representations of nerds at the time were pejorative (Boynton, 2017, pp. 411–12).2 However, while they have recognized the revenge of the nerds as a way of connecting nerds to meritocracy, no scholar has yet connected the revenge of the nerds meritocracy narrative back to the origin story of the American belief in meritocracy: the self-made man. The similarities between these two meritocracy myths are important, because both of these stories have been widely accepted and influential, but they hold up false promises to the people who believe in them. Meritocracy myths would have people believe that everyone more successful than them is better than them, and if they are not successful, it is always completely their fault. In other words, by the light of these myths, everyone in America deserves the power, wealth, and status they have (or lack). The consequences caused by these failed promises of meritocracy have reverberated throughout American cultural history. This article will explain how the revenge of the nerds narrative is a reimagining of the self-made man which has accompanied the transition from an industrial manufacturing economy to a computerized information economy. I will demonstrate the ways in which revenge of the nerds narratives took over where the self-made man left off by analyzing cultural texts which depict the meritocratic stories of individuals or small groups of men, labeled culturally as "nerds," who find both social capital and financial success within the framework of a neoliberal value system. This analysis is important because it illuminates the ways in which the image of major tech figures draws upon a classic American idea of meritocracy and masculinity, and it shows how neoliberalism and digitization have reshaped American conceptions of meritocracy and masculinity through a reimagining of the self-making story. Furthermore, like the self-made man story, revenge of the nerds narratives give Americans a false belief that economic mobility is easier and more possible than it really is, which makes them less likely to question the status quo. After an introduction to the history of the self-made man, neoliberalism, and the revenge of the nerds as concepts, this article will explain the one–two punch of Revenge of the Nerds and Back to the Future, two mid-80s films which introduced American audiences to the revenge of the nerds narrative during America's drift toward right-wing neoliberal policies during the Reagan era. These were two films which modeled the unique demands placed on American men by Reaganite ideology: they were to be just macho enough to keep up with traditional hegemonic masculinity, but also domesticated and moral enough to propagate "family values." The combination of the two films provides a complete picture of how the nerd would be incorporated into American hegemonic masculinity during the 1980s. I will also show how these films continued the American tradition of telling stories about masculinity and meritocracy, which started with the self-made man, but also updated those stories in order to validate the special skills and knowledge that would be needed in the rapidly developing information economy. These were narratives that prepared audiences for the harsher market competition of the neoliberal era and reimagined masculinity for an American economy which would be more dependent upon computers than manufacturing. Revenge of the Nerds introduced Americans to the nerd meritocracy narrative and showed that nerds could live up to the norms of masculinity in competition with other men. Meanwhile, Back to the Future simplified the revenge of the nerds narrative and presented a path for nerds to be fully integrated into American culture through Reaganite family values. Although Revenge of the Nerds and Back to the Future are both comedy films, I will take them quite seriously, and even downplay their humorous elements in this article. I do this because, while the revenge of the nerds was once a comedic concept, it was only supposed to be funny because it seemed unlikely that nerds would reach the top of American social and economic hierarchies. Now, it seems more like common sense. Like all ideologies of meritocracy, the revenge of the nerds is at its most powerful when it is taken for granted, which it often has been in the 21st century, given "the unshakeable ascendancy of the tech sector" (Gilbert & Williams, 2022, p. 46). While the comedic appeal of these films is important to their popularity, the potency of the revenge of the nerds narrative depends on audiences taking it at least somewhat seriously and imagining that some version of the story can happen in real life. However, in a comedy film, the humor naturally draws almost all of the audience's attention, so the ideological narratives like the revenge of the nerds operate mostly outside of their full awareness. I propose to set the humor aside for these analyses in order to bring the ideological elements of the films more clearly into view. While it is beyond the scope of this article to fully explore, the revenge of the nerds narrative has been oft-repeated throughout American culture since the release of these films, in fiction, but also in journalism, cultural commentary and beyond (Kendall, 1999, p. 274). Through my analysis, I will demonstrate how this narrative's ubiquity and influence began in the 1980s and conclude by pointing the way toward the narrative's continued significance in the 21st century. This article is a contribution to critiques of the stories and discourses that promote an illusion of meritocracy in American culture through representations of gender, and will be of interest to any Americanist scholar concerned with ideology, meritocracy, masculinity, or technology. The revenge of the nerds emerged as a revision of the self-made man, because the valuable talents and skills attributed to nerds in these narratives support an ideal of meritocracy that justifies inequality of opportunity, which is necessary for an increasingly unequal moment in American history. Granted, the self-made man has also been a popular narrative during times of great inequality like the Gilded Age, but the difference is that Americans are no longer asked to pretend that everyone has an equal chance at success if they are willing to work hard. Instead, we are simply asked to accept the fact that some people have an easier path to success than others because of special technical skills, and that those skills entitle them to a higher level of success than other people. In the 1970s and 1980s America transitioned from an industrial capitalism based on manufacturing to an economy based on service industries, finance, and technology. This transition was facilitated by neoliberal policies that mostly amounted to a comprehensive deregulation of industry and banking (Harvey, 2005, p. 1). In the postwar decades, the American economy had been subject to overarching regulations in which the federal government determined much of the functioning of industries and markets (Varoufakis, 2023, pp. 33–35). Labor was appeased with high wages and benefits in order to prevent the kinds of unrest seen among workers in the interwar years and in order to maintain a base of consumers to buy the products that companies were manufacturing. In addition, the Cold War meant that the threat of communism seemed ever present, and the average worker had to be incentivized to give his or her full support to capitalism. All of this resulted in an economic system highly favorable to workers in which capitalists had to give up a piece of the pie so that labor could benefit. Neoliberalism was the movement which allowed capitalists to claw back the gains of labor (Harvey, 2005, p. 52). Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams explain, "the great neoliberal story [insists] that the best way to run a modern society is to impose competitive market relations on every possible social sphere, that the private pursuit of profit is the main driver of social progress, and that those who benefit the most from it deserve to do so" (Gilbert & Williams, 2022, p. 62). However, ideological narratives were also necessary in order to sugarcoat the harsh realities which undergirded neoliberal policies because "the basic presuppositions of neoliberalism amount to a rather ugly and brutal view of humans as inherently competitive and self-serving" (Gilbert & Williams, 2022, p. 63). This is where the revenge of the nerds narrative comes in because it explains neoliberalism within the framework of meritocracy which has always been a cherished American ideal. The revenge of the nerds narrative also reinforces systemic inequality by ensuring that a white male figure is the generic protagonist of its success stories. This is not to say that all nerds and geeks are white, male, heterosexual, able-bodied or cisgendered. There is a high level of diversity within nerd and geek subcultures. However, the revenge of the nerds as a narrative framework tends to keep a white male figure at the center of attention. Because the 1980s were still the early days of neoliberalism, before it was taken for granted, it had to be established by "beating into submission those populations who had the most to lose from the contraction of the public sector and the defeat of post-war progressivism" like people of color and labor unions (Gilbert & Williams, 2022, p. 19). Capitalism was a zero-sum game with winners and losers and it no longer made sense to believe that anyone could get rich if they just worked hard enough (which had been the unspoken promise of self-made man stories). A myth was needed that would explain the idea that only people with special skills and knowledge could now become fabulously wealthy and would explain why the rise of some people was predicated on the casting down of others. As Randall Stross put it, in an evaluation of Microsoft's hiring practices in the 1990s, "Microsoft's emphasis on intelligence over industry experience can represent either the realization of a meritocratic ideal based on pure ability, or the repudiation of a meritocratic ideal based on the notion that any reasonably intelligent and well-educated person, with sufficient grit and determination, should be able to pursue any position he or she desires" (Stross, 1996, p. 39). This analysis elucidates the difference between the self-made man and the revenge of the nerds. The former suggested that success was possible for any American man willing to work hard (of course the usual racial exclusions that prevailed through most of American history applied here too). The revenge of the nerds myth framed the winners and losers of the 1980s American economy in terms of justice, fairness and merit just like Reaganomics did, presenting "a vision of society as an arena where individuals win or lose based on their individual talents" (Rossinow, 2015, p. 2). The concept of the revenge of the nerds emerged when a journalist named Paul Ciotti and his editor Tom Bates coined the eponymous phrase which they used as a title for Ciotti's 1982 article in California magazine (Ciotti, 2014). That article appears to be the earliest moment at which the many elements which comprised the revenge of the nerds myth coalesced to form the full-fledged narrative we recognize today.3 The magazine article presents the revenge of the nerds as a three-part narrative: (1) Nerds are mocked and ostracized. (2) Nerds get rich and successful and "control the future" because of their intelligence and technical knowledge (Ciotti, 1982, p. 72). (3) "[T]he joke's on you," because now most people who mocked the nerds are beneath these successful nerds in social and economic status (Ciotti, 1982, p. 72). In other words, the revenge of the nerds is a social mobility story based on the American ideal of meritocracy. The fact that the narrative almost always follows the clear and distinct steps laid out by Ciotti makes it a simple and easy formula for viewers and readers to learn and absorb so that it becomes part of many Americans' unconscious worldviews due to extensive repetition. The first film that popularized the revenge of the nerds narrative was, unsurprisingly, Revenge of the Nerds (Kanew, 1984). This was the film which established the nerds as a continuation of the form of American masculinity established by the self-made man and suggested that nerds could become part of the power-structure of hegemonic masculinity. The film was part of a trend of Hollywood film comedies in the 1980s that some critics and audiences call "slobs vs. snobs" (Morgan, 2024; Weinman, 2022), In which audiences got to experience catharsis while watching underdogs defeat cultural elites. Revenge of the Nerds capitalized on the popularity of slobs versus snobs films but added meritocracy to the mix. The film put a unique spin on its popular precursor, Animal House (Landis, 1978). Unlike the nerdy and intelligent Lambdas in Revenge of the Nerds, the Deltas of Animal House are slackers and rebels who almost fail out of college. While the Lambdas stand up for themselves like the Deltas did, their rebellion takes a very different form based on their intellects and technical skills which is what made Revenge of the Nerds significant as a novelty and an unexpected cult hit. Revenge of the Nerds borrowed a title, and other forms of inspiration from Paul Ciotti's magazine article (Gold, 2014; Pirnia, 2019).4 However, while Ciotti focused on the financial success of so-called nerds like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple Computer, Inc., Revenge of the Nerds transferred the harsh competition associated with neoliberal economic markets to the social world. We have already noted that neoliberal ideology measured every part of life based on the metrics of economic markets and Elana Shen has pointed out how the film "configured school as a competitive marketplace in which the 'nerd' accrues social capital via his computer skills, at his bullies' expense" (Shen, 2019, p. 45). In this way, the film presents nerds as ideal heroes for neoliberalism based on their skills and their inclinations toward computers which were major tools of the neoliberal economy. They replaced the old form of WASP masculinity that functioned as an old boys' club (represented by their rival fraternity, the Alpha Betas), and they were self-made in the sense that their success would not be determined by social connections among men. Instead, success would be determined by quantifiable and instrumental factors, in the same way that one's value was measured in capitalist markets. Revenge of the Nerds supports the neoliberal ideal that every aspect of life is a competition. Like Animal House, the film is centered upon a competition between two rival fraternities with one, the Lambda Lambda Lambda nerds, or Tri-Lambs, representing a sort of insurgent counterculture and the other, the conventionally masculine jocks of the Alpha Betas, representing the conservative status quo. The plot centers around the competition for social status and political power within the fraternity system of the fictional Adams College. It is assumed that the Alpha Betas will have the advantage due to their strength, popularity and athletic abilities, but the Tri-Lambs bring new and unexpected skills to the table based on their intelligence and technical knowledge. This conflict comes to a head during the Greek Games at the Adams College Homecoming, in which the winning fraternity will get to lead the Greek Council, a political body that makes all fraternity-related decisions on campus. The Tri-Lambs need that power, because the current Greek council, run by the Alpha Betas, has denied the nerd fraternity a charter. As the revenge of the nerds narrative always suggests, it is the very traits that make the nerds outcasts that end up facilitating their acquisition of status and power. The methods by which the nerds achieve success show how the ideas of what counted as "merit" were changing. For example, the nerds use scientific knowledge and technical skill to their advantage throughout the Greek Games. In a racing event that involves riding a tricycle after drinking large amounts of beer, the nerds make their racer, Takashi (Brian Toschi), consume a tablet they have created which counteracts the alcohol in his system, meaning that he will perform better due to being sober throughout the event, while his opponents become increasingly intoxicated. Next, in a track and field event, the nerds design a special floppy javelin to suit the "limp-wristed throwing style" of their gay member, Lamar (Larry B. Scott). It is a painfully cringeworthy joke by today's standards, but it demonstrates a knowledge of physics being used to win the competition. The nerds compensate for the homophobic assumption that Lamar lacks masculine athleticism by using their intellectual abilities to win. This is an example of how science triumphs over traditional ideals of masculinity such as athleticism in the revenge of the nerds. In a classic neoliberal stance in which the bottom line result is all that matters, the film also divorces the idea of merit from any consideration of ethical principles, because the nerdy Lambdas engage in highly unethical and underhanded tactics in the process of beating their opponents in competition for a leadership position on campus and in the process of getting their "revenge." The neoliberal ideal is fully instrumental in the sense that whoever wins in a competitive interaction deserves whatever they gain by virtue of the fact that they won. The quantifiable, bottom-line result is what ultimately determines right and wrong, whether that result is money, power, or status. For example, the tweaks the nerds make to the competition during the Greek Games could easily be considered cheating. Even more unethical is the Tri-Lambs treatment of women throughout the film. The Tri-Lambs perform most of their dominance over the Alpha Betas by harassing and violating the Alpha Betas' sorority counterparts, the Delta Pi's (many of whom are dating Alpha Beta members) (Kendall, 1999, pp. 268–69). Thus, the Tri-Lambs seek a hegemonically masculine form of revenge by planting hidden cameras in the Delta-Pi house during a panty raid. While panty raids were a staple of frat comedies (a panty raid is featured in Animal House), what happens next is something much more unheard of and harmful. The Tri-Lambs use their nerdy tech skills to extend their violating of the Delta-Pi's well beyond the bounds of the one-time panty raid. They have video feeds of the hidden cameras running to the TV in their frat house and they watch it as a group, high fiving, and hooting while celebrating a toxically masculine victory over their enemies Finally, they produce nude photos from still frames of the hidden camera footage and sell them during the Greek Games in order to win the fundraising portion of the competition. This is a process of "revenge" that Julia Chan has referred to as an analog precursor of the contemporary phenomenon of "revenge porn" (Chan, 2022). As if that was not enough, the nerds' leader, Lewis (Robert Carradine) deceives head cheerleader and Delta Pi leader, Betty (Julia Montgomery), into performing sexual acts with him while disguised as her boyfriend, Stan Gable (Ted McGinley), which is treated by the film as the ultimate emasculating victory over a rival instead of the sexual assault that it truly is. And these are supposed to be the heroes of the film. We are supposed to be rooting for them, because in a neoliberal revenge of the nerds narrative, only the victory is supposed to matter, and it is to be achieved by any means necessary. These actions validated the nerds' ability to perform hegemonic masculinity as well as their jock counterparts by defeating their male competition and exercising dominance over women. However, this aggressive version of the revenge of the nerds gets smoothed out by Back to the Future's family friendly version. Each film was presenting the revenge of the nerds to a different portion of the audience, since Back to the Future was rated PG and Revenge of the Nerds was rated R. While the Lambda nerds operate differently from the morally earnest protagonists typical of old self-made man stories (and featured in Back to the Future), they are still connected to that lineage through the appearance of one particular staple of the tradition. They have a "fairy godfather," in the form of their fraternity's national president, U.N. Jefferson (Nemmers, 2022). The fairy godfather is the figure in a self-made man story who "appears as if by magic to supply the young man with training and connections" and then disappears just as quickly "once the young man's candidacy is established" so that it will look as though the young man achieved his position without any help, which preserves the cherished illusion that economic mobility in America is frequent and achievable for anyone willing to work hard (Nemmers, 2022, p. 200). the revenge of the nerds narrative often employs a fairy godfather figure, which reveals how closely connected the revenge of the nerds and the self-made man are within the history of American myths of meritocracy. U.N. Jefferson is necessary in the film because he is the president of Lambda Lambda Lambda which is presented as a historically Black American fraternity. The nerds sent letters to many fraternities requesting sponsorship, but the Tri-Lambs were the only ones who agreed to help them (however reluctantly). Jefferson provides the deus ex machina without which it would have been hard to imagine that nerds would be able to seek social status equivalent to that of the handsome, popular, and athletic, Alpha Betas who are supposed to look like the ideal American college fraternity members. In the same way that economic mobility would be impossible to imagine in the self-made man story without the help of a wealthy patron to serve as the fairy godfather, the social mobility of the nerds in the film would be hard to imagine if they were not able to lean upon the perceived coolness, toughness and ability to claim recognition for prior marginalization which were provided to them by their affiliation with U.N. Jefferson and the black Tri-Lamb members. But like all fairy godfathers, Jefferson is expected to step back and allow the nerds to stand by themselves in the end, which erases the essential contributions of the black Tri-Lamb members who paved the way for them and keeps white masculinity in the center of the revenge of the nerds narrative. In addition to the validation provided to the nerds by U.N. Jefferson and the other Tri-Lamb members, the film validates the neoliberal attitude of seeing social relations as competition by ending with the nerds victorious as the Alpha Betas look on helplessly, having been cowed into submission by the black men who belong to other branches of the Tri-Lamb fraternity who came to stand up for their nerd brothers. The nerds do not just win in their competition against the Alpha Betas, they have to humiliate them thoroughly and diminish their social status on campus. It was the perfect story for the harsh America that Ronald Reagan and his administration were creating in which there were clear winners and losers in life, and no one was supposed to feel s