Celebrating Nerdiness by Tom Rogers

"Celebrating nerdiness" by Tom Rogers discusses the misconceptions and stereotypes that society usually has about nerds as well as the real value of being a nerd. This article was published in Newsweek (2000), the second largest weekly magazine in the United States to target the public audience, including nerd's community. The author who grew up in a nerdy way now becomes successful as a former chemical engineer and a high school teacher in South Carolina. By using his own childhood experience and his two sons' as examples, Tom Rogers describes nerdiness not as something boring and dull which people usually label it but as something unique and extraordinary. In conclusion, he argues that being a nerd is not something to be ashamed of but instead, something to be proud of. At some points, Tom Rogers is reasonable in defending the image of nerds and highlighting the value of them. However, his argument, writing style as well as his family-based examples are too narrow-minded and biased that cannot apply to all members of the nerd's community.

When talking about nerds, we usually visualize someone who is friendless, not popular and knowing nothing except for book. These kinds of characteristic are the main reason for creating a gap between nerds and the rest of society. Normally, human feels uncomfortable with odd things which they cannot understand. As a result, nerds are deliberately separated from the society and often become the targets for criticism. Throughout his article, Tom Rogers shows the fact that most society nowadays treats nerds unfairly because of their individual difference. He uses an example from his childhood memory about how he was treated by his classmate because he was enthusiastic in answering the teacher's question when the others were not. The same situation happened with his sons who are also nerds. The older son was the target of bullies in his school and he had to suffer all over his middle-school time only because of his physical appearance and his excellence in class. The younger one was even misunderstood by the teacher and was forced to follow the instruction because the teacher did not understand his studying method. From these examples, Tom Rogers successfully expresses his concern over the difficulties of nerds when being regarded as the stereotype in the society.

On the other hand, Tom Rogers also emphasizes the value of nerdiness. He claims that being a nerd is "not just OK but something wonderful" by citing examples of himself and his two sons. His family has three nerds and all of them have achieved great result. The author was a chemical engineer and he is now a high school teacher. The older son knows four languages and joins the activities across Europe. Even better, the younger one graduates from high school, scores maximum on SAT and is invited to give a speech in front of hundreds of people. All these achievements come from the patience and long time endurance against the misunderstanding from classmates and even from teachers. In addition to support his argument, Tom Rogers also draws an analogy of nerds to some great scientists in human's history such as Thomas Panic, Newton, Tesla and Einstein. According to his argument, these geniuses are also nerds in term of the standards which our society nowadays considers. He claims that if these great men could acquire success by innovating the world, today's nerds also have attitude to do so.

However, while successfully describing the hardship which most nerds have to endure, Tom Rogers fails to explain his main idea of why being a nerd is not just acceptable but also a wonderful thing. His arguments are mainly supported by his own experience and his family's, which is too subjective to represent the voice of the whole nerd's community. At first, he considers himself a nerd