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Aug. 1st, 2020 01:39 pmThere was post on the Am I The Asshole twitter today that boiled down to "Am I The Asshole for believing this girl who has been part of my SUPER NERD friend group for two years has been faking it and giving her a "nerd test" to show that she's not worthy".
(The answer is, of course, yes. Apparently he asked a question wrong and she schooled him on it, then the whole friend group found him annoying and when he demanded of his friends "her or me" they all went with the non-gatekeepy asshole. He is very angry that AITA reddit does not think he is in the right rather than this terrible imposter-girl.)
ANYways, one of the things I find dearly annoying (besides...all of it) is the assumption that "nerd" has a clear canonical set of information which you can test on. One of the things that I like about nerds is how "nerd" implies passion in niche interests and there are _so many_ of those you have no idea.
To that end, I've written my own test. I expect this "king of the nerds" to be able to answer every question 100% correctly! Please feel free to add your own nerdy test questions, so we can have as broad a representation of nerdship as possible!
1) How many years has it been since the Abrasax Matriarch was killed, and which of her heirs did it? (I'll even give you a hint and say this is from Jupiter Ascending)
2) On http://fanfiction.net, who are the three men most likely to be shipped with Hermione Granger? Bonus points if you can identify the name she took on in My Immortal. (And does it differ on Archive Of Our Own?)
3) When knitting a cabled sweater such as the one worn by Chris Evans in Knives Out, how many yards of yarn can you expect to need for each sleeve? (NGL, I don't actually know the answer to this and I do know it depends on size and cables, so assume you're knitting for Chris Evans. But then again, I've been calling myself a fake geek girl for *years* so I have no ego lost in not knowing the answer to this very nerdy question!)
4) Hooper's Jig is well known for its "clap". On what bar should the dancers clap? (oo, this one is a trick question! I hope I don't lose my own nerd card for wording it badly!)
5) Primrose is almost identical to another bellringing method. Which method and what is the difference? (This is the most recent bit of bellringing lore I have learned, so I'm excited about it)
6) The most recent Animal Crossing game has almost four hundred villagers. Name ten who have stuck through the series since the first game! (This might also be a trick question, I don't know how often villagers "retire")
7) Name the five most common animals used in fursonas. For bonus points, name one of the three most common hybrids. (my roommate has linked me to an entire broad research website about this, with datasets in the thousands, so uh, this is probably pretty close to the answer)
8) The harvestman is an arachnid but not a spider, despite being commonly assumed to be. What's another (less badass) name for this spindly-legged beastie?
9) To date, how many characters from the October Daye books have we met who are named for months of the year, and which months are represented?
10) Name five webcomics that have at least 1000 comics in their archives.
***
Note that while the topics were about as broad as I could make them (with an absolute minimum of thinking work), the questions within those topics were trying to be relatively simple --I'm sure you can answer most of these with a couple minutes on a search engine. I would love to hear your additions --a broad-but-not-deep nerd test for all!
((also, the humour here should be *mocking* gatekeepers, not *being* gatekeepers. I am not upset if you cannot answer my questions! I can't even answer all my questions! Nerdship is _so huge and broad_ that no one can hit all of it, that's the point! To that end, I have put answers to all the ones I know in the first comment1 to this post.))
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Okay, unless one of y'all is real quick.
(The answer is, of course, yes. Apparently he asked a question wrong and she schooled him on it, then the whole friend group found him annoying and when he demanded of his friends "her or me" they all went with the non-gatekeepy asshole. He is very angry that AITA reddit does not think he is in the right rather than this terrible imposter-girl.)
ANYways, one of the things I find dearly annoying (besides...all of it) is the assumption that "nerd" has a clear canonical set of information which you can test on. One of the things that I like about nerds is how "nerd" implies passion in niche interests and there are _so many_ of those you have no idea.
To that end, I've written my own test. I expect this "king of the nerds" to be able to answer every question 100% correctly! Please feel free to add your own nerdy test questions, so we can have as broad a representation of nerdship as possible!
1) How many years has it been since the Abrasax Matriarch was killed, and which of her heirs did it? (I'll even give you a hint and say this is from Jupiter Ascending)
2) On http://fanfiction.net, who are the three men most likely to be shipped with Hermione Granger? Bonus points if you can identify the name she took on in My Immortal. (And does it differ on Archive Of Our Own?)
3) When knitting a cabled sweater such as the one worn by Chris Evans in Knives Out, how many yards of yarn can you expect to need for each sleeve? (NGL, I don't actually know the answer to this and I do know it depends on size and cables, so assume you're knitting for Chris Evans. But then again, I've been calling myself a fake geek girl for *years* so I have no ego lost in not knowing the answer to this very nerdy question!)
4) Hooper's Jig is well known for its "clap". On what bar should the dancers clap? (oo, this one is a trick question! I hope I don't lose my own nerd card for wording it badly!)
5) Primrose is almost identical to another bellringing method. Which method and what is the difference? (This is the most recent bit of bellringing lore I have learned, so I'm excited about it)
6) The most recent Animal Crossing game has almost four hundred villagers. Name ten who have stuck through the series since the first game! (This might also be a trick question, I don't know how often villagers "retire")
7) Name the five most common animals used in fursonas. For bonus points, name one of the three most common hybrids. (my roommate has linked me to an entire broad research website about this, with datasets in the thousands, so uh, this is probably pretty close to the answer)
8) The harvestman is an arachnid but not a spider, despite being commonly assumed to be. What's another (less badass) name for this spindly-legged beastie?
9) To date, how many characters from the October Daye books have we met who are named for months of the year, and which months are represented?
10) Name five webcomics that have at least 1000 comics in their archives.
***
Note that while the topics were about as broad as I could make them (with an absolute minimum of thinking work), the questions within those topics were trying to be relatively simple --I'm sure you can answer most of these with a couple minutes on a search engine. I would love to hear your additions --a broad-but-not-deep nerd test for all!
((also, the humour here should be *mocking* gatekeepers, not *being* gatekeepers. I am not upset if you cannot answer my questions! I can't even answer all my questions! Nerdship is _so huge and broad_ that no one can hit all of it, that's the point! To that end, I have put answers to all the ones I know in the first comment1 to this post.))
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Okay, unless one of y'all is real quick.