The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [174]
• Eli likely will find that people will respect his curiosity and his dedication to lifelong learning much more in college than his high school classmates did. His earnestness, vast knowledge, and determination to stay the course, even in the face of multifaceted pressure to be “normal,” are qualities that many adults will find impressive.
• Outside of school, Regan has already found admirers of her policy to be candid and open, even when her honesty gets her in trouble. Both personally and in her new career path, adults will continue to treasure her authenticity, outspokenness, and compassion, as well as her warm acceptance of other people’s unique qualities.
• Even the traits for which the preps excluded Whitney—her ability to wear multiple hats, her refusal to continue being cruel, her alternative sense of style, the charisma that enabled her to befriend students from other groups—will benefit her in college and beyond.
All of these people also demonstrated inspiring qualities that are generally representative of cafeteria fringe across the country. For example, the outsiders did not waste time repainting their images to increase their popularity. In the end, they stayed true to themselves, asserting their uniqueness in the environment that makes it most challenging to do so. Remaining nonconformist in the face of intense social pressure, if not outright harassment, takes dedication, drive, and as previously discussed, courage.
It is not the labels themselves that make these individuals unique and admirable. Blue is not extraordinary because he is a gamer. He is extraordinary because he is Blue. But so many of the students whose labels signify their lack of perceived popularity—emos, indies, freaks, nerds, scenes, loners, floaters, skaters, punks, all manner of geeks and dorks—someday are going to derive practical and/or social advantages from attributes that qualified them for those labels in the first place. Geeks profit from their technological know-how. Emos might be in touch with their feelings and others’, and unafraid to show and empathize with those emotions. Scenes and indies often influence the cutting edge of cultural movements. Gamers, adept at problem solving, engage in ventures of successful “collective intelligence,” researchers say, because of their collaborative efforts, on forums, blogs, and wikis, to understand the games. As game designer and award-winning innovator Jane McGonigal has argued, these “collective knowledge–building” efforts could be applied to real-world issues.
Freaks are often creative and perhaps the boldest of the cafeteria fringe because they display their distinctions openly with pride. Skaters and punks are frequently underestimated; their sense of artistry suggests the inventiveness they could bring to other endeavors. Dorks might exhibit a childlike goofiness that endears them to adults who are young at heart, and the often-appreciated quality of not taking themselves too seriously.5 Loners may be the most self-aware people in school, with the introspectiveness that allows them to work through identity issues long before their peers. And floaters are already skilled at adult-style social networking, able to converse and connect with different people, and instrumental in transmitting information, culture, and ideas across various groups. Indeed, the number of floaters in a school setting increases with age.
A closer look at any cafeteria fringe label reveals quirk theory at work. Consider the nerds, perhaps the most widely persecuted outcasts in school. What makes them nerds? Here is a series of descriptions from David Anderegg’s book Nerds. They exhibit “some combination of school success, interest in precision, unself-consciousness, closeness to adults, and interest in fantasy. . . . The weird enthusiasms, the willingness to cooperate with adults, the lack of social skills—all these things seem nerdy