Summary

Leipzig-based German media theorist Annekatherin Kohout has written a ‚cultural studies’ history of the nerd figure. Nerds, Eine Popkulturgeschichte was published in 2022 by C.H. Beck in Munich. I was drawn to this study as I’ve been surrounded by nerds, geeks and programmers that have been building and maintaining my dear medium, the internet, over the past three decades. To my surprise, the study does not take us to hackathons, Discord channels or the Chaos Computer Congress. Instead, it looks at the visual representation of this techno-figure in mainstream media such as film and television. Maybe that’s something to be proud of. From now on, nerds also have their own pop culture history. In my worldview, Hollywood screenwriters and television directors remain clueless about clumsy cyberculture and have mainly produced caricatures. But that’s not Kohouts take. For her, the representation of nerds in pop culture is key if we want to get a better understanding of the dynamics of mainstreaming digital culture.