We need more nerds.

I have spent a lot of time, effort, blood, sweat, and tears hating Taylor Swift’s music. As a person - fine, whatever, I’m sure she’s just like every other millionaire out there that earned their money through fame. In other words, I’m sure she’s a emotionally underdeveloped, sycophant-loving woman-child with almost sociopathic tendencies. Nothing too crazy there. Heck, she might even still have a heart and care for her fans, which would be pleasantly surprising.

But her music was the thing that made me mad. I would spend hours lecturing any poor soul around me about how it was insipid, or derivative, or over-wordy. I’d complain about her reedy voice and self-centered writing style. I’d even go on a diatribe about how her production values weren’t that good, that the structure of her songs were repetitive and predictable.

But as I get older and even closer to complete grey-ness and irrelevancy (actually, I’ve already achieved the last part), I realize that it’s just stupid to spend so much time hating something so inconsequential. In fact, I am starting to realize that the whole Swiftie phenomenon is great, because it’s that rarest of things.

Being a Swiftie is just being a nerd, and we all need to embrace our inner nerd.

Let’s define “nerd” in a way that makes more sense to everyone. It’s not just the stereotypical glasses-wearing shrimp that all the mastheads loved to pick on in gym class (although it can be!). It’s not just some anime-pillow-hugging wanna-be-Japanese freshman finally able to spread their wings because they’re free of their parents (although it can be!). It’s not even just the airplane-loving blond six-year-old with prominent front teeth who memorized Jane’s World Aircraft Identification Encyclopedia instead of making actual human friends (not that I know anything about that last one, nope).

Being a nerd means simply loving something so much that you aren’t afraid of diving into it with all of your heart and soul. It means immersing yourself in the world of, say, Indonesian cuisine to the point that you have a bookshelf full of tangentially-related obscure guides to the different curries offered in one smaller city on western Borneo. And you are proud of it. And you lecture your long-suffering friends about it every chance you get.

Nerd-dom is feeling unashamed about delving into a topic without any reserves. You don’t hold back. You look down upon a sea of information and history and realize that, instead of being worried about drowning in the deep, you’ve found home. That there are other people out there who live, eat, and dream diesels, or ballet, or football, or Slobavian Pre-Revolutionary folk music.

I say I’m a nerd about a few things, but that’s a cop-out and it worries me. I should have the chutzpah to commit to a nerd-dom. I should be willing to ignore all of my half-pursuits - photography, chess, RC airplanes - in the name of a complete obsession with writing, guitar, cooking, or cars. I can’t seem to find it within me to define myself by my love of working on my Mercedes, or writing guitar instrumentals, or creating new and probably-not poisonous dishes to inflict upon my family. I’ve always had a problem with committing all the way to anything, except for my marriage, fatherhood, and my love of cheese.

That brings up a good point, and maybe why I do tend to judge some Swifties. My absolutely addiction to cheese is definitely something that defines me. I’ve spent time and money not only eating the heavenly stuff, but also buying books about it, talking to people about it, dedicating whole days of a trip to finding an obscure creamery… but all that doesn’t mean I’m a nerd.

A mega-fan, maybe. However, a nerd has to create something related to their obsession in order to really wear that crown. Have I come up with a new and exciting type of cheese? I’ll answer that with another question - do you really think that I’d still be teaching if that were my skill? Heck no. I’d be living knee-deep in Holstein poo, smelling like rotten milk and looking like an extra from Deliverance.

No, all I do is consume cheese, and therefore I’m not a nerd. Now, those Swifties that obsessively track Tay-tay’s every move and create websites cataloging each pair of shoes they’ve seen her wear as they scour the gossip magazines? I could consider that a nerd. (And a stalker.) And the fans that make lovingly appliquéd “I Love Taylor” tee-shirts made of cat hair, used barrettes, and unidentified blood? They’re nerds. They make the world a little more messy, a little more human. They make it a lot more rich, and that’s always good.

What I appreciate about that level of bat-crap crazy is that they are taking it to the next level. You’re not a nerd if you can go and pick up the ingredients for your nerdiness at Target or Costco. You’re not a nerd if you just buy a bunch of cheese while on a trip. You’re not a nerd if you just say “oh, I’m such a nerd about shoes! I just buy so many!”. No, a real nerd would make those shoes themselves, and although they would be ugly and misshapen, they would be made with love, and they would be that nerd’s special symbol of their love for shoes.

Taking your love of something to an almost obsessive level - but hopefully stopping before it becomes a detriment to having a nicely balanced life! - is just so refreshing to see. I see it all the time in my best students, the ones who really like learning, regardless of their grades. All of the richest, most interesting students are the ones who find the time to really love something, not just go through the motions of life. I see it all the time in the AP-level kids, but I see it all the way on down to the ones who are struggling to get a passing grade.

If you’ve met a teenager that actually still has a personality, I guarantee they’re a nerd about something. Oh, they might hate that word. They might get mad at you for calling them that. But the running back who knows all the stats of his favorite team going back decades is just as much of a nerd as the kid playing Pokemon in the next row, and that should be something we teach them to celebrate.

Why? Because being a nerd means having a passion, and a kid with a passion is a kid who will know where to go in life when all else fails. Whatever their academic talents may be, when I see a student who knows what they love, I know that there won’t be a time in their life that they feel lost, not really.

What does this make those who love us? Aren’t they nerds… but just about us? Because they help create who we are. Doesn’t that make them the best nerds of all?

Go out and nerd in peace, friends.