Shell Shocked: Nerd immunity
All of us are relieved to know that the vaccines for Covid-19 work so well that we’re now allowed to remove our masks in public.
But there seems to be a lot of confusion as to where and when we can do so. There are still many of us who haven’t gotten vaccinated as yet. Does this mean that even those of us who haven’t been vaccinated as yet will still be safe if they don’t wear masks in public?
While waiting for the Biden administration and the CDC to provide clearer guidelines we still have to deal with one segment of our population that may hold the key to our survival — and that is the nerd community.
Nerds have gotten a bad rep. If you characterize someone you know as a nerd, this implies that that person is dull, focused on computer technology, is limited in his range of experience and is a boring social being. Many current movies now include nerd characters as sidekicks to the lead actors. Do you remember the actors Tony Randall and Gig Young? They were always the male leads’ best friends but were never considered nerds.
The actor Jonah Hill has specialized in playing nerds — guys who yearn for the lead actress in a movie but rarely wind up with them. A nerd is a second fiddle, someone in the background, a wall flower. Until Mark Zuckerberg.
As you well know, Zuckerberg founded Facebook and is a multi-billionaire and is still only thirty-seven years old. He started out as a nerd and most likely still is. But what a remarkable nerd he is. He’s rich, famous and brilliant. And by the way, the more a nerd is anti-social, the more brilliant he is and likely to be a billionaire by age twenty-five.
But do you ever hear nerds admit that they’re nerds? Rarely. They will never admit that women tend to shy away from them and that few people want to hear them speak. But Mark Zuckerberg is the exception nerd. When he speaks we listen even though we have to strain our ears to hear him.
What most of us don’t realize is that there’s such a thing as nerd immunity. This means that nerds tend to single each other out to avoid becoming totally ostracized by the rest of us. They have their own language, usually in the form of apps. And they tend to form companies with one another to become billionaires. Not every billionaire is a nerd, mind you, but many nerds happen to be billionaires.
This brings us back to nerd immunity, which has nothing to do with herd immunity. The concept behind herd immunity is that if enough people are vaccinated then the Covid virus wouldn’t have any place to go anymore and would vanish. Nerd immunity is when there too many nerds in the population causing the rest of us to become dull and socially inept. Make no mistake. Some very powerful billionaires are nerd derivatives and wield a great deal of power and influence.
We become nerds when we sit at our computers multiple hours each day. The Covid pandemic has seen to it that all of us have had to spend more time at home during the past year or so. This leads to turning to the computer for fun and excitement. The more time we spend at our computers the duller we become. And the duller we become the more we become nerds. And the more we become nerds, the more likely that nerd immunity will prevail and dramatically alter the social wellbeing of all Americans.
It should be obvious to you by now that we should avoid a nerd pandemic at all costs. Our future depends on it. Do you want your children to be born with thick glasses or holding a charger? Do you want your teenagers to avoid sports and human contact and be content to stay home and collect stamps, dabble at software programming and shun social settings?
We must act now or else nerd immunity will overtake herd immunity as the number one issue of our time. Wouldn’t you rather have a robot in your home than a nerd?