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Computers.
Not even computer games, although that would have added bonus points as a target for bullying, but using a computer in general.
Then again, bullying was more of an attitude thing during my youth, so you didn't get bullied for you hobbies, but for your behavior.
Ugly geeky kids were left alone if they hung out with other geeky kids. They got bullied as soon as they tried to associate themselves with the cool kids.
That took me a while to think about.
Well the other kids thought those of us playing Dungeons and Dragons in the early 80s were nerds. Didn't help that we also made the best grades. We also didn't dress like the cool kids. It's hard to separate all of the factors that caused us to get bullied.
There used to be this hierarchy of nerdy stuff. The comic nerds looked down on the war gaming nerds who looked down on the tabletop nerds who looked down on the larpers. As a comic reading, war gaming, roleplaying, larper I always thought it was weird.
which is funny because that's in ascending order of social activity
For me it was the wargaming nerds looking down on the CCG nerds originally. Warhammer was fine, we were the cool nerds (lol). Magic The Gathering was not. Hell, even the anime nerds were better than the Magic nerds.
Then it was the "virtually anything else but..." nerds looking down on the Starcraft clan. No one liked them, even if we played Starcraft too. Forming a school clan was just, death to anything else.
This is what I hate about any kind of hobby culture and have always been hesitant to identify as any. The amount of toxicity that comes out of what is supposed to be entertainment is unreal.
So many people demand respect for their esoteric obsessions yet refuse to respect anyone else's. Like, in the end none of it matters so just enjoy what you like doing and let others enjoy what they like doing. Why bother spending your limited time and energy hating on stuff when you can just ignore it?
People are people. Some decided long ago that tearing others down is the same as building yourself up. If it's going to happen anyway, I try not to let them spoil my fun. Luckily the next generation seems to be better about it, and even when there's so many jerks their's always better people having their fun.
interesting anecdote!
Food. At lunch having βexoticβ food was weird and you got teased for not having a bland sandwich.
Look at this fuckin nerd with his bento box
In my school (back in my day), exotic was a taco.
xenophobic af of 'em
I don't think there was any actual bullying because of it (I'm not American, school was pretty nice and my memories are almost entirely positive, lol) and I don't think it's become any less nerdy but Magic the Gathering was certainly my nerdiest passion growing up. And yes, there was a hierarchy: the Beyblade kids were less nerdy than the Yu Gi Oh kids, who were less nerdy than the MtG kids. π π
fuck we held beyblade tournaments so often in kindergarten
then it got shamed, playing marbles and trading pokemon cards were the cool. not playing with em or even making up how to. yugioh cards were less cool. digimon cards were the uncoolest like bully material
Oh shit I forgot PokΓ©mon cards! But yeah, Beyblade was top notch, I was letting it rip for a good year IIRC. π
British comedy like Monty Python
Also Dr Who. Our school had a kid who wore a big Tom Baker scarf and hat everyday. I hope he's doing well.
Really, people got shunned for watching Monty Python in the 80s and 70s?
It wasn't so much that there was a stigma against watching Monty Python per se. It's that it became sort of inextricably linked with a certain type of kid who became obsessed with it, could (and frequently would) recite all the lines of the movies from memory, and would tend to be a little obnoxious about their fandom. They were usually nerdy kids who already weren't well liked by the more popular cliques, and aggressively shouting lines from Holy Grail at people wasn't helping matters. Like, my friends and I loved those movies, but I guess not as much as the theater kids who were galloping around the school on imaginary horses shouting, "Ni!" at people and demanding a shrubbery.
We all know that person...
And that person is the most obnoxious one to have around. They're the people who on YouTube, would create lego reenactments of the scenes from that movie and everything. It's like their entire form of communicating is just being quirky set to 11 and making numerous quotes from anything they've watched and heard.
I see!
Shunned? No.
Mocked? Yes.
Why? How come? I never imagined either would be the case
For the same reason as anime: it was unusual, foreign, and associated with nerds