I have never called myself a nerd. I don’t think this stems from any inherent coolness that I may (or likely don’t) possess, but instead I lack the basic skills needed to be a nerd. Sure, I suppose I have always been smart, even bookish at times but I lack that obsessive thirst for knowledge that pushes people to understand the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, learn MS-DOS or choreograph historically accurate sword fights. Nerd culture was born out of, and I am making generalizations here, a need to escape from a world that was unfair, unjust and plotting against them. Patton Oswalt wrote in a great article on nerd culture and says,

I was too young to drive or hold a job. I was never going to play sports, and girls were an uncrackable code. So, yeah—I had time to collect every Star Wars action figure, learn the Three Laws of Robotics, memorize Roy Batty’s speech from the end of Blade Runner, and classify each monster’s abilities and weaknesses in TSR Hobbies’ Monster Manual. 

So there was a disparity, the cool kids never needed Star Wars or graphic novels, sure they could enjoy them and many did, but it was not necessary. They did not build their identities on these things, that was already pretty well wrapped up in being “cool”. 

Now fast forward and oh how the times have changed. Nerd culture is accepted, nay celebrated and pervades everything we do. The internet has changed business, and those “nerds” from high school now have substantial buying power, hence pieces of their culture is becoming pop culture. Most recently I think the whole “#menswear” trend is driven almost completely by nerd culture, let me explain. 

People often call bullshit on me when I say I don’t love the whole #menswear trend, but it’s true. As I mentioned before, one of the tenets of nerd culture is the ability to meticulously research a topic down to the minutia of its culture, and that is exactly what #menswear has become. It is a research driven, rules structured culture of those who know what the right brands and and those who don’t, and it’s boring. It seems like everyone is trying to one-up each other by finding more and more obscure brands. It is like a geeked out extension of the Fashion vs Style argument. Style is brand independent and fashion is brand dependent. In the same way #menswear cred is built on knowledge while style hinges on intangible, inherent “coolness”.

The thing I have always loved about clothes was what they said about the person wearing them. This person dresses like a prep because, well they are. That person wears tailored suits because they feel powerful when they walk across a restaurant, their step springing a bit more than the rest of the men. This dude wears flannel out because he doesn’t care about fashion, cheers to him! What worries me is #menswear (and #menswear bloggers) are pushing this visual homogenization that is at best sad and at worst dangerous. It’s like everyone is playing dress up. Dress up like an english businessman, now like a lumberjack, now like a Swedish sheep farmer and finally an Italian ship builder. See it is insincere, most people are not outdoorsman, nor a Moroccan Princes or an English pheasant farmers but they dress like them everyday on the internet.  

I guess I am trying to say I suck at #menswear. I don’t care about english tweeds or dead stock wool and I could care less about wearing “the right” things. My pants might be a bit tight, my jackets short and my collars aren’t even cutaways. I just fundamentally lack what is needed to give a shit about any of that. Clothes can be an amazing manifestation of a person’s personality, but if you only wear what people on the internet tell you to, you are doing it wrong. Be confident, be yourself, the rest is fashion and it’s boring.