I guess I grew up with a different definition of "nerd". I was a child mostly of the '80s and I don't remember a "nerd culture" like what seems so oppressive now.
@amylsacks yeah, I just don't remember so much obsession with a nerdy "pecking order" until I got to college. Different people were into different things. Being the "wrong" sort of nerd was something I started to see on Usenet in the '90s.
@kara_dreamer You may be right that some of the worrying stuff was always there, but... yeah, either the internet amplifies all that... Or I was just so ecstatic to have a few like-minded people around me that I didn't notice it back then.