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What are some ways you've generally handled know-it-all nerds? The kind that gatekeep the concept of being highly intelligent? They've taken advantage of me all my life because I'm unconfident. (hexbear.net)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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CW sexual assault, physical assault Growing up, I've been repeatedly assaulted and harassed by know it all's. That's how upsettingly nerdy they were about gatekeeping the autonomy of thinking for myself. Because they wanted to violate the most intimate of boundaries, and not have me fight back. They wanted control and power over me in every way. To play pretend that they were all powerful and intelligent wizards.

I see a lot of communists on here saying things that might lead to them being stigmatized, and I want to be able to do that more. You guys shut down nerdiness. I've been conditioned to have controlling nerd voices in my head, and automatically let them convince me out of setting boundaries and speaking up for what I believe in. Now I'm my own controlling nerd, and I don't want to be. I want to walk the right path regardless of how stigmatized it may be.

How do you shut down nerds? Especially when their opinions are antihuman? If you don't care about piggypoopballs opinions, what are your reasons for not caring?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I hold my hand up like I'm wearing a sock puppet and match its movements to their speech so it's like the imaginary sock puppet is talking instead of them.
I also do it any time I just want to annoy someone. It works especially well if they're talking to someone else and you hold the "puppet" just behind their shoulder so they can tell everyone's attention isn't quite on them.

Edit: Also when they tell you to stop deny all knowledge of what they're talking about, and give the hand a "get a load of this guy" look. One of the key parts is that you don't need to worry about how to respond or falling over your words, you're just mocking them with the worst, lowest effort ventriloquist act ever conceived, while making completely implausible denials. It's basically being stonewalled by an actual clown.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That's behavior you'd see in a show I love called Black Books. The three main characters are usually drunk and not giving a shit about most things they're doing. Two are all about avoiding effort where effort isn't needed, and I admire it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

You're right, I can definitely see Bernard doing something like that.