Peter Principle restated

It’s named after Peter the blogger; I didn’t get it entirely right the first time, so here it goes again.

The Peter Principle states that non-athletic activities which only men participate in, yet are not viewed as traditionally masculaine, are the nerdiest activities.

Tinkering with cars is given as an example of a non-nerdy activity because it’s traditionally masculine.

On the other hand, playing Dungeons and Dragons is nerdy because it’s non-traditional but only males participate in it.

* * *

But what about chess? Men have been playing chess even longer than they’ve been tinkering with cars, but chess is considered nerdy. Chess isn’t quite as nerdy as playing Dungeons and Dragons, but it’s still a lot nerdier than tinkering with cars.

Dungeons and Dragons was first published in 1974, so now it’s 35 years old. How much longer before it becomes traditional? If it’s like chess, we may have to wait a long time.

What about Renaissance Fairs? This seems like a pretty nerdy activity to me, yet women go to them.

I do think that Peter is onto something, but the principle needs a few more qualifications. At the very least, non-athletic activities with overwhelmingly male participation are at risk of being considered nerdy.

Comments

[The Engineer]

Dude, D&D is considering nerdy because NERDS DO IT!

Nerds don't tinker with their cars, so that's not considered nerdy.

Nerds play chess, so it's considered nerdy.

Is this really so difficult?

[HS: Even if your theory is true, at the very least we’ve learned that nerds aren’t attracted to activities which women are also interested in.]

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

Chess is a strange case because it's popular in perhaps the least nerdy environment this side of an NFL luxury box: namely, prison. Inmates have been playing chess for ages. I'm sure you've noticed the skells playing chess for money in the southwest corner of Washington Square Park. From what I've heard, most or all of them are ex-cons who picked up the game while guests of the state.

Renaissance faires are also sort of sui generis. While they do attract many women, the women who attend aren't interested in the men who attend. Given the way that many women dress in, ahem, highly revealing manners, it must be extremely frustrating for the men. The men who participate in the jousting tournaments probably are exceptions to the scorned-by-women rule, as that is a physically demanding, athletic activity.

Peter

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

By the way, as much as I appreciate your use of the term Peter Principle, it is a bit misleading. The Peter Principle is a well-recognized sociological/economic concept that has absolutely nothing to do with me.

Perhaps "The Peter Rule" would be more appropriate.

Peter

[RP-in-TX]

When we eventually have cars with electric drivetrains and computer controlled drive-by-wire, then tinkering with cars will become nerdy too.

[Henceforth Danforth]

The principle seems to teeter on the verge of tautology. Nerdy is antithetical to masculine, so yeah, no kidding that male-dominated non-athletic* and non-masculine activities are considered nerdy (if they are considered at all).

Perhaps a counter-example is fantasy football. Yes, nerds play this (they were the first ones to do so), but so do socially normal people who used to play sports. It's nerdier than actually playing (or just passively watching), but much less nerdy than chess. But if you bring in a broad scale of nerdiness in order to save the principle, you risk making it meaningless.

* - I'd make it non-competitive, since even activities that are not that physically challenging (cart ball) are not considered nerdy.

[Rain And]

I'd also object to the fact that Peter is a blogger. A blog commentator, sure. But I'm not sure the diary thing you link to is intended for people other than himself to read.

I think you guys are overestimating how much women care about what men do. If they are attracted to their boyfriends, their boyfriend's hobbies are just some cute thing their boyfriend does. Unless the hobby is starting to seriously interfere with his ambition or broader social status.

D&D is an outlier, in that almost exclusively unattractive men participate in it, but I did know a normal, masculine guy who was into "Magic the Gathering" and he had an attractive girlfriend. So it probably has more to do with the guys who participate in the activities than the activities themselves.

[Doug]

What about drug experimentation? A large majority of drug users are male, and many popular drugs have only become recreationally popular around the same time as D&D (e.g. marijuana, LSD, ketamine, ecstasy). What about things that I wouldn't consider athletic, but are dangerous like skydiving, scuba diving, motorcycling or hang gliding (not sure about this, this might take a lot strength/dexterity to do)? These things are certainly non-traditional.

I would instead say that male activities that are not nerdy are those that effectively signal some evolutionarily valued fitness to females. Athletics qualifies because it signals strength and endurance. Music qualifies because it signals rhythm, charisma, dexteriy and popularity (if played to an audience). Drug use and dangerous activities qualifies because participating in (perceived) dangerous activities is the oldest form of evolutionary signaling known. The idea being that if a specimen has survived he must be fit. The whole reason males have a lot more testosterone is because it weakens the immune system, thus the more testosterone a man has, the fitter he must be to have survived).

Chess and D&D don't qualify because human females have not evolved to select mates on the ability to move tiny little peices around a board or calculate critical hits. Same reason math, science, LARPing, video games and Civil War reenactments are nerdy. They don't display qualities that females have been evolved to select on.

It should also be noted that, human females are evolutionarily programmed to find males attractive that other females find attractive. This leaves a good degree of path dependence in the culture. If something starts out with many females finding attractive then it will tend to maintain its momentum, in contrast something that gets into a slump where females consider lower status will tend to stay there. Consider the difference between baseball versus swimmers in the United States. Swimming requires much more of the athletic prowess than baseball that women sexually select on (to demonstrate this identify who's bodies women find more attractive context-less, almost always fit, trim swimmers rather than over-sized, beer-bellied slovenly baseball players). But baseball has become our national past time, athletic achievement in baseball will be more valued than swimming at all levels from high school to professional participation.

[Rain And]

And even though I doubt women care much about playing chess versus tinkering with cars, at least the latter is practical. Women appreciate practical abilities, and mostly don't appreciate abstract interests that are not applied to status pursuits. If you're toying with an engine, at least you might be able to take care of her and fix her car one day. If you're playing too much chess, and not making much money from it, you're just kind of a bum.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

"The principle seems to teeter on the verge of tautology. Nerdy is antithetical to masculine, so yeah, no kidding that male-dominated non-athletic* and non-masculine activities are considered nerdy (if they are considered at all)."

One way to lessen the tautology is to focus instead on womens' reactions to men who participate in these activities. In other words, rather than saying that D&D is nerdy, we could say that women reject men who play D&D.

As for fantasy sports, it's been my impression that fantasy baseball is the nerdiest type (here goes that word again, sorry), possibly due to the sport's focus on statistics. The fantasy version of the Most Important Sport in the World is far less nerdy, which makes sense given the sport's association with pure testosterone-dripping masculinity. And of course even fantasy baseball is far more masculine than things like WoW or D&D.

Peter

[Emrys]

How about

"Non-physical activities that primarily require non-verbal mental abilities are considered nerdy."

Art is an exception to this, but could be worked into the definition somehow.

[Mike]

The answer is: if it requires (primarily) the use of the brain, it is "nerdy." If it requires (primarily) the use of the hands, it is "masculine." Bonus points also exist to tip the scale if it is (a) big or (b)makes loud noises.

Working on cars is "masculine" because it involves working primarily with hands, on big objects that make loud noises. Working on computers is cerebral, primarily. Working with theater sound systems, while making loud noises, is cerebral. Playing chess, or other board games, is cerebral.

It is a genetic structure dating to the time before science, when physical strength was valued over brainpower. "Nerdy", e.g. "not pack leader behavior", is cerebral. "Pack Leader" behavior is proving you are strong enough to be a dick to other people around you and to beat them down if they decide to have a differing opinion of your actions.

[Kevin K]

I think it has something to do with imagining yourself doing something, rather than actually doing it. When you go hunting, you are hunting an actual deer. When you are hunting a night elf in a video game, you are just simulating the process. When you dress up and go to Renn faire you are actually creating a costume versus rolling 3 six-sided dice for your strength score. Risk and chess are seen as imagining warfare versus say joining the marines or learning to shoot a gun.

Being in the audience isn't considered nerdy, since women enjoy being entertained and can relate to it. I think that's why watching sports is ok.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

"What about things that I wouldn't consider athletic, but are dangerous like skydiving, scuba diving, motorcycling or hang gliding (not sure about this, this might take a lot strength/dexterity to do)? These things are certainly non-traditional."

When I used the term non-traditional I meant not within the customary definition of "guy stuff." In other words, the sorts of activities that just don't seem like the things men would find interesting (yes, I know this is getting rather touchy-feely). Or the sorts of activities that fathers pass on to their sons. It's easy to visualize a man taking his 10-year-old son for a day of fishing. It's a lot harder to visualize a man and his son spending 12 hours a day playing WoW ... not that an adult WoW addict would have a child, but you know what I mean.

As for the four activities you cite (sky diving, scuba diving, motorcycling and hang gliding), they're hardly in the same category as D&D or WoW or sci-fi conventions. All involve some physical risk, require some level of physical fitness, and with the possible exception of hang gliding attract a fair number of women as participants.

You make an interesting point as to the difference in women's reactions toward swimmers vs. baseball players. I have heard that the term "swimmer's build" is a common description in gay men's personal ads.

Peter

[HS: Fathers often teach their kids how to play chess, or take them to sci-fi movies.]

[Hipple Dipple Swipple]

"I'd also object to the fact that Peter is a blogger. A blog commentator, sure. But I'm not sure the diary thing you link to is intended for people other than himself to read."

LOL

Thanks for the chuckle.

[Bellisaurius]

Assuming the function of the nerd tag is to encourage people to pursue more traditional and and standard roles in society (ie those that other people can understand) via negative social pressure, the real test is probably more along the lines of "will this get you things that will make you more popular, and therefore make you a more valuable friend/son etc..."

Things that would make someone more popular for a boy would of course include activities that get girls (although I would say that's a coincident indicator), money (which could conceivably include some intellectual activities), or show off some kind of physical biological skill (which would exclude predominantly intellectual activities).

Of course, if one goes by the theory that nerd activities are defined as a sort of uber SWPL, then it would seem social pressure is really about not sticking out too much.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

"I'd also object to the fact that Peter is a blogger. A blog commentator, sure. But I'm not sure the diary thing you link to is intended for people other than himself to read."

It's not a private diary. Anyone is welcome to read it, though it's not likely to be of much interest if you don't commute by train.

Peter

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

[Non-physical activities that primarily require non-verbal mental abilities are considered nerdy.]

"Art is an exception to this, but could be worked into the definition somehow."

Art is non-nerdy because many women participate. Also, the creativity inherent in art (broadly defined) gives it a special character that takes it out of the realm of dweeb-dom.

Peter

[coldequation]

How about this? Activities that nerds engage in, and that normal guys don't engage in, are nerdy activities.

It sounds like a tautology, but it isn't. WoW and D&D are nerdy because nerds - slump-shouldered, overweight or underweight, Urkel-voiced, non-athletic guys with no fashion sense or confidence, etc - like them. It's not the activities, it's the people who play them. If pool or poker caught on big with nerds and fell out of favor with manly men, they would become nerdy activities.

Nerdiness is more internal than a function of your hobbies, though nerds tend to be attracted to particular hobbies.

If I'm right, the corollary to this is that a nerd is not going to stop being a nerd by avoiding nerdy hobbies, except inasmuch as this keeps him away from the influence of other nerds, or forces him to hang out with non-nerds who will influence him.

[Mike]

Having gone to conventions where D&D was played - it's amazing when you look into the D&D room. The spectrum of players is not even close to the "unathletic nerd" stereotype. I took a semiscientific poll (more than half the room, and visually realistic) and it turned out that approx. 30% of the attendees were in the armed forces or ROTC, 30% were also on sports teams of some sort or involved in other physical training (martial artists, marathon runners, etc), 20% were actually women spanning the gamut from "whoa, hot" to "whoa, hippo", and the rest were your "stereotypical nerd" looking guys... and their sons and daughters.

[Barry]

I think stereotypical nerds are far from stereotypical, and are based on one's own personal experiences. If you played D&D as a kid (or still do) and the vast majority of players that participated were unattractive guys, then that's who you assume is associated with the game all over the world.

I played for several years in college and even some after, and can personally attest that of all the players I played with, probably 30% were woman, and of all the players I played with - men or women - at least 75% would be considered at least nominally attractive to the opposite sex, some a great deal so, and nowhere near the social outcast that is such a stereotype of D&D "nerds".

So while the argument can be made whether D&D is a "nerdy" pursuit vs "non-nerdy" like football, some stereotypes simply do not hold up across the board as to who actually participates.

While the game may be "nerdy", playing it does not make you a "nerd". In fact, at the heart you really can't separate playing D&D from playing chess, checkers, Scrabble, Monopoly, Spades, Go Fish or even Poker (gasp! Poker is nerdy! Someone alert ESPN that they're airing a nerdy game from the Rio hotel in Las Vegas...)