How to Make a Nerd

The 1980s gave nerds a space in popular culture, usually as the butt of a joke or the enemy of jocks. But there was also a strain of nerd-fear, a sense that in the near future these nerds would take over and non-nerds would be punished. Their large nerd brains were up to God knows what: Matthew Broderick nearly set off a nuclear war and Val Kilmer subverted the beverage industry by making his own currency.