"Top Gun" is so last-century. Now nerds are on top of the heap, and being "Top Nerd" is best of all.
When the hottest, coolest thing around is fighter planes...
... it makes sense that the coolest dude around would be the best fighter pilot. This is what the 1986 movie "Top Gun" was all about.
Top Gun is macho alpha male behavior to the max. It's competitive guys who look at other capable guys as something in the spectrum of rival to enemy. Everyone else is just stuff to be vanquished in primal combat.
Fast-forward to 2011. When I walk around the streets, everyone who isn't about to be retired (and an amazing number of ones who are) is either plugged in, communicating via their portable device and/or (increasingly on buses and trains) absorbed in their e-readers. Advertising is rapidly shifting to digital media, and similar digital transformations are taking place in other domains. Are fighter planes at the heart of this world-wide, all-pervading transformation? Hardly. It's computers and the software who make them do what we want (mostly). And who's the fighter pilot for the computers? It's the people who write the software; in other words, it's nerds!
This is a really good changing of the guard. With rare exceptions, nerds are much nicer people than "Top Gun" types. Nerds are much more interested in learning and accomplishing things than non-nerds. Cooperation and collaboration are characteristics that are well within nerd-normal behavior. This is illustrated by the fact that when you've got a "Top Gun," you've often got a bunch of bitter, defeated rivals, while "Top Nerd" is normally designated by acclamation by hard-working, admiring fellow nerds.
In my opinion, this is a good thing. Good for nerds, and good for the world.
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