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When I was in elementary D&D was a pretty popular thing, along with arcade games, banana boards and dirtbikes, but by the time we hit junior high D&D was uncool but most of the stuff that was 'cool' then like say U2, preppie clothes and The Breakfast Club seemed like weaksauce to me (no offense intended to anyone who liked that, it just wasn't what my slighly angry 14 year old self needed at the time).

We started playing D&D again more regularly in high school (grade 11/12 at that time). By then we were into punk, death metal, Sabbath, Black Flag, Bikini Kill, Sonic Youth, Kids in the Hall, Bergman, Fellini, samurai movies, Scorsese, Carpenter and Kubrick, Twin Peaks, trash horror movies and Russ Meyer so again what the 'squares' (yes we used that term, maybe we got it from Twin Peaks?) considered 'cool' didn't concern us too much.

I was a scrapper (although short, probably some Napoleon complex going on) so I didn't get picked on. But I had to verbally stick up for some of my friends on occasion in early junior high. The so-called 'jocks' at my school were all talk, they'd never mess with anyone who punched back. But that all soon ended because we had a friend who was huge, like 6' 5" and over 250 I'd guess, he was so big he had to get special shoes to fit him and had back problems at 17, who shaved his head and looked like he could eat you alive but who was really a gentle pussycat who had never had to throw a punch in his life because no one had ever dared mess with him.

Later on I met some punk and metal types who acted real macho and it always confused me as in my experience the kids who gravitated to that music were all nerdy and artsy kids, not macho.
 
As someone who has a variety of interests, some nerdy, some not, I find that people who think that people with nerdy hobbies like being D&D are "more accepting because they understand" are not accurate from my experience.

Lots of my more mainstream hobbies like enjoying sports gets constantly shit on by people within the nerd spheres.

The idea that everyone responds to bullying by being anti-bully, rather than a large portion of them just becoming bitter about it.. just doesn't ring true to me.
 
I think a large part of it is generational, to an extent.

A geek today did not go through the social issues of being a geek in the 70s-80s.
 
Also, hilariously, the number of tabletop gamers I've met who shit on Video games, like, even within geek culture people will try to bully other people.
 
I think it runs to people lacking social skills getting bullied and also getting into D&D. I mean the bullying was there before I got into D&D and it was there afterwards. And, yeah, I certainly was a sports hater. I went to very religious high school in a small town that had football and basketball teams that were serious contenders despite the size of the town. I've seen everything thrown on the altar of sports and everything sacrificed for the sake of the sports programs.
 
Bullying is just part of human nature, no one, particularly kids and teens, are immune to its attractions. I bullied some other kids when I was young and got bullied in turn.

In general the feeling of ressentiment and frustrated power/masculinity among nerds from being bullied or humiliated can be a powerful motivation and rationalization for bullying. That is why so many online video game 'communities' are full of pathetic internet toughguys.
 
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