you could probably make the argument that 2010 was the last time you could realistically pitch "harmless uncool nerds" as a believable stereotype as the "nerdconomy" was taking off right around then too

so basically in the 2000s nerds in public perception were still basically the Rick Moranis, Steve Urkle, revenge of the nerds conception, even by 2006 this was what a "nerd" was, they wore cackies and button downs & had pocket protectors and big glasses, basically Dwight Schrute

of course in real life nerds were kinda moving away from this and had been for a long time, basically around the mid-2000s the Internet was becoming a place more worth going to and easier to access, a thing made even bigger by the advent of stuff like Xbox online play

which was quickly creating this cross pollination of nerd interests between the various subsets of nerds, that kind of sinister self-involved power fantasy of the manipulative nerd has always existed, the "I'm bullied now but one day I'll be their boss" outlook

and that kind of "they hate me because I'm better than them, I don't have to change" mentality crossed over with a lot "Geek is a marginalized identity" thinking, which is basically how you careened full force into the evils of ironic racism & rationalism bro atheism

after all, you're a NERD, people were mean to you for playing DnD, that shared experience has given you such insight into the experience of marginalized people the very idea you'd be racist or homophobic is laughable, so it's okay if you make jokes about being bigoted ironically

this basically extends to the entire internet culture of the time of trolling and all the ironic bad taste jokes about rape, dead babies, surprise butt sex, pedo bear and so forth and so on that we've rightly and roundly thrown into the trash bin of history

you also saw A LOT of overlap from these groups with stuff we would today call "Freeze Peach" but at the time was very much embedded in the anti-censorship movement that actually had a degree of progressive clout taking aim at Jack Thompson or religious conservatives etc.

all of which lead to a kind of stew of nerd culture indulging its worst instincts in cyberspace because it was perceived as "not real life" - ironic bigotry, self aggrandizing cliquisih-ness, corporate branded consumption as identity

then 2008 rolls around and WOW did the world change overnight, iPhone & Facebook become massive national forces who help sweep Obama into power all while Iron Man+MCU and Dark Knight are blowing up theaters, the world changed in 1 night basically

of course with that change came the financial crisis and suddenly every company needed a new way to make money so "monetize the internet" became a big one, and this is where things get ugly-er

basically a number of companies decided to hitch their band wagon to the power of the internet by catering to gen 2 Web users, those shitty nerds I just described, which is why you had a BILLION t-shirts back in 2008-2013 with dumb anti-social slogans like "I pooped today"

basically an entire industry was launched off the strength of selling cheesy merch to white adult single male nerds with disposable income, College Humor + Busted Tees, Cracked + Snorg Tees, Think Geek, this was "the age of the geek" it was proclaimed

so why did it all fall apart? well a lot of reasons but the one I want to focus on here is financial- basically the people running this nerdconomy realized they could make even MORE money catering to folks OUTSIDE the shitty nerdosphere

remember, the big lesson of Twilight was that "women like geeky thing too!!" and that became big money, like 10 years ago the idea you could sell a zombie show like the Walking Dead to college age girls was unfathomable, now it was "tuesday" and nerds fucking hated it

the entire mythos of the nerd as fed back to them by the internet was this is THEIR world you're just living in it, they knew the details, they saw the angles, they made the in-jokes, they had all the power

And suddenly that was all gone and they hated it, the idea that suddenly hot girls had buying power or the ability to influence anything has always sent nerds into a rage spiral, hell it still happens now with twitch streams

So ultimately they turned on the very internet economy that had nurtured their destructive tendencies, declaring "if it doesn't cater to just us then it shouldn't exist at all"

By then it was 2014 and things never recovered, you just went on to Gamergate, Ghostbusters 2016, The Last Jedi, The Snyder Cut, Rick and Morty fans harassing McDonalds employees, PewdiePie, Ninja, god this list is depressing