Nerdology 101: Diversity in the Nerdom

Hello and welcome back to Nerdology 101, the blog where, at least for this week, I say things that should be obvious because the Nazi’s among us don’t seem to get the point that they are the only ones that aren’t welcome here. This week we’re talking about diversity in the nerdy world. So, let’s dive right in.

The nerdy community wouldn’t exist without diversity. Let me say it louder for the people in the back: THE NERDY COMMUNITY WOULDN’T EXIST WITHOUT DIVERSITY.

Being a nerd is a concept that began its evolution some time between 1930 and 1980, according to Merriam-Webster. While the etymology of the word isn’t extremely clear, we do know that it has taken on a few different meanings since its creation. It’s been used to call people socially inept, intelligent, socially inept with intelligence, and more. Today, we mostly use it to describe those who are enthusiastic and knowledgable about a niche topic such as gaming, books, anime, etc. This is important to remember because the concept of nerd we know today didn’t even start to form until the 90’s. Millenials fueled and witnessed the shift ourselves when we woke up at 5AM every day to watch Inuyasha on Adult Swim and popularized series Divergent, Hunger Games, Dune, and Lord of the Rings. Thus, nerd culture is still relatively new to society.

Part of the reason nerd culture took off with such ferocity is because it reached the disinfranchised. Do you know how rare it was to see a Black person in a TV fantasy series in 2006? How about a Black person who wasn’t depicted in a racist way or who only showed up once for five seconds only to never be seen again? Bleach did it, though. Most popular is the character Yoruichi, who we all know and love, they also had quite a few others who were well written with brown skin. The same goes for Naruto—though there were flaws in the way they did it—characters like Karui and Darui are met a need American media was completely ignoring at the time. This type of representation attracted diverse communities that drove the success of anime. In these statistics released by Crunchyroll in 2024, we see that the amount of Black anime fans has been rising drastically with each generation with only 9% of Boomer anime fans being Black, 13% of Gen X, 19% of Millenials, 23% of anime watchers in Gen Z. That’s almost a quarter of anime fans in Gen Z that are Black. If you include other ethnic minority groups, 48% of anime fans in Gen Z are not White. Beyond ethnicity, over 1/3 of the total anime watching community across generations is women with the highest two generations (Millenials and Gen Z) both being over 40% and 32% of across generations identifying as LGBTQIA+ in some way. These are massive portions of anime’s fanbase. Without that diversity, the style would take massive hits likely resulting in worse animation, storytelling, etc. More than that, though, it’s insane to call yourself a nerd if you hate such a large portion of the community you’re identifying with.

Aside from anime, we also have substantial diversity in the bookish community, gaming community, and every other aspect of nerdom. Just recently, a Mixed race author who I look up to, Amber V. Nicole, topped the USA Today and NYT Bestseller lists with her new release, The Wrath of the Fallen in the Gods and Monsters series. Julian Winters made the Marie Claire “25 Best Romance Books of 2025” list with his book I Think They Love You. Tracy Deonn, Analeigh Sbrana, Harley Laroux, and the list goes on—diverse authors are thriving with the support of diverse readers. We would lose a ton of great writing without the diversity that is getting attacked by so many.

In information released by Women in Games, 53% of gamers are men and 46% are women with the remaining 1% being non-binary or putting “I prefer not to say”. 38% of gamers are an ethnicity other than white. Thus, this extends to gaming as well. Every corner of the wider nerdom is filled with diversity. So, why is it that the bigoted ideas that harm so many within the community still thrive? The only answer I can come to is silence. So many are afraid to speak up when something is wrong for fear that no one will stand with them and that they’ll only isolate themselves further. In a video posted by Tony Weaver Jr. following the death of a Black cosplayer named Ash, he calls for us not just to be more inclusive towards Black people in the nerdom, but also for us to be more exclusive towards those who making the sort of bigoted comments that led to Ash’s death to begin with. This sort of hatred has no place in our community and I agree with what Tony is saying here. We need to drive the hatred out by making it harder for it to exist in the first place. Our community will be better for it, just as it has been better for the increased diversity throughout the generations.

That’s all I have for you this week. Drop in next Friday at 3PM ET for our next segment of Nerdology 101. Until then, have a nerdy week!