Twosday: NERDS! with Skee-Lo and Wheatus

Welcome to Twosday on Another Flavor! Today's topic is nerds.



Revenge of the Nerds always gets me. NERDS!

Anyways, today we will be talking about two songs that feature nerds. One has a bunch of turntable scratching and the other one is a rap song. As we learned from Revenge of the Nerds, almost everyone feels like a nerd. That means nerds instantly get our sympathy. We feel like outsiders. But are we really? Look at just how cartoon-ish movie nerds really are.

I Wish by Skee-Lo:



This video is about a man who wishes things were different. Why? Because he can't get a date and is short. Also he is only able to have sons as children and he wishes he had a girl. If he did, he would call her:

Gotta love the constant "calling" hand gestures.

Anyways, this video is very physical. Skee-Lo feels tiny in a world filled with tall, good looking men. This makes him insecure. He can't play basketball with them, but he keeps trying. I mean, look at him!

He's like a tiny baby. How can he be so small? He has small hands and feet. I imagine his features are small as well.

His clothes don't even fit. Apparently they don't make clothes that fit such tinily proportioned people.

And he is a little dandy who can't even see over the top of a table.

So, the video spends a lot of time emphasizing his smallness. He is much smaller than practically anyone really is. So why does he try to play basketball at all? He doesn't need to. He could get involved in other pursuits, but he wants to play basketball just like the cool guys. This makes him feel like a loser. I think that is what makes him a loser. Trying to fit in even when he really doesn't. Just relax, dude! Don't try so hard!

Our other nerd video is Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus:


This video is a movie tie-in for Loser, which was a non-American-Pie-based Jason Biggs vehicle. I have never seen it but it seems to be in the same vein as Revenge of the Nerds except it is beloved by no one and hopefully doesn't feature a main character raping a woman and having no consequences.

Yikes, Revenge of the Nerds.

The opens with what we in the biz call a "framing device".

These keep your paintings protected and allow you to hang them on your wall. In this case Jason Biggs falls asleep and finds himself... in high school!

He rides a bike because only losers ride bikes. Real adults always drive cars right into a Dunkin Donuts.

So why is this character a loser? It is a little less clear. Random dudes just come up to him and make that L sign at him.

Do people actually do that? This seems very unrealistic.

He gets knocked down.

And, in case you haven't gotten the gist, sits in front of a sign that says "Loser".

I don't care about this guy, though. I don't care about movie tie-in shit. Just like the Skee-Lo video, I want to see what the singer is all about. The singer of Wheatus is this man, whose name is (as far as I can tell) Jose Feliciano Wheatus:

This man is far nerdier than Jason Biggs could ever be. Look at how hard he is trying! That hat! That hat was cool for about 2 days in 1999 due to the New Radicals and his combination hipster glasses/sunglasses don't manage to hit either the right nerdy or cool notes. It's sad really.

Later, he is dressed like this:

Is that a track suit? And still with that hat. This man is a super nerd. Just like with Skee-Lo, the thing that makes him a loser is trying to fit in with the cools.

I'll go ahead and say that he was being a nerd on purpose for this video. I guess he would have to be a nerd to write this song. He listens to Iron Maiden! What a totally obscure band only loved by nerds! I'm sure Iron Maiden lost money on all of their 37 albums, mostly released on major labels, because no one except losers listen to them.

That is wrong (I was using a literary technique called sarcasm because I am a dick). While Iron Maiden is terrible, tons of people like them! I'd say about half of the people you meet like Iron Maiden. Does that mean that 50% of people are nerds? I guess. That's sort of the whole point. Everyone is a nerd. That's why Ogre joins the nerds in Revenge of the Nerds 2. It's just that almost no one is a nerd like the guys in these videos. These guys are, like, super nerds. To the max.

Due to the holiday I will not be posting tomorrow, but I'll be back for Sartorial Sursday!

-PTD