Nerdiest State in America

Congratulations to Utah, graded the Nerdiest State in America by Estately.

How did they decide? Estately analyzed Facebook data to score every state and the District for their per capita interest in 12 criteria — Star Trek:  The Next Generation, Cosplay, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Anime Movies, Dungeons & Dragons, LARPing (Live Action Role-Playing), Doctor Who, Fantasy Lit, Lord of the Rings, Magic:  The Gathering, and Comic Books.

The Beehive state landed on the top of the list.

  1. UTAH

In Utah, nerdishness is so common it’s practically the norm. Even if you factor in its high percentage of young people, Utah’s enthusiasm for nerdy interests is unparalleled in America. Utah beats out all other states for interest in cosplay, Harry Potter, Star Wars, LARPing, fantasy literature, and Lord of the Rings. Basically, if you like to get into costume to see a sci-fi or fantasy movie then Utah is the state for you.

  • Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) was at Salt Lake City Comic Con FanXperience this year. You missed it.
  • SLC Nerd is a community festival event celebrating all that is geeky and nerdy in Utah.
  • The Nerd Store offers comics, gaming cards, and more.
  • Enjoy the annual event Nerdtacular, which is nerdtastic, as well as Fantasy Con, which is fantastic.

For a reaction quote I turned to Dave Doering, chair of the 2014 Westercon in Salt Lake City. Dave said —

Guess we’ve been found out….

Yes, we’re nerds. And proud of it!

We are going to run a contest in fandom here to find who is the Nerdiest Nerd in this Nerdiest State.

Isolated as we are here from mainstream fandom, we revert to the natural condition of the human creature: the nerd.

My condolences on the home of the LASFS coming in at a sad #34.

Dave has that right. My home state of California ranked way down the list at #34. Sure, we have Hollywood, but we also have occasional news stories like steampunk cosplayers getting kicked out of the mall. And we let them demolish Ray Bradbury’s house, too — no telling how many spots we dropped just for that…

5 thoughts on “Nerdiest State in America

  1. All props to Utah, but this does not look right to me. Where’s the column for “science fiction” (well OK – “sci fi”)? Or sciences and engineering? Why are all highly populated states less ‘nerdy’, and lightly populated ones more nerdy? (Having lived in FL, NH and NJ for extended periods of time, I can assure you that Jersey is more nerdy than New Hampshire. Best not to mention FL at all….)

    No doubt some nerd will obsess over the above and we’ll have an answer in short order.

  2. Well, if one defines “Nerdy” as liking crap or having no feel for things which require one to think, then I guess the idiots who came up with this nonsense might be correct.

  3. On The Classification of Nerds by Their Natural Disabilities

    The most defining characteristic of a nerd is the pursuit of anti-fashion. We all know what being fashionable is like. In case we are a little hazy on the concept, movies, television and magazines bombard us with pictures of people being fashionable. Being fashionable becomes part of the mating cycle for people who are fashionable. If it’s beautiful let’s do it.

    You may have noticed that many nerds have poor eyesight. This probably comes from typing with their thumbs for prolonged periods of time. Nerds aren’t much influenced by the pictures of fashionable people. The head of the average nerd is chocked full of ideas. Most of the nerd’s attention is devoted to watching the ideas bounce around in his own head. Since fashion is just one of those hundreds or thousands of ideas, it doesn’t get much attention. The nerd inevitably drifts along the fashion axis to the opposite end of the universe from fashionable. Whatever is easy must be right. That is the essence of anti-fashion. So how does their mating cycle work? Since they have poor eyesight, they wander through life until they run into something. If it feels good, let’s do it.

  4. Mmmmmm. What does the “M” stand for?

    Some nerdy folks I knew selected clothing because it put people off visually, and then would not need to be bothered by small talk. The asking of “what’s new?” every day often bugs me, so I understand.

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