[Hated Trope] Nerdy characters who don’t understand nerdy things

[u/BlackHandKUR]

There are too many examples of movies and tv fumbling basic nerd knowledge but the one that particularly bugs me is whenever we have nerdy characters not understanding basic DnD lore or mechanics.

Big bang theory is probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to not understanding nerdom but how they do dnd is especially insulting. They don’t understand any of the basic concepts, lore, mechanics or even how races look. Theres a scene where they do a steamy dnd thing and they describe an orc with multiple arms and breasts. Not a single part of that was even remotely close to correct and Sheldon being the atypical rule lawyer type should know that.

Abed from community isn’t much better. Either he doesn’t know the rules or fragrantly allows his players to ruin a session. There is never a mention of initiative, contesting rolls, or scaling. Pierce, a naked hermit of a character, over powers a high level fighter then charms a high level creature to pose this great threat to the party. What?

Stranger things, and possibly the one the gets me the most, off the rip we have a character who misses a fireball attack by rolling low. That’s not how fireball works, that not how fireball has ever worked. Fireball is an AoE spell where everyone in its radius has to have a save to have the damage halved. These are kids that name the monsters after DnD creatures yet they don’t know the difference between fire bolt and fire ball?

[u/Butwhatif77]

[u/swung → u/Butwhatif77]

Quick, unplug the keyboard! The hackers clearly need to be stopped at the source.

[u/MarcoSkoll → u/swung]

You say that, but keyboards with malicious devices in them are an attack that is used:

https://youtu.be/cFWBatrHbPk

(It's also a thing for "USB drives" to actually tell the computer they're a keyboard, which bypasses a lot of the security from if the computer thinks they're a drive, and lets them quietly give commands to the computer. Basically, don't plug anything unknown into your computer, or let anyone you don't fully trust use their own peripherals either, because they could be hiding this kind of device).

[u/That1pansexualkaiju → u/MarcoSkoll]

Often times jokes have a way of revealing strange truths or strange history

[u/UltimateOtter_Nation → u/That1pansexualkaiju]

True. Thats how I found out that gingers are people.

[u/HorsePersonal7073 → u/MarcoSkoll]

Yes, but once it's plugged in, odds are it's loaded into memory and unplugging the keyboard isn't going to do you any good.

[u/Gangbang8008 → u/MarcoSkoll]

Well shit that's scary to think about, a shit ton of security potentially bypassed by a usb telling it "I'm a keyboard bruh, trust"

[u/PeterAnthony_Jackson → u/Gangbang8008]

Nine Inch Nails had their Year Zero ARG spread by people finding USB sticks at the venue, in this day and age you could have a USB killer or a HID and people will plug anything into a work PC to see what is on it and then the whole network is compromised.

[u/PeterAnthony_Jackson → u/swung]

Not really related to hacking, more how computers were seen at the time, I worked at an Amstrad shop and someone came in asking for a keyboard for their PC, turns out someone stole it thinking they had the computer, because we were still in the era of Spectrum C64 ST and Amiga, where everything was inside the keyboard.

Though good night sweetheart or another show that shared the same blonde woman in present day poured a drink into the monitor and that "killed the PC" but the PC was dry under the desk, but people only see the keyboard and monitor as the PC not the box sat under the desk.

[u/fzkiz → u/Butwhatif77]

I love this movie so much

[u/SpaceZombie13 → u/Butwhatif77]

best computer moment in film.

[u/LilyWineAuntofDemons → u/Butwhatif77]

I think the meaning here is that you can connect just about any computer to any monitor, so taking the monitor you found with the computer you're stealing is unnecessary. What's important is the computer itself.

[u/Sahrimnir → u/LilyWineAuntofDemons]

Yes. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse gets it right. I think the picture was mainly posted as a response to the silliness in NCIS.

[u/LilyWineAuntofDemons → u/Sahrimnir]

You never know on the internet.

[u/Star_Petal_Arts → u/Butwhatif77]

I want to argue on behalf of Spider-Man here, that it could be an all-in-one but Miles is saying that the internal storage on the all-in-one is not necessary but the hard drives in the tower are what they are after.

That way Spider-Man doesn't look less of a nerd.

[u/Horrorfan55555 → u/Star_Petal_Arts]

You got it backwards

Peter tells Miles to grab the computer. He grabs the tower and the monitor. Peter then grabs and throws the monitor away saying they don’t need that part

[u/Star_Petal_Arts → u/Horrorfan55555]

Alright, I forgot that... but Miles goes to a nerd school... he still needs defending so take what I said and reverse the two.

[u/Embarrassed-Note-214 → u/Star_Petal_Arts]

tbf This is Miles' first time doing something as Spider-Man. He's probably just hyped up on adrenaline and not thinking clearly. "Take computer, got it!"

[u/Star_Petal_Arts → u/Embarrassed-Note-214]

Yeah like how I usually am coming onto reddit in the mornings and dosed on caffeine and painkillers.