Nerds really burn my ass. There used to be a time when the world knew what to do with a nerd. We knew what they looked like. We knew how they acted. We knew how bad they wanted to be just like us. They got swirlies, wedgies, nuggies, and sometimes just a plain old ass-kicking.
But things are different now. Once the Internet came along, nerds became geeks and because cool people could be geeks too, the whole thing got confused. The nerds realized that jocks couldn’t fuck with them if they combined forces and made nerdom “exclusive”. In their version of the world, non-nerds were the new nerd. As a non-nerd, that really pissed me off, and I decided the time had come to take the nerds down a notch.
In the world I grew up in, a guy like Billy Mitchell would never have been allowed to think so highly of himself. Billy is a videogame nerd. He’s got the highest scores on a handful of games that only nerds still play. He thinks he is fucking awesome, and to totally black-out reality, he surrounds himself with lesser-nerds to tell him how great his BBQ sauce tastes. He is quite literally King Shit of Fuck Mountain. Just look at his wife, a standard issue breast and lips package he got to replace his popped blow-up doll. This is a man who deserves to have his ass kicked every time he opens his mouth.
His disciples are even worse though, because the only person who can like a nerd is a bigger nerd. I guess it’s okay to validate yourself by being friends with a famous person like Sammy Hagar or Bill Clinton. But when your idol does his interviews next to a rack of deep-fryers, you’ve set your sights painfully low. If Billy Mitchell is a turd, his buddies are diarrhea. Unfortunately I can’t call them virgins because everyone knows you stop being a virgin by default once you’ve masturbated one million times. Thanks to these twerps, Billy Mitchell’s ego is inflated to the point that it has its own gravity. Like yo mamma.
These nerds think they have their fake reality sewn up pretty tight. But then a jock comes along and threatens to show them how unlikable they are by real world standards.
Steve Weibe’s life is like a laundry list of noble American failure. He could have been a factory worker, but he got laid off. He could have been a baseball player, but he hurt his arm. He could have been a rock star, but Creed found out he understood the Dewey Decimal System. He’s just a normal, everyday guy who finds out he happens to be really good at Donkey Kong. And like any good jock should, he develops his talent so he can be the best. Unknowingly, he is setting foot in waters infested with sharknerds.
When Weibe shows up the entire videogame nerd community tenses like a carmex-wearing butthole. Never in their wildest dreams did they imagine a jock would want to play with toys, and they don’t know how to deal with it. Santa Nerd, a dude in a referee uniform who looks like the old guy in Home Alone, is determined to keep the jock at bay using as many nerd-approved tactics as possible. He sends goon nerds to Weibe’s house to take apart his Donkey Kong machine and install a gamefaqs.com printout so he can disqualify Weibe for cheating.
Weibe knows he didn’t cheat so he offers to come all the way to Nerdville so they can watch him kick their nerd asses in person. Reluctantly, Santa Nerd agrees, then calls all his nerds to an emergency meeting where he give the following speech:
“Champions! A jock is entering our cherished halls. It’s going to be hard on all of us to remain strong. He’ll likely bring with him all manner of jockishness. Foosball uniforms, cheerleaders, those neat pump-up shoes…all that stuff. It is our job to see he does not succeed at Donkey Kong. Let’s treat him the way we were treated back in the old, dark days. I want to see wedgies. I want to see swirlies. Someone should touch their butthole and wipe it under his nose. Whatever it takes to ensure he does not beat us! I shouldn’t have to remind you what’s at stake here, but just to be sure, we’re all going to watch Sixteen Candles, Revenge of the Nerds, and the nine Stephan episodes of Family Matters!”
Well, Weibe does show up and he kicks ass despite how much his upper lip smells like dorito/mountain dew poo. As this happens, the nerds revert back to how things used to be. They cry so much that their contact lenses fall out and they have to use glasses again. Slowly they all regain their stutters and their good posture goes away. As if on cue, pens begin falling out of pockets and have to be pocket protected. Their noses suddenly get stuffed up, and they borrow each other’s nasal spray. Santa Nerd raises his hands to the sky, “WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?!” Five minutes later, they all look, smell, and act exactly the same.
Steve Weibe stands victorious. But he has not won yet. As the nerds crawl away to watch Monty Python, Billy Mitchell steps into the room. Because he has Boss Nerd powers, he hasn’t reverted, which means Weibe has work yet to do. “I see you’ve beaten my Donkey Kong score,” Billy seethes. “But can you do the same with Pac Man? How about Centipede? Dig Dug? Galaxa? You blue collar chump! You think you can defeat me? My wife had an operation that makes her lactate for the rest of her life just because I asked her to. I am Billy Mitchel and I always win!”
Steve only knows how to play Donkey Kong. But because he refuses to be beaten by a nerd, he agrees to compete in all of Billy’s best games. Over and over again, he wins. With each defeat, Billy loses more and more of his self esteem. Twenty-four hours later, when the last ghost has been eaten, Billy finally falls to the floor choking on an asthma attack. Before he dies, he smiles as if he knows something Steve does not:
“Look. Go look at yourself. Ha! I win. I am Billy Mitchell and I always win!”
Steve doesn’t know what that means until sees his reflection in the Donkey Kong screen. Acne. He never had acne before. His pants are suddenly up above his belly button. His teeth has braces on them. Grease sweats out of his forehead instead of normal sweat. A million new allergies attack him all at once. His left eye crosses and it won’t go back to normal. He screams and his voice cracks, which makes him scream even more. He has become a…HE HAS BECOME A NERD!!!
Fade to black…
Of all my films, I find this story of sacrifice and heroism to be the most tragic. I think about it all the time, and it breaks my heart that men like Steve Weibe can only exist in movies. The real world could use a few guys like him.