Simple. The character has to be treated as attractive for being a nerd in work. Nerds tropers think are sexy is for Troper Tales.
Fight smart, not fair.Gah, I missed that from previous in the thread. Yeah, it looks good to me.
There seems to be general agreement; should it just be done? And would the "non-obvious beauty gets the guy/girl" trope need to go back through YKTTW, or would it be fine just relaunched immediately under another name?
Just wanna throw it in there (because the trope page does not link it) that Adorkable is also close, and could use some clean-up (and a change to its Laconic) to make i clearer how they are different.
I have always interpreted the difference as we differentiate between Geek and Nerd at the moment - Nerds Are Sexy as when smart-looking and knowledgeable is the Geeky Turn-On, in a Hot Librarian kind of way; Adorkable when unsociable and awkward is what makes someone cute.
edited 9th Oct '10 12:33:54 PM by Vree
Hmm. Is Adorkable an in-work trope too? That might help, since we've already sorta decided that Nerds Are Sexy should be too.
When I have time, I'm going to tinker with a new intro. Any thoughts on it, and whether the "guy chooses the not obviously hot girl" should go through YKTTW?
Adorkable is similar to Kawaii in that it takes klutziness and similar factors to be endearing.
Fight smart, not fair.OK, I've been trying to work out a new intro, and run across a question: how does this trope differ from Geeky Turn-On?
Also, does the "guy chooses the not conventionally attractive girl" trope need to be YKTTW-ed? Or can all the actual good examples (of which I need to count, to see whether there's all that many) just get moved to a new page and renamed?
Geeky Turn-On is something that turns on Geeks, while Nerds Are Sexy is about nerds who others find sexy.
Polar opposites.
edited 24th Oct '10 7:46:16 PM by Raso
Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!Geeky Turn-On is "something that Geeks find sexy or attractive". Girl robots, for example.
Nerds Are Sexy is " "normal" characters find nerdiness attractive." Fred, on Angel. Giles on Buffy.
edited 24th Oct '10 8:22:47 PM by Madrugada
Or it will be. :)
How about something like (pardon first draft roughness):
Geeks and nerds often have it rough in the romance department, especially in popular culture. Typically, they are stereotyped as being so unattractive that only fellow nerds would find them desirable mates. However, it is interest and intellect that makes the nerd, not looks. As such, it is entirely possible that they could be above average looking... sometimes way above average.
This trope shows what happens when a character finds that a nerd is, indeed, sexy. The nerd's "objective" looks could fall anywhere within the wide spectrum of human attractiveness; all that matters is that a character finds something about the nerd that arouses his or her interest.
[Retain current last three paragraphs, perhaps adding Hollywood Nerd to the compare/contrasts.]
edited 24th Oct '10 11:06:30 PM by Leaper
Post 38 is the rewrite draft. The latter trope is currently what Nerds Are Sexy is written up as, but has been almost completely supplanted due to name-based Trope Decay (see first post).
ETA: What is the proper process for moving the current trope under Nerds Are Sexy to a new page? On one hand, it's obviously been through YKTTW, even if it was ages ago. OTOH, I can't find a single example on the current page that fits the "not conventionally attractive person gets the love interest over the conventionally hotter rivals" trope, so just moving it to a new page under a new name would leave it example-less.)
edited 28th Oct '10 10:46:05 PM by Leaper
OK, I've decided to YKTTW the "not traditionally hot girl gets the guy." Does the crowner results and the general tenor of this discussion mean I'm free to put up the new description?
Aaaaand it seems the YKTTW has attracted little to no attention. Perhaps that's not surprising, all things considered. Any tips, or answers to my other questions above?
OK, I pulled the trigger and put in my rewrite (damn, I forgot how much it annoyed me that even the Laconic had this trope 100% WRONG).
Now that that's over with, is the Average Girl Wins issue still relevant to this thread? Or should it be in a new one? If so, which forum?

Hmm, you have a point there... Is there a way to keep the page from being used as a repository of "nerdy characters tropers find attractive"?