"Oh no! I'm a nerd!" - Hegemonic masculinity on an online forum

In this article, the author presents findings based on her research on Blue Sky, an online interactive text based forum. She discusses BlueSky particip ants 'online performances of gendered and raced identities. participants in terpret their own and others 'identities within the context of expectations and assumptions derived from offline U.S. culture, as well as from their m embership in various computer-related subcultures. Given the predominance o f white men on BlueSky, such identity interpretations also rely on expectat ions concerning masculinity and whiteness. The author explores BlueSky part icipants' understandings of themselves as "nerds" and considers the implica tions of this nerd identity for their relationship to hegemonic masculinity , especially to expectations of heterosexuality. Analyzing online identity performances in this way provides information pertaining not just to online interaction hut to a better understanding of the social construction of ge ndered and raced identities more generally.