The Story Behind NerdCulture.com 

Over the last decade, nerd culture has evolved into a pop culture juggernaut, with some of the most successful franchises of recent times being born from comics, anime and games.

However, while nerdy interests are seemingly more popular than ever, actually finding and connecting with local cosplayers, tabletop gamers and hobbyists can be surprisingly difficult.

This is the problem Steven Weingarth sets out to solve with his new social media platform, Nerd Culture, a community-focused, engaging digital space built for lovers of all things nerd.

We sat down with Steven to learn more about his platform, what inspired Nerd Culture, what sets it apart from legacy social media sites and what the future holds for the nerd community.

1. Steven, what inspired you to create NerdCulture.com, and what gap did you see in the nerd community?

For me, it was a simple desire to play more D&D and find new friends to talk to about some of my more “nerdy” interests. The idea for Nerd Culture came about when I first moved to LA. I thought it would be super easy to find people into just about anything in such a big city, but quickly hit a wall when I started properly looking for nerd-centric, hobby-focused groups.

I tried everything from highly-specialized Reddit and Discord searches to scoping out local card and game stores, but finding regular, organized groups seemed impossible. I knew they were out there, but I just felt completely unable to get a solid understanding of exactly where.

Then, while talking to some old friends, we stumbled on the problem, somewhere down the line social media kind of moved on from real community-building; algorithms make it easy to find things you want to see, but the goal is to keep you on the app, not out with other people.

That’s the gap we saw in both the nerd community and modern social media, so we set out to create a platform that makes it easy and rewarding to find people into the things you love.

2. How has nerd culture evolved since you started, and how does NerdCulture.com reflect that change?

Nerd culture has really blossomed in recent years, quite a bit before we started working on NerdCulture.com in all honesty. I think it’s important to note that because, 10-20 years ago, I don’t think quite as many people would feel comfortable proudly declaring themselves nerds.

As someone who’s always considered myself a nerd, it’s been amazing to see my interests grow from almost a source of ridicule to the focal point of pop culture. Now, almost everyone has an opinion on the Marvel movies and D&D is the centerpoint of one of the most beloved streaming shows of recent years; there’s arguably never been a better time to be a nerd.

I think the normalization, then celebration of nerd culture has been a much-needed tonic in a world that seems increasingly divided. As for how it’s reflected in our work, the pride people feel in sharing their nerdiness has opened the door to a platform built around exactly that.

3. What makes NerdCulture.com unique compared to other platforms catering to gamers and nerds?

We’ve spent a lot of time making sure that Nerd Culture offers a unique experience to the nerd community, not just to speak to our primary goal of driving genuine, lasting, real-world connections, but also to make sure that spending time on the platform is fun and rewarding.

We wanted to make sure that we weren’t creating another platform that forced you to wait around passively. We wanted to make sure that you were in control of your nerd journey.

First, our advanced search and group creation tools make it easy to find people and events near you dedicated to niche topics. We provide a wide range of smart search filters to help you find out what’s happening in your community right now and how you can get involved.

Second, Nerd Culture isn’t your typical algorithm-centric platform. Your feed will never be full of posts from profiles you don’t know about topics you don’t care about or news made to frustrate you; members have 100% control over what they see and who they interact with.

Third, our love of gaming helped us create a really rewarding XP system built into the site itself. The more involved you are with building, moderating and energizing your community, the more points and achievements you receive which you can then use to unlock real prizes.

4. How does NerdCulture.com help users connect and build meaningful friendships?

There are a number of powerful features in the platform we’ve created to really drive lasting connections and help to eliminate doom scrolling, but i’d say the main thing is that, as every connection you make on Nerd Culture is centred around niche interests, your conversations never feel surface-level or boring; there’s a sense of excitement that someone else gets you.

We’ve made sure that the user experience speaks to and reflects this goal, with search tools that not only help you find groups focused on specific interests, but communities, people and events associated with your biggest passions to help you engage with entirely new hobbies.

For example, a simple search for Magic: The Gathering will connect you with on-site groups, but through our smart filters you can find related communities, events near you, game types, meetup types, group availability – everything down to the number of spots open at a session.

We help users connect and build meaningful friendships by making it as easy, rewarding and safe as possible to engage with communities that make you feel part of something important.

5. What role do you think online communities play in supporting mental health and social growth for nerds?

I think online communities play a vital role in supporting mental health and social growth for nerds. While it’s true that nerd culture is in a pretty good place, there’s still loads of aspects and interests that aren’t super popular, and many communities who really do like it that way!

For those people, and for more introverted people who don’t necessarily want to be visiting IRL events all the time, the existence of thriving, exciting and energizing virtual communities gives them a space to meaningfully socialize in a way that best meets their individual needs.

I think, while it’s great that nerd culture is more popular now, it’s important to create spaces where nerdism isn’t a constant focus, people can log on, hang out and talk about anything among likeminded people without worrying about either extremes of ridicule or exotification. 

6. How do you balance fostering a welcoming environment with maintaining a safe, inclusive platform?

This is a great question, it’s something we’ve spent a lot of time considering while working on the Nerd Culture platform. The main goal is to break down the barriers holding people back from connecting, but make things too open and you risk impacting peoples’ privacy.

With this in mind, we’ve built Nerd Culture in such a way that users have full control over who sees their content, whose content they see and who they’re able to interact with across the platform. From the offset, members can freely adjust their privacy settings to whichever parameters they’re most comfortable with, there’s no obligation to post if you’d rather lurk.

7. What trends in nerd culture or gaming excite you most right now?

There’s quite a lot to be excited about in the world of nerd culture at the moment, but one thing I’ve really been invested in is the advancement of AR and VR technologies. Games like Half Life Alyx and, more recently, Batman Arkham Shadow have transformed VR gaming from a cool if clunky idea into a truly immersive, engaging evolution of the gaming medium.

I’m also really enjoying the growing trend of video game anime adaptations, series that don’t just use an IP to garner interest, but explore interesting aspects of beloved worlds in a totally new light; Edgerunners and Arcane are great examples that I hope influence future projects.

It’s great to see so many staples of nerd culture find new, exciting and ultimately successful ways to share ideas and universes. From a Nerd Culture perspective, this many offshoots of popular IPs are really going to turn our smart search and filter tools into a must-have feature!

8. How do you envision NerdCulture.com evolving over the next few years?

More members, more communities and more fun! On a more technical level, we’d like to continue expanding our XP system to make creating and engaging in communities even more rewarding for our members, perhaps with more involved elements of gamification like native tools and development kits to build games and experiences within the platform itself.

We’d also love to start hosting our own community events. Conventions, tournaments and shows are central to nerd culture and often peoples’ first experience really engaging in the nerd community on a personal level, so we’d love to be more involved in that ourselves and hopefully throw events people look forward to just as much as Comic-Con and Anime Expo!

9. Finally, what advice would you give to someone struggling to find their place within the nerd community?

It might seem cliche but just be yourself and be proud of that! The rise and continuing growth of nerd culture over the last decade or so proves that there’s a really special and long-lasting draw to nerdy interests; allow yourself to be passionate in a way that’s comfortable for you.

Whether you’d rather engage only online or branch out into some IRL events, just know that everyone else in the community shares your passion, and many know what it’s like to feel a little unsure or anxious – by and large, the nerd community is a wonderfully accepting place.

There’s a lot of doom and gloom in the world, a great antidote to that is to seek connections with people who love the same things as you, and want nothing more than to talk about the complexities, intrigue and magic of worlds that make us all feel grateful to be here right now.

Find out how freeing it is to truly live through your passions, join Nerd Culture for free today!