Oliver Bateman Does the WorkVerified account

never has the pressure to “like” things publicly, to not only have all the nerdy interests but all the RIGHT nerdy interests, been as great as it is now

In the thing I wrote for the Paris Review about the Seymour-esque alpha nerds of the 90s and their gilded collections, I failed to reckon with two things: —Bad as they were, they lived their interests —They may have liked these things because they actually liked them

Today everyone can know every nerdy thing within seconds, which is fine — google and Wikipedia overthrew the tyranny of the nerd encyclopedia man — and they can start a podcast about these things tomorrow. Never have hobbies felt so much like mere products in the marketplace

I used to love weight training, because it was a very private thing I did in my basement or publicly at a “heavy duty” gym, but now I hate it...it’s just work. It helps me justify why I can sell weight training stories. And yet the stories are still kinda kayfabe, soft, fluffy