My problem with every bit of it that I've seen, is that they try to make their characters every type of nerd all at once. That's not how it works. People are obsessed with a couple niche things, they are nerds about their little area. All the characters on BBT are into, like, everything that non nerd people find nerdy. It's absurd. No one is like that.

And from what I've seen, it has a tone of laughing at nerds, not laughing with them. Maybe that changes from season to season, but what I saw was enough. Just a very grating show to watch that feels like it was made for people who have that one nerdy niece or nephew that they don't really understand but hey, this must be what they're like with their friends!

Nerd does not imply outcast.

Hmm. I guess it does not. But the show (at least occasionally,I haven't seen much of it) implies the nerdy folks are ostracized from the more "normal" ones when they make some quip that no one but them (and the audience obviously) understand. Though, I suppose that could also be because Sheldon is an immense prick as well as a nerd. Something else that does not endear me to the show.

Perhaps, but for older nerds like me, that outcast experience is an essential part of nerd identity.

Younger nerds and geeks, who are now embraced, never went through that shit, and have in my mind a fucked up perspective on what it means to be one.

Perhaps closer than Revenge of the Nerds was...