Friends, I come to this question with no judgement:
There is a familiar affect that is common to particular kind of generally liberal self-identified brainy nerd - a simmering theatricality mixed with hyper crisp pronunciation, like the nerd culture transatlantic accent. It's been around quite a while. What is the lineage here?
I should specify- culturally less Ira Glass, more Neil Gaiman
People on here now tend to just call this "theater kid" but that's not really the right word for it, though the overlap is certainly there- both tend towards a sort of gradiosity mixed with a self-conscious awkwardness, and they both feel very "performed" for lack of better word
I also don't think it has much to do with a particular neurological makeup- it's a subcultural thing, like the affects we all pick up. Like I still have mannerisms and ways of speaking from the skaters and punk kids I hung out with in my teens and early adulthood.
I called it nerd transatlantic because like the original it's not an affect that arises via region or people group, it's all spread via media and enthusiasts, and it takes the most "correct" and erudite and somewhat dramatic sounding aspects of american and british english.
But unlike the original transatlantic accent it has a core element of performed simmering instability to it, owing a bit to late 20th century-present images of nerddom that heavily featured the pairing of awkward introversion with bursts of enthusiasm and theatricality.
Anyway if someone wants to do a history of this affectation I would be one of the 6 people who read it.
If you need to pad out the word count in your eventual report you can talk about how the collision of this with online liberal snark (which is related but distinct) gives us Buckle-Up Twitter threads.
I am going to wake up with the weirdest cancellation over this thread somehow
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