I heard a few people talking today they were both saying their afraid of or really dislike basements. I was thinking that's odd, one person didn't surprise me, but the other one don't seem to be scared of much of anything. I was thinking that's interesting because for some reason I like basements. I was thinking I must like them because I'm nerdy.
(I don't mean to offend anybody )

many songs, etc seem to stereotype nerds/geeks as always being in the basement. made me kind of curios how this came about, but goggling it just mostly talks about some shows or forums.
But just like to know some more about why there seems to be an association between nerdy people and basements.

 

It's the largest space that a person can claim as their territory without a lot of conflict. The only other reason someone might be there is for the laundry or retrieving food from a freezer.

 

Probably because a DIY rail gun in the kitchen isn't a very good idea.

 

Because it's fun for the scientifically illiterate to imagine the nerds dwelling in the darkness of Dr. Frankensteins laboratory.

Mwahaha!

 

I love basements. Unfortunately, in Florida we don't have any.

 

Probably because a DIY rail gun in the kitchen isn't a very good idea.

Careful, you're going to get this thread locked up tight!

 

Because that's where the least people are, and everybody knows that nerds are introverted and socially inept. Also the least likely place for our experiments to be molested by the club-handed surface dwellers. I kid, sorta. If I had a basement, that's where I would dwell. Woe is me in my 135 degree sweat shop garage.

 

Careful, you're going to get this thread locked up tight!

..but the basement is safer than the kitchen, so it's alright...

 

It's not that they like basements, but when they move back in with their parents, their old room has been converted into a sewing room so the basement is the only space available.

 

Are you kidding me? I can't do electronics in the basement! I 'd need 200W bulbs and then I 'd turn it into a sauna.

 

I suspect that there are a number of elements at play, many of which have been mentioned already.

Assuming you have a basement, it is the most likely place to have enough space that can be made available for just about any purpose -- a workshop, an electronics lab, a weight room, a hobby room, a ham shack -- especially if you don't want that space being used for more than one thing. So a disproportionate number of electronics labs get set up in the basement.

Second, there is a stereotype of engineers and scientists being isolated from the rest of the world, especailly when they are focused on a project. That image is well suggested by the notion of someone in a room with no windows, so a bathroom, a garage, or a basement. The bathroom doesn't make any sense and the garage isn't as suggestive of the isolation message as the basement.

Third, most basements, especially unfinished basements, have a lot of factors going for them. They are very flexible because they are open and large (compared to most any other room in the house); they tend to be at a fairly uniform and stable temperature (and a temperature that is pretty comfortable, to boot); they are fairly quiet, allowing you to concentrate better; they don't see much transient traffic, people coming into the basement do so because they have a specific reason for doing so and not just passing through; they are tolarant of messes and spills, so what if you dump that acid on the floor and cause a permanent stain; finally, you can leave your work area a mess and your project eternally in a state of construction and no one gets upset even if the anal-retentive neighbors are coming to dinner. I'm sure there are others.

 

Because basements are AWESOME!!!

 

I like the last answer best.

 

Isn't the basement where they hide their girl robot?

 

Isn't the basement where they hide their girl robot?

the OP asked why the stereotype exists, not how to propagate it.
Oh, no! Some one just looked into my basement, err, I mean... workshop.

 

Have you ever seen some of the role playing games that people get addicted to? They can take up a whole lot of space in the home, so where better to host a game than in the basement? Also, it is a solitary space with ample room to keep your comics, videos games and so on.

 

Because that's where the main power panel is....

 

Because that's where the main power panel is....

Not in any house I've ever lived in!

Around here, and in the era of the houses that I lived it, power panels were typically located on the back side of the house right next to the meter. Says something about how trusting a society we were when you could pretty much count on the breaker panel to someone's home being located close to the back door and almost always unlocked, since why would anyone ever open it except to reset a breaker or perhaps turn one off when working on a circuit?

The unfinished basements generally had NO electrical outlets in them, save perhaps one mounted near the bottom of the stairs.

Come to think of it, though, that might be a reflection of the cookie-cutter house designs typical of the 1950's through 1980's in which a builder might have three or four different basic floorplans and a common variant would be to offer a given floorplan with a basement or a slightly cheaper version with just a crawlspace. Not putting services in the basement (other than locating the stuff that normally went in the crawlspace, such as the furnace) meant they could minimize the differences between houses, which cut down on cost.

That was one of the things that I loved about the first house that I bought -- the meter, as expected, was on the outside of the house on the back and the panel was, indeed, right next to it. But it was turned around so that it opened from the inside of the house. A huge increase in convenience, especially when you pop a breaker and it's either a raging thunderstorm outside or -20°F.

 

Not in any house I've ever lived in!

Around here, and in the era of the houses that I lived it, power panels were typically located on the back side of the house right next to the meter. Says something about how trusting a society we were when you could pretty much count on the breaker panel to someone's home being located close to the back door and almost always unlocked, since why would anyone ever open it except to reset a breaker or perhaps turn one off when working on a circuit?

The unfinished basements generally had NO electrical outlets in them, save perhaps one mounted near the bottom of the stairs.

Come to think of it, though, that might be a reflection of the cookie-cutter house designs typical of the 1950's through 1980's in which a builder might have three or four different basic floorplans and a common variant would be to offer a given floorplan with a basement or a slightly cheaper version with just a crawlspace. Not putting services in the basement (other than locating the stuff that normally went in the crawlspace, such as the furnace) meant they could minimize the differences between houses, which cut down on cost.

That was one of the things that I loved about the first house that I bought -- the meter, as expected, was on the outside of the house on the back and the panel was, indeed, right next to it. But it was turned around so that it opened from the inside of the house. A huge increase in convenience, especially when you pop a breaker and it's either a raging thunderstorm outside or -20°F.

Basement panels are quite common around here, and up north (MA) where I used to live. Every house I have lived in, a unfinished basement = laundry room. I suppose that's to give you more liveable room upstairs.

 

do a google image search of the female geek/nerds and see how many you think prefer basements.