When did it become cool to be a nerd?

My daughter and her friends went to one of those new fangled 3D movies.  Instead of tossing the 3D glasses in the recycle bin on the way out of the theater, they poked the lenses out and put the frames on, laughing all the way out to the car as they pretended to be hard core nerds.  What's even more curious is, they hung on to these black plastic spectacles and pulled them out of the dark recesses of their junk drawers in order to relive the nerd experience at a restaurant, months later. 

Donning the nerd glasses has been so much fun that my daughter has even embellished her pair with lime green duct tape.

As a teenager, I do not remember being so self assured that I would go out in public to purposefully draw undue attention to myself wearing goofy anythings.  I'm glad my daughter and her friends are confident enough to have fun and do goofy things at this age, instead of worrying about what people think of them.  They must be truly "cool", in a nerd way...but what do I know, I'm old and I'm a real nerd.