I have no idea how this relates to history at all, but…
I think there’s a difference between what people call the “idiot nerd girl” and girls who enjoy “nerdy” things. If you get annoyed at the former (people who make “geek culture” a fashion statement), that’s understandable, but it’s not your job to decide who’s an “idiot nerd girl” and who’s a “real nerd”. This meme is harmful because it demands that girls and specifically girls prove that they’re not “idiot nerds”. Because they’re girls. You know why I think that is?
In our culture, anything that has widespread popularity among teenage girls turns to poison, because teenage girls are stupid and tasteless, or something. The backlash fandom against Justin Bieber and Twilight are bigger than the actual fandoms themselves. Geek/nerd culture is popular with teenage girls now. Geek/nerd culture is now tainted. But wait, “real nerds” don’t want to give it up completely, so they invent a separate label, a kind of carpet under which they can shove teenage girls, and that is the “idiot nerd girl”. If a girl wants to join the “real nerd” club, she has to prove herself first, and if she can’t, she’s an idiot.
More often than not, girls who get stuck with this label are people who don’t know as much about video games or comic books or movies, or even worse, they’re assumed not to know as much because they’re girls or because they were introduced to these things through modern adaptations. I personally know plenty of boys who fit the “idiot nerd girl” stereotype remarkably well, but there is no “idiot nerd boy” meme. I wonder why? What’s better is that I know so many boys who wear jerseys and letterman jackets but play no sports at all, but there’s no “idiot athlete boy” meme, either. I also can’t ignore the unfortunate reality that many of the people who use this label are in fact themselves women, and hey, I admit to thinking this way sometimes as well, but this kind of elitism doesn’t help anyone. What use is it looking down on other women for not knowing as much as you do when 1) you did not emerge from the womb knowing everything about the Avengers and 2) you are part of the group that is negatively affected by this term.
I know that a lot of the people who use the meme/term don’t intend it as an umbrella label for all girls who enjoy “nerdy” things, but that’s, sadly, how it comes off as. As a girl and a teenager and a nerd, I don’t like it; I don’t like being scrutinized because I’m a girl and I don’t like being accused of “appropriating” nerd culture for fashion purposes. So what if someone does wear “nerd clothes”? I still know individuals who get annoyed when people who “aren’t grunge enough” wear Chuck Taylors - that’s as stupid as this to me. It’s like, how dare you wear nerd glasses? Are you a Buddy Holly fan? An Arthur Weasley fan? A Barry Goldwater libertarian? Sorry, but horn-rimmed glasses don’t belong to geek culture - and just because someone wears them and claims to be a nerd doesn’t mean you get to call them out as an “idiot nerd girl”. I’m sure the term is helpful in expressing annoyance and releasing frustration at these girls, but in the end it’s so much more harmful than beneficial.
And maybe you know someone out there who fits the stereotype, some girl who writes “nerd” on her hand and wears “nerd glasses” but seems to know nothing about anything remotely “nerdy”. Maybe you should talk to her about her interests, and if she simply doesn’t know as much as you do, don’t be condescending - all of us, including the “real nerds”, were clueless at some point in our lives. She’s not an “idiot nerd girl”, and people who feel marginalized by these terms are not “oversensitive feminazis”.
Anyway, those are my personal thoughts on the matter.