Pretty sure the weird nerds the article is talking about are not the type of people that are looking at their “tribe” trying to figure out what to imitate next in order to maintain or increase their social status. They’re Weird because they pay no attention to those fads and eschew social effort in favour of dedicating the largest portion of their time to their passion. They tend to be idiosyncratic in the extreme because they aren’t constantly synchronizing their behaviour with society at large. But maybe you’re right that there are people in science and engineering that put on those trappings as a way of blending in. I think the article is arguing that the balance of poseurs is increasing and that of the genuine article decreasing.