The Monarch is disappointed to learn that Henchman 21's "weapons stash" is really a Nerd Hoard.
I got a Dungeon Master's Guide.
I got a twelve-sided die.
I got Kitty Pryde, and Nightcrawler too.
Waiting there for me, yes I do.
I got a twelve-sided die.
I got Kitty Pryde, and Nightcrawler too.
Waiting there for me, yes I do.
— Weezer, "In the Garage"
A common trait among nerds, Geeks, and Otaku is collecting items related to their hobbies/interests and often displaying the collection somewhere in their home. The size, extent, and condition of these prized items can often communicate quite a bit about the collectors themselves—their interests, maturity level, organizational skills, wealth (most of these collections are not cheap...), etc. It can also serve to reveal that a character not otherwise seen as nerdy/geeky is in fact a huge Closet Geek.
A common scenario has the collector showing off their collection (happily or begrudgingly), at which point a number of plots can kick off, such as the person accidentally damaging an item (opening a "Mint-In-Box" item thus destroying its value is common), mocking the collector for what they collect, "geeking out" themselves over the collection (which may end up as a Geeky Turn-On in a love interest situation), and many more.
While items from Stereotypically Nerdy hobbies part of the usual Geek Reference Pool (comic books, anime/manga, video games, sci-fi works, collectible cards, etc.) are the most common components of such a hoard, this trope can cover collections of children's toys, girly items, and even more typically "cool" things (cars, weapons, antiques, etc.) as long as the collector in question "geeks out" over having them and/or showing them off.
A Hacker Cave and Poster-Gallery Bedroom are common places to see such a collection. A Loony Fan is a common character type to create one of these. Compare/contrast The Collector, as these collections are typically formed without evil intent. See also Collector of the Strange and Kitsch Collection, which may be similarly displayed and treasured, but have significantly different makeups. Contrast the Porn Stash, which is a collection most want to keep hidden.
Truth in Television, naturally.
Common "Nerd Hoard" Sources:
- Anime and Manga
- Banpresto items
- Beanie Babies
- The Beatles
- Collectible Card Games
- Comic Books
- Cosplay or LARP items
- Funko Pop!
- LEGO
- Fantasy Literature (and Adaptations)
- McFarlane Toys
- Physical Media (Vinyl Records, CDs, VHS tapes, DVDs, Blu-rays, 4K UHD etc.)
- Science Fiction
- Sports Memorabilia
- Tabletop RPGs
- Video Games
- Vintage Toys and Board Games
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime and Manga
- Case Closed: Takagi strongly suggests that Inspector Chiba's room is FULL of character figurines and models. The cast gets to see it in File 450 when a case happens at Chiba's house: almost every exposed surface in the living room has figurines or other merchandise, mostly superhero and kaiju-related. Naturally, the detective boys love it.
- In Kiss Him, Not Me, Nishina has a huge room entirely filled with shelves of expensive anime figures and merchandise; Kae almost has a heart attack seeing it for the first time and wants to stay in there forever.
- My Hero Academia: All of Deku's classmates know that he is a massive fanboy of All Might. When it comes time for the class to move into their dorm rooms, absolutely nobody is surprised to see that he decorated his room with All Might posters and figurines. Deku is still a little embarrassed that he allows himself to show it off though.
- This is the nature of the Zacharis dossier in SPY×FAMILY's Campbelldon Tennis arc: his collection of theatre starlet photos. He's a fan of musical theatres and their actressesnote , but his wife is disgusted with this hobby of his (which is justified, given he's at least middle-aged and is a prominent government official) and ordered him to throw away his collection, which he responded by hiding the stash with the archives of the Ostanian intelligence, ending up causing a rumour that it contains material that would restart a war.
Comic Books
- Seymour from Ghost World is a sucker for 1920s jazz and blues and his room is shelved up with a huge record collection, pinup art, and historical memorabilia of the era.
Comic Strips
- Candorville: Lemont tells Susan that he's ruined his reputation by accidentally tweeting his "junk" for all the Internet to see. The "junk" he refers to is his collection of sci-fi knickknacks.
Films — Animated
- In Toy Story 2, toy store mogul Al McWhiggin has an immense collection based on "Woody's Roundup" and is only missing the most valuable piece, the Woody doll himself (though he actually doesn't collect for himself, he plans to sell it all to a Japanese museum). When Woody is stolen from the yard sale, he gets to see the massive collection and never knew that his show was so popular or that he was from such a large line of toys, including his companions from the show — the cowgirl Jessie, the prospector Stinky Pete, and his horse Bullseye. He basically geeks out over his own toy line.
Films — Live-Action
- The 40-Year-Old Virgin: Andy has an absolutely massive collection of "mint-in-box" action figures from pretty much all of the major Geek Reference Pool works adorning most of his apartment. He is somewhat simultaneously embarrassed and proud when love interest Trish sees it. She later talks him into to selling some of his collection online, revealing it to be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
- Batman Forever: Bruce shows Dick his vintage car and motorcycle collection. It's done in an offhand way (suggesting Dick fill up his motorcycle with gas before heading off). It even has a classic geeky exchange "Only ten of these were made!" "I have another one right here."
- The protagonist of The Best Offer has a Secret Room in his apartment filled with priceless paintings of women. He often just sits there for hours, admiring these works of art. All paintings get stolen in a heist though.
- In Hot Fuzz, Officer Butterman has a massive movie collection, kept in a rather large walk-in closet.
- The Last Castle: Colonel Winter keeps a collection of military artifacts that he's quite proud of. Recently imprisoned Lt. General Irwin derides it as something no military man who'd seen combat would take pride in, leading to escalating friction between the two soldiers.
- In The Rock, Stanley Goodspeed is a proud Beatlemaniac, going so far as to spend $600 on the original Meet The Beatles LP.
Literature
- Elle in Geekerella has a stash of Starfield items, some of which belonged to her late parents. Her Wicked Stepmother makes her throw it all out after she comes home late from the costume contest.
- The main protagonist in Train Man (2004) has a room full of Anime and Manga figures, while many of the people he talks to online have their rooms filled with different collections, including model trains, model airplanes, militaria, clothing, electric guitars, etc.
Live-Action TV
- The Big Bang Theory, being about geeks, features plenty of geeky items in the background.
- When Penny criticizes the group for putting so much effort into "junk" (a full-sized prop from The Time Machine (1960) blocking the stairway and preventing her from getting to work on time), it depresses Leonard enough to where he wants to sell his stuff. Later Sheldon calls Penny out for having her own collection of stuffed bears and Hello Kitty clothing.
- In an AV Club review of an episode, the reviewer asks if comic collectors really do carefully sort and palm through their comics like the guys were shown doing. The answer is an overwhelming "YES".
- Black Mirror: In U.S.S. Callister
, Daly has a prized collection of Space Fleet memorabilia. It serves as foreshadowing for the way he traps his co-workers in a simulation.
- In an early episode of Burn Notice, Fiona is enamored by a gun collection kept by the owner of a home being cared for by their client of the week. Another episode shows Michael admiring a similar gun collection held by someone he is trying to con.
- iCarly: Carly starts seeing a guy who comes across with a "Bad Boy" persona. She ends up losing interest really fast (in addition to a Drama Queen freak out) when she finds out he has a Beanie Baby-esque collection. He would go online to buy the "only sold in Asia" stuff and only allows others to touch them after they wiped their hands with a wet nap. After all the hype surrounding his bad-boy nature, Freddie finds it hilarious.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: In "The Gang Runs For Office", Charlie reveals that he has a large collection of Garbage Pail Kids cards. Later, he is forced to trade it to Frank in exchange for a "smear tape" Frank and Mac made to discredit Dennis, whom Charlie was helping to run for comptroller. When the campaign falls apart anyway, Charlie is distraught that he gave them up for, ultimately, nothing.
- In the pilot episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm is forced to go play at Stevie's house, which Malcolm finds incredibly boring until he sees Stevie's enormous comic book collection.
- Pawn Stars often has people show their collections of various items to sell, which usually comes with a hefty pawn price reduction because few customers want the collection as a whole, so it requires quite a bit of manpower to catalog and sell the items individually. And then there are the stranger collections like the guy with Sammy Davis Jr.'s personal VHS tape collection.
- A episode of Psych has Shawn and Gus call upon the expertise of a UFO expert and old geekbuddy of theirs, played by Freddie Prinze Jr., who has done a lot in his life to live down being a geek and pretends to be into sports to appease his very attractive wife. He introduces them to his Hacker Cave, filled with memorabilia and they are even clearly playing Halo: Reach (which wasn't even released when the episode aired). Eventually his wife walks in on them and he has to confess his geekiness, only to find out she is a big geek too and both were pretending not to be, leading to a massive Geeky Turn-On.
- Seinfeld:
- Jerry dates a woman who he discovered had a collection of vintage toys and board games. So he "drugs" her at dinner time (with turkey and boxed wine to make her sleepy) and spends the night playing with them. She is, naturally, disturbed when she finds out what he did.
- In "The Cigar Store Indian", George's father Frank has a TV Guide collection. Elaine borrows one to read on the train, loses it, and then a man tracks her down and shows her an art piece he made from it. Frank is very upset.
- In 30 Rock, Jack had a cookie jar collection which he gave up in order to ascend the ranks of GE.
- The X-Files: Blaine Faulkner, a nerd who interferes with the agents' investigation in "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", has a bedroom full of sci-fi relics, among them a vintage Millennium Falcon toy and the Enterprise-D hanging from the ceiling. He also has Mulder's "I Want To Believe" poster on the wall, with "Want To" scribbled out so it just reads "I Believe".
Music
- Weezer's "In the Garage" describes the large collection of nerdy items in the protagonist's garage, including items from Dungeons & Dragons, X-Men, and poster-covered walls with his favorite bands, including KISS. The opening lines are used for the page quote.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's "White and Nerdy" music video features a brief appearance of Seth Green displaying his own personal, massive Star Wars collection.
Video Games
- One of your targets in Cruelty Squad is a techbro who made a killing by taking their corporate sponsor's seed money to instead go buy a nice house with his co-conspirators. His house is literally wall-to-wall with "Chunkopops", low-quality toys derided as "plastic crap" by others in-universe that are only slavered over by children. If you talk to the target, he claims he spent "over $100,000" on them and considers them his children.
- In No More Heroes, Travis Touchdown's place is crammed with Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly merchandise and luchador masks.
- Super Paper Mario: Francis' fortress has several rooms with shelves filled with manga and toys of his favorite shows. Said toys also reference previous Paper Mario characters.
Web Comics
- Scale And Tale: Brimelle's Dragon Hoard consists of fantasy literature from multiple universes, including Bland Name Products of several well-known franchises. Leaving her artificer wife to build the shelves.
- Sequential Art: Art goes to a Comics Convention in #196 and buys a movie prop Steampunk Death Ray gun. He holds it aloft, and the other geeky conventioneers Kneel Before Zod. Five strips later, Genius Ditz Scarlet converts it into a working model.
- In Sunstone, there's a room that Ally won't let her girlfriend Lisa see. When the readers are finally given a peek inside, it's revealed that Ally is a huge Closet Geek; she has TARDIS bedsheets, a Tomb Raider statue on her desk, and an Eye of Mordor lamp.
Web Video
- The Angry Video Game Nerd: The show is hosted in a room full of retro games, consoles, and video game posters. The show has been filmed in several different rooms throughout its history, but all of them were decorated like that. Ironically, most of that collection initially belonged to the show's co-creator Mike Matei, rather than James Rolfe who plays the eponymous "Nerd".
- All the members of the Two Best Friends Play YouTube channel have their own collections, especially as a result of their mailbag episodes in early 2014. Matt McMuscles in particular has a large figurine collection on display.
Western Animation
- Batman has a long-established Super Trophy Super Rack with items pertaining to his various adventures. In Batman: The Animated Series, it shows that he also has a dedicated room to "The Grey Ghost" TV show he loved as a kid and gets to show it to the actor (voiced by Adam West in a Casting Gag) who played The Grey Ghost.
- In Downtown, Alex and his geek friends all collect action figures. When Jen tells one of the friends that he should get laid, he assumes "Laid" is a rare Star Wars figure. The Nerd Hoard becomes a plot point later in the same episode when Alex realizes he doesn't want to end up being a middle-aged guy still obsessing over toys.
- DuckTales (2017): In "The Duck Knight Returns!", Launchpad attempts to sabotage the younger actor replacing Jim Starling as his childhood hero Darkwing Duck in the Darker and Edgier reboot by breaking into his trailer (at Jim's request). However, Launchpad ends up bonding with the actor over the extensive Darkwing Duck memorabilia collection in his trailer, including discontinued toys, comics, and a lunchbox, proving the actor is an Ascended Fanboy. This foreshadows the fact that the actor is Drake Mallard, Darkwing Duck's alias in the original cartoon, and was meant to be the real Darkwing Duck of the series all along.
- Kim Possible: Villain DNAmy has a collection of every Cuddle Buddy (a Beanie Babies expy with Mix-and-Match Critters) ever made, and is former president of the Cuddle Buddy Collectors Club. While Kim geeks out a bit over the collection, having loved the toys as a kid, it doesn't stop her from stopping DNAmy's attempts to make real Cuddle Buddies via illegal genetic splicing.
- The Loud House: Lincoln Loud is a geeky boy who has a stash of comic books, including Ace Savvy (a playing card-themed superhero) and David Steele (a James Bond parody).
- In an episode of Ozzy & Drix, the heroes search through Mayor Spryman's geeky opponent's office and find his collection of unopened toys. Drix starts geeking out over one toy he doesn't have.
- An episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) has an obsessed collector who eventually gets all of the Powerpuff Girls merchandise ever made. His life goal suddenly complete, he decides to collect the girls themselves. Naturally, when the people of Townsville come to the rescue, they get him to confess by opening his mint-in package items.
- The Simpsons:
- Waylon Smithers has the world's biggest collection of Malibu Stacy dolls, an in-universe toy line that's a parody of Barbie, and has a huge, wall-to-wall shelf in his apartment where he stores them. In fact, when a new Malibu Stacy doll is released in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", he's geeking out just as much as the girls the doll is actually marketed towards.
- Ned has a massive, secret cache of The Beatles memorabilia. Anticipated in a Treehouse of Horror episode where it was The End Of The World:
Rev. Lovejoy: Judgement Day is upon us. I warned you the Lord wouldn't stand for your mini dresses and Beatle boots.Flanders: [trying to remove a pair of said boots] I've resisted these for 35 years. Why did I wear them today!? - SpongeBob SquarePants: Bubble Bass's bedroom has a wall-to-wall shelf of action figures, he uses an alarm clock with the superhero Mermaid Man on it, and he has boxes full of comic books. He's obsessively concerned with keeping his collection complete and intact, often going into tears if someone messes with his figures.
- The Venture Brothers:
- In "Hate Floats", the Monarch, Dr. Venture (forced into an Enemy Mine situation), and Henchmen 21 and 24 need to retake the Monarch's cocoon from his other henchmen after a mutiny. 21 claims to have a "weapons stash" in his room, which turns out to be his "Nerd Hoard". It includes a pair of Hulk hands, a Captain America shield, a Magneto helmet, a "mint in box" Lord of the Rings replica sword (which 21 refuses to remove from the box despite being the only actual weapon), and a deck of Magic: The Gathering cards. The Monarch and Dr. Venture are not amused.
- Recurring minor villain Augustus St. Cloud is a Rich Bitch whose superpower is "having lots of money". He antagonizes Arch-Enemy (first unofficially, and later officially after signing up for the Guild of Calamitous Intent) Billy Quizboy by outbidding him in online auctions for pop culture memorabilia and acquiring one-of-a-kind items that he keeps in his own personal collection rather than places the public can enjoy them. A few notable items in the massive collection include The Staff of Ra and the Ark of the Covenant, Twiki and Dr. Theopolis, the vintage Batmobile, the puppets from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (which elicits a You Monster! response from Billy when St. Cloud uses Henrietta Pussycat as a shower sponge), and many more.
