I can name every Link series ever made. I know the background story of most red shirt-wearing Trek crew. I can easily make puns to tie into most anything. I was a geek before it was cool.
I don’t have four first names or hyphens, I don’t have designer eyeglasses, and I don’t look good in skinny jeans. I feel that all those wannabe hip kids who sport Nintendo gear and talk about how awesome Pokémon are need to stop freaking band-wagoning to get attention.
If you can’t express the emotional serendipity at unpacking your first Charizard, you don’t have the right to claim geekdom. Take off your 1 UP wristband and get a real life.
Geeks all over are being surpassed by the popular hip kids. It’s not fair! Keep your own lame trends and ruin those, stop ruining my fandoms with your attempts to relive your childhood. You may be friends with 500 people on Facebook and have a killer high school story to rival the moon landing, but without geeks like us, your name-brand social status wouldn’t have gotten you anywhere. You were lofted above us because you deemed our activities unfit, and now that you grew up into a big boy or girl and realized that popularity is a fickle mistress, you’ve decided that the geeks had the right idea all along.
Of course, I don’t speak to all hipster geeks. Some of you have rightfully earned the privilege to call yourselves true blue geeks. For everyone else, to become awesome, there are three pretty easy steps.
1) Like something because you like it—not because it’s the latest trend, or something you could start to gain credit for, but because you like it. If people think you’re crazy, good. They thought Tesla was crazy and he is THE authority on trend-setting geeks.
2) If you don’t know who Tesla is, what he did or why it’s important, you fail. Skip straight to step #ragequit.
3) Find a fandom, or fan community, that you can really get behind. You can start safe and pick a star side for Lucas or Roddenberry, or you can be brave and pick something else. To any Whovians who might be reading this, we should party, especially if you’ve watched the episodes from the 1960s, back before The Doctor was just for cool kids.
Basically, my beef is with those who like things just to get popular or get friends, instead of leaving fandoms the way they should be.
Opinions expressed in editorial and opinion articles are the views of individual NIC students. These views do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Sentinel, North Idaho College, or any other organizations or groups there-in. North Idaho College is not responsible for the accuracy of statements or opinions shared.
