Read this.
It reflects back on something that I’ve made note of through my 30s and now into my 40s– we got beat up and made fun of and ridiculed and all that, but the nerds of my generation won.
When I was younger and wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons, I took an assault on all sides.
Other than my nerdiest friends (who became my D&D group), my peers were pretty merciless in their ridicule of us “nerds” for the sorts of things we did.
I grew up in the midwest, so my teachers were positive that D&D was “satanic,” and at the very least they derided the fact that we wanted to play RPGs. \
My mom was swayed by all of this until she watched us play once. Her response was the one that I, as a teacher, offer to students all the time: “so you’re telling a story together and doing math?”
Harmon is right– video games had to become what they are for tabletop games to become accepted.
But the same is true about super hero movies making comics and toys acceptable.
The real answer is that Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, JJ Abrams, Joss Whedon– and I don’t mean to make it a boy’s club, as there are women like Felicia Day, Gail Simone, Marti Noxon…
we won.
In the time when I was younger, nerdy folk were treated like crap. We had to hide with our subversive things like comics, zines, college rock music, role-playing games, cosplay, trading card games, computer games. But as we were hiding in our subversive spaces, we were learning from that subversive material how to be the new artists, the new pop stars, the new creators, the new critics.
And we made money. Well– they did. I’m still poor, though I’m doing better than ever now.
So we became the consumers, and the money behind us became the taste-making force. The cool hunters started noticing us. First it was our bands. Then our video games. Then our TV shows and movies. Then it was our subject matter and our super-nerdy-little-corners-of-the-world (comics, role-playing games, cosplay, MUDs).
I feel great for my gaming students, but I wonder if they can fathom what it was like. Back before The Big Bang Theory. Back before the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Back before Christian Bale was Batman. I teach a class where we use Dungeons & Dragons, and the students always roll their eyes and smirk when I mention James Dallas Egbert III. Because that world isn’t real to them.
For all the complaining I do about how I miss the 1990s and the Clinton era and Nirvana and grunge and the pre-9/11 America, I do have to admit that this is the time for the nerd. We’ve risen.
The “cool” students listen to vaporwave music. They think I’m some sort of weird ambassador to the gods because I used to speak semi-frequently with the Johns from They Might Be Giants. They respect that I wear basketball sneakers just cuz and get a little upset of they get too scuffed. They marvel at how much I know about the people who make the stuff they like (people like Dan Harmon). The fact that I’m fat and have scruff and a ponytail– something that my generation insulted me for at their age– delights them because I look like who they imagine me as: Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. Worst. Resemblance. Ever.
In some ways, a rich moronic idiot controls the world.
But in other ways, all the people who he copied off when he was in school ultimately run the world. The thinkers of my generation weren’t theory heads. They didn’t write in droning academic prose. They weren’t over dramatic. They are dramatic, and comedic. They write parables about men dressed like spiders and renegade thunder gods. They made a cheerleader the savior of humanity then gave her a sister and a day job.
Nerds are better wardens than this world deserves, even if the culture that surrounds them is often almost as toxic as the one that surrounds American politics. Somewhere underneath, there lies good. Nerds are at war with the status quo, and given how we rose from being atomic wedgied and having our lunch money stolen, I’m not sure I’d bet against the coming storm of mint-in-package figure and D2o rollers cresting the hills like pop culture locusts.
Wubba lubba dub dub, Mr. President. Live long and prosper. Or something.