Growing up surrounded by hundreds of different people who are yet to find their identities can make it harder for you to find your own. The school years can be can the most difficult, with some people grappling with sexual identity questions, new loves and obsessions, or new ways of viewing the world. All these new feelings and ideas can seem daunting at times, even maddening, but you will eventually find your way and figure out who are in the end. Even when it comes to things like minimum deposit gaming, life is full of decisions, and you really don’t want people making them for you until you’ve decided what’s right for you. Individual experiences are what shapes us over our lifetimes, and being able to express ourselves the way we want to express ourselves without judgement or hindrance is super important.
Geeks and Nerds get a bad rap
Some of us learn at an early age that we’re a bit geeky, we have a nerdiness to us, while those terms can mean different things to different people, generally they mean a keen and unyielding fascination with cultural phenomena like video games, comics, anime and technology (not to mention math, science and unlocking the mysteries of the universe). A lot of times these terms we hear, like geek or nerd are used as pejoratives, but they really shouldn’t be, rather they should be worn as a badge of honor. We should be proud of our nerdiness and wear it proudly on our sleeves, it was of course our hobbies and interests over the years that helped shape us into who we are, they were a crucial apart of our life experience.
Your Nerdiness might prepare you for a lucrative career
How many game designers do you think were called geeks or nerds growing up? I’m figuring quite a few. While they’re friends were toiling outside, maybe they stayed inside, read a comic book or a tech magazine, grew an interest in video games and aspired to make them themselves. I imagine Steve Jobs was called a fool for starting a business as a teenager in a garage with a buddy. What does this kid and his friend Steve Wozniak possibly have to offer the world of commerce? They ended up building their first Apple computer orders by hand in that very garage and just this week the company those two young men built became the first trillion dollar company in the world.
Never let anyone tell you can’t do anything, or that your idea isn’t worth the same as theirs. It was the embrace of the geek that made companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook wild success stories, none of these companies were assured success, and they all began small, one in a garage, and another in a dorm room but they grew to be tech giants because someone dared to dream, to embrace their neediness and not shy away from it.
My theory is that if you can embrace imaginative worlds like in a comic book or a video game, it can help you imagine greater possibilities in the real world as well. You open up your mind to creative thought, and that intern can help you create lucrative career opportunities for yourself and others.
Geek culture is full of life and flourishing (for good and bad)
Beyond the before mentioned benefits of embracing your geekiness, geek culture today is far more accepted than the past. See how successful Marvel and DC movies have been, rocking the movie charts across the world. Sure, geek culture has it’s toxicity, we have seen the flap over Ghost In The Shell and their casting decisions, the vitriol towards Rose and Fin’s characters story ark in The Last Jedi, the ongoing fight over gender and race in the different comic book movie universes, and increasing diversity and LGBT representation in said films. All in all, geek culture has helped create an environment where like minded people can discuss ideas openly, find and connect with each other online, and make positive changes for the entertainment industry they so love.
The Growth and inclusiveness of Fandoms
Fandoms based on popular movies and TV shows, such as the Harry Potter series, super popular shows like Supernatural and Doctor Who have become basically their own sub-cultures within society, connecting people all around the world, and allowing them to feel accepted and included in something that is generally positive. Over ten colleges have official Quidditch teams, a game created in Harry Potter but now leaping off the pages into the real world. I haven’t even touched on the underworld of cosplay at Comicon, E3, PAX East and other venues, where players and viewers alike take their love for their favorite games and TV show characters to the next level and dress up as them, in public no less. If that isn’t embracing your inner nerdiness, I don’t what it is.
A New Dynamic in Video Games
Video games have been affected by geek culture as well, with fandoms forming around games like Fortnite, PUBG and the mainstays like The Elder Scrolls series and Fallout. It hasn’t all been peachy, some games have been destroyed by their own fandoms, What Culture did a great work up on 10 games that met this very fate. No Man’s Sky was one of those games that initially got hit hard by the internet-verse, the game was famously hyped beyond belief before it’s release and subsequently fell to the floor with a thud. It wasn’t anything like what was promised, but Hello Games held on, they read the forums, the tweets and suggestions from their customers on STEAM and they improved the game. They fixed it and released their NEXT update which opened a whole new world of multiplayer gameplay and exploration, now the game couldn’t be more popular. Without a vibrant geek culture, and open discussion, positive developments like that may have never happened and No Man’s Sky may have stayed a dud forever.
Remember to embrace your inner geek but check the toxicity
Embracing your inner geek, your nerdiness can lead to all kinds of wonderful in your life. There is no reason to be ashamed of what or who you like in this world. Being yourself can help you get on a path to a lucrative career, maybe start the newest tech giant, or even become a game designer like you always dreamed of becoming. It can help you meet and connect with new people who share similar interests. Even good things can be corrupted over time, we’ve mentioned a few examples above where fandoms ruined good movies or took down what could have been great games. Some people, especially on the internet just want to see the world burn, they don’t care what fires they start or whose livelihoods they destroy. An anonymous voice on the internet can be as dangerous as silence to adversity, oppression or hardship. We need to embrace the good things about geek culture and leave out the rest, let the toxic trolls fight among each other. So if you want to cosplay at the next comic-con, then go ahead and get yourself a Cosplay 3D printer to create your own outfit.
The Rage Machine is working overtime these days
Is it really worth endlessly raging or fighting over games, movies or comic books online? It feels like we live in a world where a controversy can be born out of just about anything. One person’s idea of a great a new movie is another person’s latest internet-outrage. Personally, I’ve had to block many people and websites on my Facebook feed, I can’t handle how angry I’m supposed to be over a casting decision or some new TV show that isn’t deemed inclusive enough by some. No one will ever be happy with everything, but if we can remember the wonderful games, TV shows and movies that got us into being geeks or nerds, or whatever you want to call it, in the first place, the joy those mediums brought us, and move beyond the daily outrages and toxic fighting, I think we can all just maybe find some peace and enjoy our lives for once.
Final Thoughts
Let’s remember what it was like to be a kid again, we were able to escape into our favorite games, movies and shows, they helped hone our creative minds, and opened us up to think about greater possibilities in our future. They also brought us together for late night game parties with friends, playing Super Smash Bros., Guitar Hero, or countless other titles, till will were all blue in the face or exhausted. Embracing geekiness should mean embracing togetherness and our finding our common humanity. Let’s try to do that some more.
If you think I’m totally full of malarkey, let me know in the comment section below. Love to hear what other’s think!
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