I'd like to call this "Tender Underbellies" but "Insult Affliction" is probably better

Today my dad pulled out a classic and painful series of comments as he turned on Community then proceeded to insult it. He’s been having a difficult year, so I can forgive him for being in a bad mood, but deciding to dump all over something he saw me get excited about and engage in slices at my tender underbelly.

I’m not even too bothered by a total lack of appreciation of one of the most glorious and hilarious episodes of television this season (“Regional Holiday Music”). Really. Okay, no, I am really bothered by it, but that’s not the point.

It hurts us when people insult and tear down things we love. It really hurts when they’re people who are close to you, but there’s a special kind of pain reserved for poor reviews and network hiatuses.

I tell people that I want to make things for people like me. People like me get emotionally attached to shows, situations, and characters. We search for structure in worlds ruled by conventions and tropes, worlds that are beautiful and touching because they follow the rules. Worlds capable of surprising us when they defy expectations. We grow attached to characters we see ourselves in and characters who are the types of people we want to be. We can find villains and heroes if we want to. We can find ways to approach others with media that we couldn’t any other time.

People like me want someone to understand them and we need people to write for us. We need people who really get how a movie can change your life.

It hurts when people seemingly refuse to understand. It sucks when you feel tiny because of an insult.

I know I’m not telling you anything new but I never promised some great insightful premise every entry. This time I was hurt and it’ll happen again. But the great thing about the internet is that for every terrible comment, there’s someone who understands you, somewhere. Try to stay strong when the negativity starts flying and don’t be afraid to reach out and enjoy things with whatever community you can find.

Embracing Optimism

One of the key differences between my roommate and myself is that she tends towards cynicism and I tend towards optimism.

I only mention this because I feel like as a nerd it’s really hard to be optimistic. Even though nerd things are mainstream right now, what makes a person a nerd isn’t. I recently read Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist Way. He talks a lot about what makes a nerd different than other people and how to harness the power of our nerd brains to get all of our work done. (I highly recommend this book! Honestly, I’m much better at goal setting because of it and I feel good about myself more without having to work as hard for it.) Nerds, he says, are almost always introverted and because of this we develop problems with confidence. It’s easier to think about how much we suck than how great it is that we accomplished a goal.

I see this carry over into things we should be excited about all the time. It’s easier to be cynical about the new Spiderman than it is to hope that Garfield will stand up to pressure. And elitism is one of the easiest, and therefore worst, ways to be cynical. My roommate will freely admit that she’s an elitist, which always makes me wince. She grew up with the original Star Trek and Hawaii Five-O. She’s a purest; while she can say that JJ Abrams’ Star Trek is “alright”, she refuses to watch Hawaii Five-0. To her remakes are abhorrent and cannot match up to the original. She’s willing to give new material a try, but is quick to roll her eyes when it doesn’t meet her expectations.

It’s far more challenging and rewarding to be optimistic. It’s far more fun to welcome new fans to the table and hear what they have to say than to jealously guard the secrets of “your” thing. We can only hope for the future with nerd things. There’s no saying how a movie will turn out or if the thing you enjoy will even make it to next week. If we don’t share and keep an open mind, all the unique, special things we enjoy will suffer because unfortunately it’s difficult to get them produced in the first place.

I say embrace new shows and reincarnations of your favorites. Recognize that TOS (the original Star Trek) is filled with camp and joy, but that The Next Generation was amazing as well. Dare to enjoy that Abrams helped bring this thing back, that bringing new people to this universe can only help generate even more Star Trek.

The whole thing is a bit like watching a favorite Doctor regenerate. It’s scary and there’s often a lot of strange lights and hullabaloo surrounding it, but there’s potential. And sometimes the change is extremely rewarding. I cannot imagine Doctor Who without thinking about Eccleston as Nine because he was my first Doctor. But Tennant’s reign brought the show a massive following, and I adore Smith as Eleven so much that I feel very comfortable saying he’s my Doctor.  Unless you read spoilers, a fan doesn’t know how the season will go or who this new Doctor will be, in the end. The quirks are different and the companions will change, but at the heart of the show there’s a recognizable figure that any fan can claim as an influence.

So be hopeful. If something sucks, you don’t have to keep watching it, I don’t want you to torture yourself. But if NBC hadn’t renewed Parks and Recreation, we wouldn’t have the bright, happy show it is now; and if you don’t give something a chance to impress you, you’ll be sitting alone wondering why being bitter doesn’t feel so great.*

*I spent a fun year being elitist about Bones (back when it was good, oops), so this is the voice of experience. I’m much happier now than I ever was then, which is an accumulation of a lot of things, sure, but optimism is a key factor.

How the Iron Man movie changed my life (and why that’s okay)

 Iron Man as a thing, character, or comic book didn’t register with me until my mom and brother bought the DVD in October of 2008 and forced me to watch it. My brother had seen it in the theater with his friends, my mom trusted his word, and my dad really wanted to see what a flashy movie would look like on our new television. So we started the popcorn maker my dad’s had for over twenty years and pushed play.

I now, sometimes, think of my life as Pre-Iron Man and Post-Iron Man.

It’s not that my personality drastically changed the week following this night or that I’ve decorated my room at home with images of Tony Stark, but something about the story made me flashback to cartoons on Saturday mornings before soccer games in the park. I began to think again, “Superheroes are so cool.”

At some point, especially when you’re a young girl as I was, it becomes less important to stick with what you really enjoy and necessary to find someone in the group to stand with. I can’t say I ever stopped being nerdy because I know I didn’t; I still read more than almost anyone I knew and I had a drive to consume anything and everything relating to what I was reading. But there comes a point when I felt I couldn’t be completely honest about the things I enjoyed the most because they weren’t cool.

As an avid reader, book series were my favorites. Anything with a mythology that I could enjoy for longer than two days satisfied some deep inner demand for more. Books and later television led me to the internet in search of other fans, and those fans led me into the eager and waiting arms of fandom. I’m proud to say I never looked back. 

But this new Tony Stark appearing before me in vivid red and gold touched me in a way I could not ignore. Fascinated by this version of his story, I turned to the internet to tell me more. I read about all of the different suits, about Pepper and Happy, about Tony’s alcoholism, about the culture of comic books I had ignored my whole life. As I fed my curiosity by clicking on every link available, I found my way to the X-Men, then across the metaphorical pond to DC and the Justice League. I asked for Flash comics for my birthday and picked up TPBs of Sandman at the bookstore. The next summer I took my first steps into Heroic Adventures, the closest comic book store to my home, and found a peace I had never known.

The smell of new book pages and the old box some guy had his D&D figures in flipped a switch in my mind, and now whenever I’m home, I love going there and picking up the latest issue of Uncanny X-Men. 

The thing is Iron Man hit me at a time when I was just beginning to step into who I am today. It took three more years to develop a consistent self-confidence and I have much more growing to do. However, I now know more than I ever did growing up that there are people who think like me, who want the things I want, who make things to please me. I know that I can enjoy whatever I want and there will always be someone out there, wanting to talk about it. Iron Man introduced me to a community that I was born to be a part of and settled a quiet yearning that made me feel out of place.

I’m not saying that Iron Man was the greatest superhero movie ever made and it’s definitely not the best film ever shot. But if it touched people like it did me, if it led someone back to their childhood, if it ended up introducing someone to the Avengers, Justice League, The Walking Dead, if it brought someone to a convention where they met their best friend- if it did that, then Iron Man has proven its worth a thousand times over.

Mission Statement

At the beginning of most worthwhile video games something happens to inspire our heroes to go on a mission. (I say most because I firmly believe Tetris is a game above all others, and Scribblenauts* is a frightening amount of fun, too.) They may not say it aloud, but from then on the goal is to "Kill the bad guy" or "Save the kingdom." We take on the roles of these heroes for many reasons, but I know that I have never been really comfortable with myself unless I have a grand goal; playing video games has probably not helped me accept that I have no mortal enemy or archnemisis. And I know that there are other nerds like me out there who feel the same way.

I wouldn't say I have a firmly thought out mission statement for this site, but I do have a goal. I want to challenge myself to address the nerdiness of my life and to channel it where it could possibly entertain someone. So stick around, I'll try to stay shiny.

*If you've never played Scribblenauts, I think you should. You have to ability to create just about anything you can think of to help finish the missions: plaid zombies, giant robots, peaceful demons, anything. It's a fascinating and fully engaging type of world building.