When I was a kid, I used to read. (Now that I’m a 21 year old English major, that’s no longer a viable option for how to spend my time.) I would find a new author and devour all their work, or as much as I could find of it before gaining my Internet citizenship and access to its exports. I used to look at the page listing the author’s works to see at which point in their career that particular printing of the book had been published, and of course, anything else I’d be interested in reading. It was always a bittersweet moment when I realized that I’d read more of the books than I hadn’t. The journey was coming to an end; it was four in the morning and people were ready to crash, but I wanted to keep the party going.

I don’t know if this feeling is shared by many people today. On one hand, I know that it is, because I am in no way unique, nor are my emotions and experiences, but on the other, I see many more eager to be able to say they’ve read every book than they are to experience the journey of reading them. (This, if it isn’t blatant enough, applies to anything one endeavors in.) We want to know everything without first learning it. Everyone who paid to see "The Avengers" is a comic book aficionado; everybody donning a team-related jersey on game day is apparently an expert on the entire game of football and its history. We’re more excited for the souvenirs than the vacation. This isn’t an attack on consumerism, because that was more my shtick in high school and is better off left to those who browse websites like Reddit, but rather an invitation to novicehood. If you were willing to pay $50 for some shitty video-game, or $20 for a t-shirt, it’s cool that you don’t know everything about it. That’s awesome, actually, because now you get to set out and learn about it.

It all falls back to the fake geek meme (which isn’t as much about girls and sexism as it is fandom as a whole, imo). I don’t think people are so much upset that someone doesn’t know the progression of homo-eroticism in X-Men than the fact that some people assert themselves as experts or super-fans without paying their dues. If you just got into something, that’s cool, even if it’s only because you think David Tennant is cy00t. Just don’t act like you are. You’re not expected to be textbook Trekkies; there’s a reason those dudes were made fun of for so long. Just relish in the fact that you’ve got a lot to learn about whatever hobby it is that you have. The value of experts is that they can teach others. That’s why Master Splinter is the one coaching the Turtles.

Whatever you do, just don’t have casual interest in anything. Never be a fucking casual.