We know the cliche, you see it in movies quite a lot; the super nerds with button-up shirts and pocket protectors gushing over the latest issue of their favorite superhero while they look at girls they’re too shy to talk to. Those are the characters in that teen movie that make you uncomfortable and maybe even cringe. But that time has come to a close.
Superhero movies dominate the box office year after year. Marvel and DC are pushing out new content that corners the news and gets every sponsorship you can think of. Star Trek got a huge face-lift and Comic Con becomes the talk of the town every summer.
Right now, being a nerd is something you can own. Geeking out over things is completely normal. In fact, it’s much more fun that just looking at the biggest movie of the season and going, “Oh, yeah, that looks cool.”
If you love something, own it. Don’t just bottle it all in, that’s not fun at all.
I remember my dad said this to me, while I was sitting in the kitchen watching a trailer for Wonder Woman.
“Now is the time to be a nerd.”
I am sitting in my bedroom that’s covered in mostly Batman posters, in a Deadpool tee shirt, writing this article on a laptop covered in various DC Comics stickers I got off RedBubble. I’m getting to the point where my comic books need their own bookshelf and half of my wardrobe is made up of Superhero tee shirts.
Over this last year of college, I forgot what owning my inner nerd looked like and how much joy that brought me. I had a job where bringing my ability to geek out over just about anything was required, but that wasn’t really the same. Those tee shirts I used to wear all the time? I avoided wearing them unless it was absolutely necessary, I haven’t touched my growing backlog of comic books all year and I just changed myself completely. I have no idea why, but I just…forgot about it.
I used to spend my time on Tumblr reading rumors about the latest movies, reading fan-fiction and writing some of my own. But I kind of lost that excitement for it. It had grown rather dull. I was a nerd but I wasn’t owning it like I used to. Then that went and flipped on it’s head.
I was up late one night, watching an old DC animated movie while in bed. While I was going through some of Nightwing’s one-liners and laughing a little to myself. Something in that clicked, I remembered how much I loved that character. That I owned over 10 volumes of trade-paperback comics with him in it.
So I spent that night going back through Tumblr, seeing what was new and what I missed over these past few months. The more I read, the more I remembered how happy comic books and movies about those comic books meant to me.