The following is a case for unironic enthusiasm, nerding out, and not giving a crap what anyone thinks:
Your teenage years are a time of major self-discovery. You’re not just figuring out who you are; you’re figuring out how the world works and how we interact with other people. Unfortunately, we live in a world that spews misconceptions about these things at young people from nearly angle —telling them it’s all about how cool they look or how cool they act. It can be extremely difficult and frustrating to stumble through these years, but lucky for me, I had the internet.
During my freshman year of high school, I stumbled across a YouTube video called “Harry Potter Nerds Win at Life.” Being a Harry Potter nerd desperate to win at anything, I immediately pressed play. I had no idea how much the message of this video would change the way I live my life. It featured a man who I was, at the time, only slightly familiar with, named John Green. You may now know him as the best selling author of young adult novels such as "The Fault in Our Stars," "Paper Towns," and, my absolute favorite, "Looking for Alaska," but, at the time, he was just some guy who made cool videos with his brother that I watched when I was bored.
Anyway, there’s a quote in this video that I vividly remember falling in love with. It has since become my mantra, something I quote constantly, and the words on a poster above my bed::
“Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff... Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like, jump-up-and-down-in-your-chair-can't-control-yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is, 'You like stuff,' which is not a good insult at all, like, 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.”
I love this quote, but I’m not going to say I didn’t continue putting on a facade of faux-coolness throughout the rest of my high school years, because I totally did. I took on this mantra, as they say, the way you fall asleep… Slowly, and then (in college) all at once. This quote, to me now, is glaringly correct. Living in this world today where there is a widespread belief that one’s worth is based on how aesthetically pleasing his/her instagram is or how relatable his/her tweets are, it is easy to pick and choose the version of yourself that is the most “cool” to share with your friends.
Something I’ve realized as I’ve grown up is that the most wonderful part of our shared human experience is getting excited about stuff. Remember when you were a kid and everything that happened was overwhelmingly exhilarating? As someone who works with kids, I find myself constantly surrounded by this unironic enthusiasm. Kids freak out over everything, from what they ate for breakfast that morning, to their favorite song on the radio, to "Diary of a Wimpy Kid…" which is not a great example because that book is actually the best. Listening to their stories and their complete disregard for what is “cool,” I wonder when such enthusiasm became so despicable to people my age.
Unironic enthusiasm is all about honesty with yourself and with the people around you. You don’t have to be like me, just before I started high school, and pay $80 for a ticket to Warped Tour just because your friends are going. You don’t have to convince yourself that you are going to be really into it, and pretend like the mosh pits and weed smoke smog aren’t horrifying to you. You don’t have to pretend to like things ironically, or pretend not to like things just because of what other people like. I really, really, really, really, really, really like Carly Rae Jepsen. I don’t rock out to "Call Me Maybe" because of its infamously catchy melody; I rock out to it because it’s a pop anthem and to deny myself of such a simple pleasure would be downright stupid. If you feel you’re denying yourself of sheer human excitement, I urge you to give unironic enthusiasm a try.
Finally, a disclaimer. I am in no way trying to force unironic enthusiasm on anyone. It may not be suitable for everyone in every situation. You don’t have to be like me. You don’t have to see One Direction three times in one week -- in Pittsburgh, New York and New Jersey -- when you’re 20 years old and buy the concert merchandise, cry at every concert, and tell everyone you know because Harry Styles just makes you that freaking excited. I have taken my mantra of unironic enthusiasm and made it into an artform. Since promising myself that I will not care what people think, I have never been so happy. It’s a difficult thing to do, and sometimes feels impossible, but it is overwhelmingly freeing. And, for those of you who care about this sort of thing, I’ve never had so many people tell me I was cool as when I stopped trying to be.
