Last weekend, I attended the Fan Xperience event as part of the 2016 Salt Lake Comic Con. The event ran for three days -- from Thursday, March 24 to Saturday, March 26. I observed thousands of awesome nerds (many of which were cosplaying), saw a handful of famous people, learned a bunch from insightful panel discussions, and spent too much money on trinkets and T-shirts. It was a blast, which may seem obvious, but what's more important here is why it was a blast.

Remember when it was a bad thing to be labeled a nerd? When you could get your head flushed in a toilet for admitting your character was a level 50 healer until your dungeon master and a bad roll of the dice went and got her killed? Some of you may have experienced this type of harassment (in which case I'm sorry and it was definitely uncalled for), but others may legitimately not understand what I'm referring to.

This is because the nerds have staged a coup. There are many types of nerds, and some of the more hardcore ones would deny this coup because they remain convinced of their status as outcasts. That's fine. However, not only is it OK these days to be vocal about your love for fantasy novels, science-fiction films, video and tabletop games, etc., but it's also cool and encouraged. This is, in large part, due to the Internet. Nerds who were netters from the start have known this all along, but the rest of us may just be catching up. Events such as Comic Con and other popular culture conventions have also contributed to the rise of the nerds. This is evidenced by the drastic increase in the number of attendees.

The first official Comic-Con took place in San Diego, California in 1970. Three hundred people showed up. In 2015, the San Diego Comic Con saw 130,000 people in attendance and remains the largest of these types of nerd gatherings. Comic Con now consists of several international annual events, encompassing an increasingly wider variety of popular culture elements.

If you are privileged enough to have the chance, then I definitely recommend attending, at least, one of these conventions in your lifetime. Comic Con is a place to celebrate the things we love with people we love -- even if we've never even met them. Remember when I talked about strangers? And collective effervescence? It's the same thing. It's important for us to have these shared experiences; they help us become more comfortable with ourselves and with each other, creating a safer and more enjoyable (first-world) culture in which to exist.