When most people think of fan culture, they think of nerds. When they think of nerds they then think about a bunch of weird people who only talk about nerd things, like a new comic book that they love or a really good science-fiction television series that just started up. For some reason, having a passion about something like a comic book or a science-fiction series just scares some people away. My question is simple: Why?
Why are people so afraid to befriend nerds? Are they afraid of nerds and the culture that comes with them? What could they possibly be afraid of? The possibility of being made fun of by "normal", non-nerdy people? That must be so frustrating to think about approaching somebody that you might want to be friends with, all because they are a nerd.
Nerds and the culture/community that comes with them are quite interesting to be around. Unlike a lot of people who may feel as though they need to get drunk or high to have fun, nerds do exactly the opposite. We nerds need absolutely nothing to have fun because most of the time all we need to do is turn on the TV and put our favorite movie in to have a good time. There's nothing more refreshing then when I am able put on "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and recite my favorite lines as Chris Evans and Scarlet Johansson are saying them on the screen.
What makes being around nerds and being in the nerd community so repelling to others? We're just extremely passionate about fictional characters in the same way that people are passionate about sports. Instead of having debates over who is the better quarterback out of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning (by the way, totally Brady), we have debates over being Team Captain America or Team Iron Man.
It's extremely hard for some nerds, like myself, to fathom why people don't want to be associated with us. It's truly, truly hard to understand. We're just passionate about the things we like, and we just like to talk about them is all. You could have a 20-minute conversation about how you want to cut your hair for the summer, and I could have a 20-minute conversation about why last week's episode of "Supernatural" was just NOT OKAY! (Which it wasn't. At all. But that's beside the point.)
You may think that we're the weird ones, but quite frankly, we think you're the weird ones. What do you do all day? Read? Eat? Work? Sleep? What is life without obsessing over fictional characters and British male celebrities that are twice your age? That sounds extremely boring, if you ask me. I'd take not being able to get Sebastian Stan off my mind for five minutes over sitting around and thinking of what color to paint my nails any day.
Nerds are going to take over the world, just you wait, society.
