In the many months that I’ve spent writing this column to unpack my blerd identity, there’s been a lot of man-without-a-country stuff.
Never quite fitting the stereotyped bill of either part in the blerd equation. I’m a sorta-nerd, not quite a black guy.
Among black folks, we have a expression – losing your black card – to describe when a black person does something not considered to be culturally black.
I’ve got many of them such as my absolute disinterest in card games. I don’t play spades, no gin rummy, no bid whist.
I’ve lost my black card more times than I can count. I heard it often as a kid growing up in the shadows of Urkel and Carlton. But maybe I need to talk about the anti-nerd in me.
The stuff that would revoke my nerd card.
That’s right: I’m ready to commit nerd sacrilege. To go through the things that supposedly all nerds must love, that in my heart of geekish hearts, I will never like.
I’ve poured the gasoline, so it’s time to light the match.
It’s a landmark film full of awesome near-future imagery. A deep-think treatise on humanity packed into a dark detective drama. A Ridley Scott classic, complete with high-level Harrison Ford, scary Darryl Hannah, in-her-prime Sean Young, that Rutger Hauer “time to die” speech, and Edward James Olmos as some kind of Japanese-Latino who makes wicked-awesome origami. And I find the movie duller than dishwater.
Throw all the awesome flying police cars and rain-soaked Los Angeles you want, and I still yawn 20 minutes in. Maybe it’s the score by Vangelis that kills me. Maybe it’s too long. Maybe it’s that there are now, what, 62 different cuts of the dang thing? I loved seeing a flying car at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle a few years ago, but I still said to its face that it needed to be in a more exciting movie. And I’m not looking forward to some remake starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt or whomever they get. (Side note: We’re only seven years away from 2019? Good grief.)
I don’t care for anime
I can’t get into it, despite knowing my share of otaku, the Japanese term for people with obsessive interests, or, in a word, geeks. I still call it Robotech, for cryin’ out loud. And while I know all my favorite robot cartoons of my childhood started in anime, they were Americanized by the time they showed up on Channels 17 and 57.
I don’t much care for the generic character designs of with pointy chins and super-long legs and torsos. I appreciate the va-va-voom nature of the female designs, but I find many of the faces too prepubescent-looking. (You’re not a creeper for digging those designs. I just feel like one half the time.)
That said, most of the genre’s design work is amazing. I admire the folks who can translate that stuff into cosplay – the suits, tech, guns, everything. And I admire the animation breakthroughs of the anime industry, with powerhouse companies such as TMS. I have an anime-inspired statuette of Wonder Woman in my house right now. Looks like it fell from collective fantasies of William Moulton Marston, Frank Frazetta and Larry Flynt.
Just don’t ask me to watch Cowboy Bebop or Avatar: The Last Airbender, despite how good they are. But I will watch the shit out of some Akira and Ninja Scroll, though. Those are awesome.
I’m not really into Ani DiFranco
I know, I like a lot of nerdy music that would put Ani right in my wheelhouse. My album collection is littered with female singer-songwriters and woman-fronted bands of the ’90s: Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Bjork, Hole, Sarah McLachlan, Garbage, Portishead, Belly, Luscious Jackson. I’ll even listen to some Fiona Apple and tolerate Alanis Morrisette’s stupid butt. But never Ani. I have no real thing against her, but I’m just not interested. It’s not my bag, baby.
The State
I know! I’m so supposed to like this show! In general, I think it’s OK. I just have little interest in The State, even though we all like the “I wanna dip my balls in it” guy. And I like pretty much every project under the Thomas Lennon/Kerri Kenney-Silver ouvre, including Viva Variety. (God bless you, Johnny Blue Jeans, you cool-ass pal.) But the fount from which Stella, Reno 911! and Wet Hot American Summer sprang just doesn’t hold much sway in my comedy-geek brain. Not the way that Mr. Show with Bob and David does.
Whew.
That was plenty.
There are more objects of nerd sacrilege, but they’re easy targets: Kevin Smith, role-playing games, old-school hip-hop, Doctor Who. (I like stuff that makes fun of everyone’s favorite Time Lord, such as Community‘s Inspector Spacetime, more than the actual Doctor.). But instead I thought I would rope in some of my nerd friends to share their nerd sacrilege.
My friend Rob jumps to the front of the line with his dislike of nerds who don’t take their toys out of the packaging. My brother-in-law used to do this, and I remember visiting his sacred room full of molded plastic pasted to cardboard as a child (my sister is 15 years my senior). As a kid, I thought, “How do you play with them?” Hence I have scores of superhero action figures lined up in the free air, to this very day. And he later unleashed his. You have to with classic G.I. Joe dolls, because you want them to ride in the humvee.
Megan dislikes Monty Python (gasp!), saying it’s “at once too slapstick and too British. I don’t really relate to it even though I love history, and every single person thinks I would. People look very disappointed when I tell them I don’t like it …. I have literally never laughed at a Python bit.” Her own fiance gets that lip-curled disappointment. I know. I don’t make fun of Doctor Who in front of my fiancee.
Another dimension to nerd sacrilege highlights just how gendered geekdom can be. A few of my female nerd friends felt they lacked the literal balls to care about stuff such as Python, Star Wars and Rush.
I was a bit surprised that my friend Crystal doesn’t dig Lord of the Rings. I’ve known many a girl geek who digs long-haired, scruffy-faced men swinging swords. (I hear their swooning over the assorted men in Game of Thrones.) And the LOTR films had two female screenwriters and highlighted big moments of womanly courage amid all the men in the books. But Crystal calls LOTR “a testosterone fest with endless death scenes,” and says the epic “just leaves me cold” despite her immense respect for it.
I got a few Star Trek nods, including a “snoozeville!” from Sereita. And Joss Whedon pops up a bunch, too. From my buddy Tish, who says Whedonites occupy “embarrassing nerd territory”: “I’m tired of Joss Whedon fanboys saying, ‘But you should like Whedon. His stuff has great female characters!’ … They even like really bad movies like Serenity, fer crissakes! Sure, Serenity‘s not as bad as Dune, but I’d rank it up there with Star Trek: Generations.” Though she does admit that The Avengers was rad.
Dan won’t ever like Babylon 5 despite liking pretty much every space-faring TV show and movie, because it’s “too cheesy.” Holly never was into Radiohead, no matter how many times she hears that Thom Yorke is a genius. Shawn isn’t into MMOGs, even if they pay Mr. T to like World of Warcraft in commercials.
Also, nerd stuff can’t fake the funk, and that’s where The Big Bang Theory drew tons of vitriol. Rob reminded me of Box Office Poison creator/artist Alex Robinson’s description as “Amos and Andy for nerds.” My pal Pete: “Not only does it pander to ‘nerds,’ but it is also at the same time making fun of them and their likes/hobbies at their expense. The show is laughing at them and not with them.” And its portrayal of scientists is “pretty stereotypical and completely wrong,” he says. “My wife, a real scientist, upon viewing the show, just shook her head at how absurd the characters were.”
My fiancee, Rosemary, stopped watching The Big Bang Theory because they hit too many unfunny fat girl = ugly jokes. “It’s lazy writing and as a fat girl, it’s hurtful and just not true.” I get it. Don’t we all know a lot of fat nerds, male and female? Outsider status is a core issue in nerd world, so Hollywood throwing its body biases into the mix ain’t cool.
“I can make you a list of guys who would LOVE to see my fat ass in a Wonder Woman costume … and then see that Wonder Woman costume on their floor.”
She says Family Guy makes good fat-girl jokes, though, as she keeps inviting me to eat cake off her butt. But that’s a story for another time.
So there. I’ve done it. I am cleansed. I am pure. I am confessed, and my mind is wiped clean in the face of nerd sacrilege. So are my nerdy friends.
Now it’s your turn.
Lose your nerd card.
