Why We Should Be Jealous Of Nerds

I have spent the majority of my life surrounded by various flavors of nerds, geeks, fangirls, fanboys, and have never really understood them.

My older sister is a dungeon master and LARPs on weekends, my boyfriend is a programmer for a video game company, and my best friend has a borderline-crippling Doctor Who obsession. I am not a nerd. I don’t really watch that much TV, I don’t read for fun (don’t get judge-y, I’m a grad student, I have to read constantly), I’m not that into movies. I’m plenty passionate, I follow the news, I’ve worked in human rights and ministry, but let me tell you something:

I have never cared about anything as much as nerd cares about their fandom.

Seriously. I care about a lot of things, but have you ever seen a true fan in their element? That fire in their eyes and the urgency in their voice, you know you’ve seen it. We laugh at it, tease them about their complete devotion to something we don’t understand.

I’m jealous of it.

I have watched whovians’, Trekkies’,and Lord of the Rings people’s (do they have a special name?) hearts BREAK over people who don’t exist and places they have never been. I want to feel that much, that much anything. Anger, betrayal, joy, relief, whatever. Hardcore fans feel it all. I have never sobbed at a TV show, never yelled at my computer screen, and, you know what? I kinda wish I had.

I envy the nerds. Because they really care about something. Care about it so much that they don’t really care that nobody else cares about it. They care about it enough to look like kinda stupid over it. When the characters they love win, they win, when the characters lose, they lose.

True nerds have been wizards and piloted the serenity, they’ve saved mankind and the shire. They’ve explored and discovered worlds the rest of us will never really understand.

How could I not be jealous of that? How could I not want to be like them?

So I guess it really doesn’t matter what we think of the nerds after all. If you’ve been to the edge of the galaxy and back, maybe even into other galaxies, why would you care what us mere mortals thought in the first place?

So here’s to you, geeks, fangirls/boys, enthusiasts, nerds.

Allons-y, boldly go, and never stop caring.