I know, I know, I’m a day late. Rarely a good thing for a girl to be.
I ended up writing on a novel I’ve been working on until 1 am last night, and only then did I realize “Oh crap, it’s blog night.” Whoops! My apologies.
I don’t really have a lot to talk about anyway, but today’s topic is going to be poser nerds. B and I went to the comic shop yesterday (also known as the card shop, but we went for comics and not cards so yesterday it was the comic shop, hah!) to look for the G.I. Joe comics he is looking for. They, unfortunately, didn’t have them. Well they might have, but he refused to ask for help so the world may never know. They did have some of the Cobra Civil War comics, which has always seemed to me like one of the more interesting story arcs. I will be excited when I get there.
it’s true, my nerd-dom is taking on new bounds. I have officially expanded into comics. I have read a small (read: amount that can be read whilst sitting on the floor in a bookstore) amount of the Walking Dead comics, and I own the comic adaptation of the Guild, but beyond that I am (was) a total comic virgin.
And yesterday I got the comics I have been so desperately coveting since I discovered they existed: The Dark Tower comics. Not all of them, only two sets, but oh man they are nice! Leatherbound and hardback, beautiful pages…I brought them straight home and spent the rest of the day cuddling. Just kidding, I read them. To my 5 month old daughter. She was…less than appreciative.
Where was I…oh yes, the card/comic shop. In this shop was a guy who really irritated me. He is not what I recognized as one of the regulars, but he was there with a fledgling nerd friend and trying to be all “super nerdy cool look at me”. Seriously, this guy was dropping names like a fool, trying to impress his buddy. They were discussing Magic: The Gathering cards and he was busting out all this (wrong) info like he was an expert, and then I hear him say “Yeah, I haven’t played since 4th edition, but I don’t imagine it’s changed that much.” For reference, the 4th edition cards were released in 1995. Literally almost twenty years ago. This guy couldn’t have been THAT much older than me, and I was in 2nd grade in 1995. Really?
So I managed to ignore this guy, only he continued on to say “Yeah, I used to play other games too, like D&D, but I quit because those games are for REAL losers.”
I kid you not, the entire store fell silent. That eerie kind of expectant silence, where all it would take would be one spark to light the powder keg. I silently wished that the shop-dog would pee on this guy’s leg.
Why you gotta be hatin’ on the D&D crowd, bro? What have we ever done to you? How does playing M:TG make you any better than us, especially since I’m pretty sure you were just a douchebag in disguise?
I really don’t understand why some people set these very hurtful limits, like “this” level of nerdy hobbies is okay, but if I cross THIS line then surely I am a loser with no life who deserves to be looked down on and mocked. It’s like saying “Oh I USED to play professional football, but I quit because it was for REAL losers. Now I only play intramural football.” It’s not a perfect metaphor, but I think it gets my point across.
When will we reach the point where people stop looking down on D&D? What is wrong with a little imagination?
> How does playing M:TG make you any better
It doesn’t
M:TG is just a more expensive and slightly more complicated version of Snap. #FlameWar 
Not that I’ve ever played it or D&D, but to be so rude to another hobby, it’s a bit off IMO.
I love M:TG myself…not as much as I love D&D but a great amount of lots. And I must confess I haven’t the faintest idea what Snap is.
Strange which facets of nerdom catch on and which ones will seemingly always remain taboo.
Being from the East Coast bible belt originally, I expected comments like that back home. But here on the West Coast it always seems to come as a shock to hear the same old thing repeated back. Thanks for visiting, Len!
I *hate* the ‘shopflies’ who have nothing better to do than just hang out at a retailer and spout their garbage. That’s a real problem in the shops around here, the staff never seems to do anything about it (and we’re not just talking general nerd this is better than that stuff, but really vulgar language that should NEVER be okay in a place of business), so I buy all my stuff via mail-order.
If you ever have the chance, check out Neal Stephenson’s book, readme. It’s a sort of technothriller about a world famous game designer who gets caught up in a rescue mission when his niece gets kidnapped by criminals and the cops are clueless, so he uses his money and contacts to track her down himself. There’s a whole multi-page passage in there about the differences between MMOs, D & D, and Magic and the players who gravitate to each that’s just laugh out loud hilarious — if you’re into gaming, it’s got a ridiculously detailed background about this character and the wholly fictional games he’s created, you might like it.
Aw sweet, I love books! I’ll definitely add that one to my Must-Read list. Normally the comic/card shop here isn’t bad; there’s always SOME people just hanging out in there, but thus is the nature of nerd shops, I’ve found. This guy though…this guy was not a very nice person.
And now I must admit, I am terribly curious which of those “categories” I’d fall into, as I played multiple MMOs, D&D, and Magic all at the same time. I’M THE SUPER NERD!
I really don’t understand the “Nerd Cool” thing.Nerds will never be cool. The whole reason they (we) are being portrayed as cool is the whole hipster ironic thing, with the mahoosive empty glasses and stuff to say “Look! glasses! I’m so cool I can even pretend to be nerdy” which actually makes Nerd-dom LESS cool ‘cos the cool people are saying “I am so awesome I can be this much of a loser and remain cool.”
Nerds will always be the weird kids with unhealthy interests in obscure things. We will always be the last picked for sports teams and the first picked for maths competitions.
We will never be “cool”. Cool means nothing to a nerd does it? Would you stop reading comic books or playing board games or reading about particle physics (or whatever) because it isn’t cool? Of course not! We do these things because they are fun and engrossing, and that’s why so many of us are successful!