Geek Chic?

The Big Bang Theory, the Star Trek reboot, comic book movies, really anything popular these days is centered around geeks. The I fucking love science page on Facebook has 4.5 million likes. I can go to any major department store and pick up shirts plastered with Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers. What?

I remember being excited about Power Rangers in first grade. I loved it; I would race home from the bus stop to watch it. I did not get to tell my friends that. My friends were more into Barbies. Not that I didn’t like Barbie, that’s just not the first thing I would look forward to after school. I learned at a very early age that I couldn’t fangirl out about just anything in public. Sure, my friends could go crazy over Backstreet Boys(ick!), but I couldn’t tell anyone how excited I was when the green ranger switched sides.

I didn’t actually pick up my first real comic book until high school, but I was raised on Saturday morning cartoons. All the 90’s Batman, X-men, and Spiderman cartoons helped shape me into I am today. It wasn’t until middle school that I found out that these were based on comics and really not cool to be into. It also blew my mind when I found out that none of my friends like RTS games. My brother and I would totally set up a LAN and battle the piss out of each other in Warcraft 2 or Command and Conquer: Red Alert. It wasn’t cool. I mean, everyone had a Nintendo, but PC gaming? Too far.

While I’m glad it’s cool to appear to be lame now, at the same time it’s hard to tell if someone’s legitimately from a fandom or just being trendy. Did you know that Icing sells non-prescription glasses? Also, non-specialty stores now carry d20’s. It’s neat that I carry a dice-bag in my purse, unless I actually start talking about it. It’s cool to like Batman, not nearly as cool to have a favorite Robin.  I applaud directors for making the things I'm into socially acceptable, but we've still got a ways to go.