Hey
there, Phantomaniacs!
Today
is my birthday. I am thirty-seven years old. It really doesn’t mean
all that much except that it’s time for me to start losing a little
flab for convention season. I don’t feel older. I do feel a bit
wiser.
I have already received several excellent birthday presents – the
first is the article you are about to read from Beth Van D. The
second is that the horrible annoyance that is my trainee at work is
being assigned to another trainer. My managers spoke with me about
his progress and I was frank about the fact that the trainee simply
does not listen to me and seems to be having difficulty retaining
things. I attributed the failure to the both of us and perhaps a lack
of communication. But the managers knew full well that this guy was a
potential problem. Apparently he had a tough time in the classroom
training, as well.
The
third gift is that famed local band, Super X-13:
Is
playing tonight at Club Famous Pub. I am purely by chance getting a
birthday celebration almost custom-made for me. I honestly couldn’t
be much happier right now.
The
last time I was in the dealer room at Dragon Con I remember thinking
“I can get that somewhere else cheaper” about most of the things
I wanted to buy. Well, I also thought “god it smells like stale
sweat and spoiled cheese in here” but that's not relevant right
now. Dharma Initiative patches, Jayne Cobb knit hats, Triforce
t-shirts. There's a million places you can get them all now. In some
ways it's kind of awesome, but in some ways it's kind of not. Despite
some joking inferences that have been made to the contrary I am not a
nerd elitist. I really don't care when you knew about something cool.
We're all pretty kick ass for recognizing that Star Wars is the best
thing since blue milk. Who cares when you knew it? Doctor Who
wouldn't still be on if lots of people didn't like it so I really
can't bitch about how it's changed right?
Well,
me being me I can find a way to bitch about almost anything. I think
what bugs me is that when things get too big they get diluted –
they lose something that made them special. It's like when a band you
love goes from playing small clubs to selling out arenas. The music
hasn't changed, but the feeling does. You lose the intimacy, and the
connection with the people making the music that made it special. It
has nothing to do with people jumping on the bandwagon, it's what
happens to the wagon once it's overloaded. It has to slow down and
change direction to make all the new people comfortable. That's
what's happening to Doctor Who and many of the other things I love.
I'll
stick with Doctor Who for a little longer since that's one of my big
gripes right now. Tom Baker was my first Doctor. The show was silly
and campy and charming. The monsters were made of cardboard, and the
TARDIS sets looked like you could bust through them Kool-Aid man
style. Now it's all slick, and sexified, and the effects are actually
special. It's taking itself too seriously, and starting to suffer for
it if the current season is going to continue down it's current path.
But it's happened with more than just Doctor Who. Let's talk
superheroes. The first two X-Men movies were great. I was arguably
biased given that it was always my favorite comic growing up, but
they had plenty of appeal for everyone. Then they got so super
popular that it seemed like they wanted to broaden it even further.
And all the hard work the first two movies did was forgotten when we
were faced with 90 minutes of explosions featuring characters loosely
based on the X-Men. As an aside I guess that they made the Wolverine
origins movie to narrow the appeal back down again. That's the only
excuse I think of for them ruining the back stories of many good
characters. Given that First Class wasn't bad I'm cautiously
optimistic about Days of Future Past, but back to the point. The
Spider-Man reboot was really boring, Ryan Reynolds should have stuck
to playing Deadpool, and the Superman reboot looks like they're just
riding Batman's capetails. Superheroes are even more pervasive than
Doctor Who since at least you have to go to a mall to get that merch.
You used to be able to identify a kindred spirit by an
indie/underground t-shirt or similar accessory. “Hey, you must be
really into (insert nerdy thing here) to have gone to the trouble to
hunt down that super nerdy thing”. Now it just means that they live
near a Target store. I found a women's “vintage” Star Wars
t-shirt at Old Navy. I totally still bought one, but I was super
conflicted about it. I blame that more on the clothing industry
ignoring nerd women. If I see something like that in an actual
womens' size I will always buy it, but that's a story for another
day.
I
guess at the end of the day what I really want to say is this: fly
your nerd flag high. Like whatever you want to like, wear whatever
you want to wear, and shop wherever you want to shop. Just stop once
in awhile to consider what nerd pandering might be doing to our
various genres. Look what it's done to zombies. My favorite movie
monster of all time reduced to a “how to survive the zombie
apocalypse” poster at Wal-Mart. The superb Left 4 Dead games
forgotten as a game based on The Walking Dead TV series stinks up the
place. When everybody likes something they have to make sure that it
appeals to everyone, and there are a lot of stupid people in the
world to appeal to. Think about it. Do you really want to see every
single thing Tolkien ever wrote turned into a 12 hour movie? If your
answer is no please, for the love of Zod, burn down Hot Topic.
(the
author bears no liability for any Hot Topics that might actually be
burned down as a result of this article)
(And
that goes double for the editor; but mostly because I actually like
Hot Topic)
-Beth
Van D
Beth's text is black. I had to highlight it to read it. Happy Birthday Good Sir!
ReplyDeleteUgh. Stupid Blogger. I fixed it. And thanks!
DeleteHappy Birthday!
ReplyDeleteThanks, man!
Deletehot topic is just a shell hollow out joke of what it use to be far off in a distant memory.....in the eye of a crow also HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, nerd culture going mainstream is a good thing. Nerds are no longer as ostracized outside of school. Nerds are embraced and loved for who they are: Smart people who will save the world or invent new ones.
ReplyDelete