Grand Opening: I Talk About The Birth Of My Nerdom

Allison's adventure to finding nerdom and getting lost in it. The goal being to drag you into it too.

Wow, I can't believe I am writing my first post on My Mess. The idea of writing a blog has been with me for a while. I kept a blog way back in our xanga and myspace days and have missed it ever since. But while I was thinking of writing a blog, I had to address the question: what am I going to write about? Because writing a blog as a cringey teenager is much different than writing a blog that you actually want people to read as an adult. Good business practice tells us that we should have a demographic. Passion tells us to pursue what we love. I love being a nerd and what a time to be a nerd. So here we are, the birth of my nerdom.

“Where did your nerd start?” -James Welliver

My husband asked me this question when we discussed how my blog should start. He brought up InuYasha. InuYasha was the first anime I watched AS an anime. I stress that because it wasn't the first anime I watched. My generation was blessed to have anime at a young age because our parent's just thought it was cartoons and didn't feel weird about it yet like they would as we got older. I watched Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon, and, of course, Sailor Moon. But what happens next? At some point it becomes a choice. So, how does one become a nerd?

Turning Points

I wasn't very good at reading. I had one teacher in, I believe, the third grade who really took time to help me. She spent extra time with me and eventually made a book club for those who were struggling. The first "book book" I ever finished was in that book club, The Chocolate Touch. That was a turning point. That was when I fell in love with reading. After that you could always find me going to libraries, getting books and diving into fantasies. I loved fiction, I loved the escape from real life, even at a young age. I said before, at some point it becomes a choice. That teacher invested in me but I was the one who continued to pursue it as a hobby. I was the one who chose to run full force to fiction. It is also I who chose to continue watching that adult swim show while I was channel surfing in the middle of the night.

My nerd journey has been a collection of opportunities presented to me and curiosities sought out. My whole family were readers, so I always had that, my mom and dad are huge Stephen King fans if that puts anything into perspective. I would say I got my love of nerdy shows from them as well. With my mom, I grew watching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. Are ya catchin' my vibes? But with anime and manga it was a bit different. Anime I found by accident, but there was something about it that I loved so much. It was rough in the beginning though. I didn't have the internet back then, this was the "good ole days" ya know. You had to work for it back then. Plus it was not "cool" to watch anime so people didn't talk about it much, it was hard to find your people. It was rough going but as an adult I look back on it and find it so funny that even back then I knew how much I loved these things, the lengths I would go through to watch anime or get my hands on a manga.

But also as an adult, I can now articulate why I love these things. I love anime in particular because I feel like it is a great culmination of art. The drawing, the music, the story lines. You get it all. I love webcomics for similar reasons. These things are more original than our recycled Hollywood culture that we currently live with. Not to say I don't enjoy new stuff but we are living in an age of remakes. But don't despair, we are all at another turning point. What a time to be a nerd: comics are being made into movie (that are actually good) *cough cough* Marvel *cough cough*, there are apps on our phones where we can read webcomics and manga for free, anime merch is in a lot of stores, D&D is mainstream?! We are at a turning point, so lets spin into it together.

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Thank you for reading my first post here on My Mess. Moving forward I will be talking about a lot of different nerdy things I enjoy. Stay tuned so we can continue the journey together, because here, you will find your people.