March 8, 2017

Geeks Like Us

A couple of years ago a friend of mine called me and asked what I was doing. I replied (quite honestly) "painting my toe nails pink and watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

"That's so...you," she replied. "Yeah," I laughed. "I'm such a geek."

Now before you ask, I was watching the original Chainsaw and not that travesty of a remake. Also I have since discovered the beauty of professional pedicures and all that entails, including not splattering nail polish all over light beige carpeting, and trained experts who craftily use tools of destruction against annoying callouses. Sexy.

That phone exchange always stuck out in my mind for some reason. First of all, because my friend knew me all too well, but second, because I thought what I was doing made me a geek. You care about toe nail polish AND Leatherface? It doesn't sound plausible, until you realize that Leatherface occasionally wears a hell of a lot of make-up. I mean, he probably smeared it on using somebody's dismembered hand as a make-up brush, but still....
I wonder if Leatherface ever subscribed to Ipsy? Just a thought.

The thing is, it's easy all too easy to put down yourself for being well, yourself. During our conversation I realized how I sounded. watching Texas Chainsaw instead of some light-hearted rom-com. I felt like the biggest nerd in the world. But what does that even mean? Those who describe themselves as "nerds" will say it's because they like Harry Potter, or comic books, or video games. But that doesn't mean they're the stereotypical nerd with pocket protectors and snorty laughs, it just means they like things.
I, for example, work in marketing and function day to day as a seemingly normal, albeit slightly quirky, type of person. But underneath it all, I'm the biggest horror movie nerd you've ever seen. My DVD collection consists of almost all horror and it's proudly displayed for all to see. Wanna watch Pretty Woman? Sorry I don't have that. But I do have my prized copy of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. Let's watch that one.

So, yes in this respect I do consider myself a nerd. Well, I'm also a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan (and helloooo to all my MSTies out there), plus there's my love of weird pop culture. But again, that doesn't mean I'm a stereotypical nerd straight out of an 80s film. It just means there's stuff I like.

The truth is, we're ALL nerds, including you people who think you're not. You don't read comics but live for ESPN and can drop football stats like nobody's business? Congrats you're a sports nerd. Do you go crazy for the latest styles and know 15 exciting ways to dress up palazzo pants? Fashion nerd. There are car nerds and cat nerds and dog nerds and "dogs and cats living together" nerds (also known as Ghostbuster nerds). Let's face it, people geek out over a lot of different things.
My point is this. You shouldn't have to hide the things you love, simply because you feel that it might set you apart or have you branded with the dreaded "nerd" word. Because EVERYBODY has things they love. It's part of what makes you "you". And true, we usually gravitate towards people who like the same things we do, but that doesn't mean you have to call yourself a geek because somebody else doesn't share those interests.

Because we're ALL nerds.

So tell me, what kind of nerd are you?
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3 comments:

  1. Chris OttoMarch 10, 2017 at 2:56 PM

    You had me at Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things...

    That movie. First saw it when I was far too young, back in the days when they showed ANYTHING on the afternoon movie matinee and parents didn't always supervise their children. (I also remember The House of the Seven Corpses and The Sentinel, which was, thankfully for my young psyche, at least the edited-for-TV version.) But "Children Shouldn't Play" stuck with me the most. Those kids got what they deserved from Orville and Company.

    So we have that in common and also, definitely, always, MST3K.

    Beyond that, I'm drawn to fairy tales (not the Disney kind) from across the world. I cut my teeth on those Ruth Manning-Sanders collections as a kid and still read them to this day.

    I also love Victorian ghost stories, old postcards written by strangers, vintage Scholastic Book Club paperbacks, reading old D&D modules for pleasure ... there are no ends to my nerdiness and geekiness, and I love that those words can mean so many different things and that we can (or at least *should* accept them all with open arms).

    Thanks for your great post, Cheryl. And don't go resurrecting any corpses tonight.



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  2. Cheryl ZMarch 10, 2017 at 3:56 PM

    Ha! I LOVE that movie. And yes, the reason I love it so much is because I used to watch it on Saturday afternoons "Thriller Double Feature" here in Detroit. They also used to play "House of the 7 Corpses" too! I own that movie too, although I remember it as being better when I was a kid.

    And yeah, I'll *try* and stay away from resurrecting corpses (no promises though)

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    1. Chris OttoMarch 10, 2017 at 4:18 PM

      Many favorite scenes in that movie. My favorite might be at the end, when Alan -- in a final desperate ploy to escape the walkers, errr, zombies -- tosses his girlfriend down the staircase to them as a distraction. The zombies give him a "What even, dude?" look (even though they wouldn't have said "What even" back then) before turning their attention back to her and chowing down.

      I remember, too, being so creeped out by the zombies boarding the boat and heading for the mainland at the end. The music and sound design of that movie is SO GREAT for a low-budget film. It's like they welded one of those 1960s "Haunted House Sound Effects" vinyl records onto the film. Of course, for all I know, that's *precisely* what they did.

      We must have totally been beamed the same TV signals and broadcasts when we were younger....

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