I Am A Geek

 I am a geek! The title of this article says it all. I am a geek! I've always been a geek. As many of you know, I grew up differently than most people my age. Due to my numerous health issues and physical condition, I spent much of my childhood in the hospital and going to doctors appointments, medical procedures and scans. And many times I ended up in isolation because my health was such that either my immune system was so compromised that I could become deathly ill if I just caught a simple cold while playing with other kids, or I had an infectious disease that could be passed on to other children if I was around them. So while the other kids were playing sports, or running around the neighbourhood, I was inside at home or in the hospital, or outside in the backyard, playing with toys, reading books and comics or watching TV or movies. Listening to music was a big thing for me as well.

Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman, Power Rangers, Barney, Teddy Ruxpin, Disney and the Berenstain Bears were just some of my favourite things when I was a kid. I watched or read them every day of my life, even when I was at school, because some of the classrooms had Disney and Berenstain Bears books in them. They kept me entertained and occupied in between appointments, or while I waited for a nurse to come in and help me with my routine at the hospital. Being a geek got me through the worst moments in my life, be it a difficult hospital stay, growing up in general, or the torment of high school. 

I wasn't always proud to be a geek though. In fact, there was a time when I was ashamed to be a geek. I was ashamed that I wanted to see Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Lilo & Stitch, that I was eagerly awaiting the Star Wars prequels, that I enjoyed watching Star Trek: Enterprise, Smallville, Andromeda, Stargate SG-1, and Mutant X, and I enjoyed reading Batman and Superman as often as I could manage. Since I name dropped the shows and movies that I did, you can guess when my time of being ashamed to be a geek was. When I was in high school and college from 2001 to 2010. When I wanted to start dating, get along with my classmates, whether we had the same interests or not, and when being a geek wasn't cool.

Back then comic book and superhero movies were just starting out with incredible Marvel movies like X-Men and Spider-Man, when Star Trek was on it's way out because the fanbase didn't like Enterprise, when The WB was using Smallville as a way to gauge interest in characters published by DC Comics, when Harry Potter was huge as the book series wrapped up and the movies were going strong, and when Star Wars was being experimental outside of the movies with novel series like The New Jedi Order and The Clone Wars micro-series on Cartoon Network. Even while the prequel trilogy was crashing and burning with Attack of the Clones. Doctor Who also came back during this period.

The reason I was ashamed to be a geek is because I was teased and harassed by people at school, both in high school and in college, even while movies like The Dark Knight and Iron Man dominated the box office in 2008. My high school was a very sports oriented school, especially in 2004 when we got a principal that was a huge sports fan. All I wanted to do was fit in with my peers because I was already sticking out simply because I was the only person in my high school who was in a wheelchair. Especially since, like I said, I wanted to have a girlfriend.

It wasn't until Ottawa Comiccon began in 2012 that I began to shake off the shame I felt for being a geek, because suddenly, I wasn't alone. There was an event that was local that was meant to celebrate everything that was geeky and 22,000 geeks were in attendance during that first 2 day event alone. 2012 was also a transformative year for geekdom as The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Amazing Spider-Man dominated at the box office, Disney announced they'd bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas and were planning to make more Star Wars movies, and Arrow began airing and not only launched a successful shared TV series universe known as the Arrowverse but also ushered in a new era of comic book based TV shows that continues to this day. I've been a proud geek ever since. 

Being a geek has never been about the large online communities for me. Because I began my geek journey by watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my family and talking about Star Wars and Animorphs with friends when I was in the sixth grade, I've always preferred having a small group of friends to talk about geeky things with, or to talk about them one on one with a single person. For example I prefer chatting on Facebook Messenger with Aaron or Jonathan or on Facebook Video Chat with my sister Andrea or my friend, Danielle,  about geeky things than I do on online forums and Facebook groups. Especially these days.

It took me a long time to once again be proud to be a geek. I had to wait for geek culture to become mainstream with the MCU, Disney+, and the Arrowverse, and that took decades. It didn't help when shows like The Big Bang Theory portrayed us as crazy people that sought to prove that we're superior to non-geeky people.* But it finally happened. And I'm glad it did because it was hard growing up as a geek who was also physically disabled and was autistic. Especially when I was frequently the only kid in my school was disabled. 

I am a geek and proud of it. Starting in August I am going to do a series of posts on a particular franchise every month. For each franchise, I will focus on one aspect of it for each week of the month. The aspects will be: TV shows/movies, comic books, books, and video games. These are not reviews. Instead this will be a chronicle of how I experienced these franchises. For example, in August I'll be focusing on Star Trek and I'll be going into where I started in the franchise. So if I saw a movie in theatres, or how I watched a particular TV show etc. So like the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation is more ingrained into my brain because I had most of it on VHS when I was a kid and watched those tapes on repeat all the time. So please join me for My Journey as a Geek. 

If you're a geek, I hope you're proud of it. It's great being geek. It's brought me together with some amazing people who are some of my closest friends ever. Even though I prefer the smaller conversations with friends and family, it's a great sense of community that I don't think I would necessarily get anywhere else. And that my friends is truly special. Take care.