Yeah, you're a nerd, but what are you a nerd ABOUT?
I listen to a podcast called The Dork Forest, hosted by one of my favorite standup comedians, Jackie Kashian. She invites people on to talk about their dorkdom. A person's dorkdom can be anything they're just an extreme dork about: they don't have to have all the information or be an expert in that field; they just have to be a dork. As a result of this, almost every episode is fascinating, because even if you don't give a shit about photo booths, this one lady has dedicated her life to buying and restoring them, and who doesn't want a peek into that lady's life and why she is the way she is.
Because I listen to this show a lot and because I dork out about a lot of things, I've taken some time in my life to ponder which dorkdom I would talk about if I were on The Dork Forest. What do I get the MOST intense about. Here are some contenders:
Women's History
I mean. Come on. Yeah. Like someone's gonna talk to me for five minutes and NOT hear about Frances Willard and how her mission for the Women's Christian Temperance Union is misunderstood today. I managed to bring up this very topic on a date last week. Most dates don't turn out well, so why not use them as opportunities to spread the word.
My Breyer Horse Collection
Did the fact I own 75 model horses cause some weirdness in my last relationship? Yes it did. Can I, at age 31, get rid of these horses -- these horses that don't even live with me, but instead reside at my parents' house? No, absolutely not. Those horses have color-coded families that I separated them into at age eight. Families and names and stories about how I got them. A part of my brain recognizes that someday when my parents leave their house, they will probably require me to move said horses, and while I definitely cannot be That Lady in Her 30s With the Model Horse Collection, I also cannot think of an alternative at the present time. Said brain will revisit this topic when the situation deems it necessary.
Femslash Ships
"What are these words you're using?" I hear you ask, because you did not go to high school with me. Slash is a gay fictional pairing (from Kirk/Spock, and yes it is named after the conjunction) and femslash apparently needed its own term, so there we have it. Shipping is short for "relationshipping" and means you want two (or more) characters to end up together romantically. You might think, if you've had any interactions with a Tumblr Lesbian, that femslash ships are all over television, but they are in fact few and far between, so if you're in "the lesbian fandom," you know all of them -- even the ones you don't ship. My favorite tumblr post about this is:
I could EASILY talk for an hour about Xena/Gabrielle, Bering and Wells, Calzona, Swan Queen, Shoot, Rizzles, Bechloe, Hollstein, etc. And that's leaving out the giant teen ships like Clexa, Faberry, Brittana, Karmy, and whatever else the kids are into now. But anyway. Moving on.
The X-Files
I was in the X-Files fandom when the internet was a tiny baby and pretty much the only shows people were talking about on it were X-Files, Buffy, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Do I have fandom in-jokes dating from 1998? Yes I do. I constantly forget how much information about X-Files 13-year-old me stored in her brain, but then I'll be talking with someone in a cursory way about the show and I hear myself say "Well, y'know, Vince Gilligan wrote that episode and that's why shippers made internet shrines to him." That's right, People Living in the Present Day. The creator of Breaking Bad only means anything to '90s XF fans because he was known as the writer who wanted Mulder & Scully to bang.
Let's be honest, there's a lot more that could go on this list, but my and your attention spans are probably short, so let's cap it off at 4. Which of these would I be HAPPIEST talking about? You know what, I don't even know. And don't so easily dismiss the Breyer horses, because those are a sleeper interest of mine – meaning that if we get on the topic, my eyes will shine and I will tell you how I earned Secretariat's wife Cinnamon by doing laundry for my parents for eight hours (most of which consisted of me sleeping on piles of it in the laundry room).
As heard on The Dork Forest, everyone's dorkdom is interesting, so be telling me yours please.
I listen to a podcast called The Dork Forest, hosted by one of my favorite standup comedians, Jackie Kashian. She invites people on to talk about their dorkdom. A person's dorkdom can be anything they're just an extreme dork about: they don't have to have all the information or be an expert in that field; they just have to be a dork. As a result of this, almost every episode is fascinating, because even if you don't give a shit about photo booths, this one lady has dedicated her life to buying and restoring them, and who doesn't want a peek into that lady's life and why she is the way she is.
Because I listen to this show a lot and because I dork out about a lot of things, I've taken some time in my life to ponder which dorkdom I would talk about if I were on The Dork Forest. What do I get the MOST intense about. Here are some contenders:
Women's History
I mean. Come on. Yeah. Like someone's gonna talk to me for five minutes and NOT hear about Frances Willard and how her mission for the Women's Christian Temperance Union is misunderstood today. I managed to bring up this very topic on a date last week. Most dates don't turn out well, so why not use them as opportunities to spread the word.
My Breyer Horse Collection
Did the fact I own 75 model horses cause some weirdness in my last relationship? Yes it did. Can I, at age 31, get rid of these horses -- these horses that don't even live with me, but instead reside at my parents' house? No, absolutely not. Those horses have color-coded families that I separated them into at age eight. Families and names and stories about how I got them. A part of my brain recognizes that someday when my parents leave their house, they will probably require me to move said horses, and while I definitely cannot be That Lady in Her 30s With the Model Horse Collection, I also cannot think of an alternative at the present time. Said brain will revisit this topic when the situation deems it necessary.
 |
| My collection is not as terrifying as this one |
Femslash Ships
"What are these words you're using?" I hear you ask, because you did not go to high school with me. Slash is a gay fictional pairing (from Kirk/Spock, and yes it is named after the conjunction) and femslash apparently needed its own term, so there we have it. Shipping is short for "relationshipping" and means you want two (or more) characters to end up together romantically. You might think, if you've had any interactions with a Tumblr Lesbian, that femslash ships are all over television, but they are in fact few and far between, so if you're in "the lesbian fandom," you know all of them -- even the ones you don't ship. My favorite tumblr post about this is:
 |
| (x) |
The X-Files
I was in the X-Files fandom when the internet was a tiny baby and pretty much the only shows people were talking about on it were X-Files, Buffy, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. Do I have fandom in-jokes dating from 1998? Yes I do. I constantly forget how much information about X-Files 13-year-old me stored in her brain, but then I'll be talking with someone in a cursory way about the show and I hear myself say "Well, y'know, Vince Gilligan wrote that episode and that's why shippers made internet shrines to him." That's right, People Living in the Present Day. The creator of Breaking Bad only means anything to '90s XF fans because he was known as the writer who wanted Mulder & Scully to bang.
Let's be honest, there's a lot more that could go on this list, but my and your attention spans are probably short, so let's cap it off at 4. Which of these would I be HAPPIEST talking about? You know what, I don't even know. And don't so easily dismiss the Breyer horses, because those are a sleeper interest of mine – meaning that if we get on the topic, my eyes will shine and I will tell you how I earned Secretariat's wife Cinnamon by doing laundry for my parents for eight hours (most of which consisted of me sleeping on piles of it in the laundry room).
As heard on The Dork Forest, everyone's dorkdom is interesting, so be telling me yours please.
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