Nerds and Nerdhood evolving in Pop Culture

"You're such a nerd", this statement today would illicit an "Awww so cute" or an "OMG me too", but in the days of yore, being a nerd was looked upon with disdain and more often than not contempt. Has pop cultured evolved or is this fascination with video games and super heroes just a new fad for studio execs to cash in on? I honestly don't know..

Comic Books have always been considered, a nerd's domain. If you read comics, you were a nerd and a loser with no social life and no date for the prom. But today, if you say that you prefer Jim lee's art complementing Scott Snyder's epic storyline, you'll probably get laid. Ok, that probably may not be true, but you're guaranteed to get some tongue action at least.Joe Kubert passed away recently, most people who watched the Avengers or the dark knight rises may not, scratch that, do not have any idea who he was. Joe Kubert was a comic book artist who pencilled iconic characters like the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight. It wouldn't be hard to imagine that first editions of Kubert's rendering would go for a hefty price nowadays

You see, today, nerd culture has changed, propelled forward by shows like The Big Bang Theory. The YOLO generation has no idea what the Golden Age and Silver Age of comics is. They go around wearing t-shirts with quotes like "Beam me up Scotty",  when they have no idea that the original line from Star Trek was "Beam me up, Mr. Scott", and if you make the mistake of pointing that out, may god have mercy on your soul, because these faux nerds are worse than grammar nazis when it comes to protecting their false nerdhood.  In the days of yore comics and video games were never part of pop culture, they were pursuits followed by kids or weird creepers in basements. Which in itself was such a base and misguided generalisation.

But now, every one plays video games, if you don't, then you're not socially balanced or better yet you're weird. This may be a sweeping generalisation but its true. These days playing video games is equated with letting off steam like watching football and yelling at the screen was a way of letting off steam in the days of yore. If you're a true nerd today, you would still cherish the joy of blowing into cartridges (get your mind out of the gutter i meant blowing air), okay that didn't come out right, if you're a true nerd you'd get what i'm talking about. Anyway If you're a true nerd you'd still enjoy selecting games from a menu, still enjoy hannah barbera classics, and truly enjoy iconic characters that you have aspired to be like before they hit the mainstream and started making big bucks for movie studios. I for one have been a fan of Batman ever since i was born, literally since i was born, not figuratively, but literally, but that is a story for another post. And now i see my friends who can't differentiate between the riddler and the joker (i mean c'mon) talking about how they have been life long fans of Batman comics. When in reality, their exposure to Batman goes as far as the Arkham games and Christopher Nolans epic rendition on the big screen.

Though i really appreciate that comics, video games, and action figures have hit the mainstream in a big way. I still can't help but feel, that all this hullabaloo is a passing trend. Its just the band wagon picking up the latest trend and once its done with it, true nerds will be condemned to the basements and labelled immature like they have been in the past. While the jack asses who claim to be true nerds will jump ship like scared rats.


So this is me, a guy who really enjoys comics and video games saying, if you question my leisure interests with any kind of judgement, you may live to regret it.
 

Chuck and Beans says it all

The truth behind blogging, explained quite succinctly by Chuck and Beans Comics

 

ME IS FINALLY PUBLISHED!!!!!!! YAAAAY!!!!

First of all I'd like to thank all the guys and gals who visit my blog, even with just a handful of posts on my fledgeling rant space. I have had the honour of receiving four digit visits in the past month, when i decided to start blogging again. You guys are the best. You have no idea how awesome it was to see the entire world map highlighted in green on my stats.  It kinda justified the title of my blog, AWESOMENESS. So once again, thank you for that. This thank you encompasses all the guys and girls who even gave a passing glance to what i had to say, from India, Russia, Europe, USA and the rest of the world. You guys are awesome.

So, yeah, I know I haven't been very regular in updating my posts, well its no excuse, but I was busy with work and some other stuff. And to be honest, I didn't think any one gave a rats ass about what i had to say about anything. But now I gotta kinda re-assess. So here goes:


The reason I haven't been updating my blog was because i was working on something, i was working on something very special, it was gestating for close to eight and a half months and now that very special something is about to come out into the world. My book LOVE UNHITCHED will hit bookstores all over the country (India) on the 15th of September. But for those outside India, fret not my brethren, you can order it online on Amazon.com soon enough. For those of you in India my book is available for pre- order on Flipkart.com, heres the link if you want to give it a read http://tinyurl.com/9bjbgnx

Life is a Gift

What do you do with life?

Do you live it for the sake of living?

Do you live for others?

or

Do you live for yourself?

Life is a gift, unique to each and every living creation, courtesy of the big guy aka Morgan Freeman. It is precious and heck, you get only one shot at it. People are afraid of dying And yet they forget to live. People start dying from the day they are born. That is a fact, There is no denying that fact.If you are born, you must die. And yet everyone forgets the most crucial part in between those two extremes, living. People get so caught up in climbing the corporate ladder, rigging the rat race and hell kissing ass, all in an effort to get ahead in life. WHAT LIFE? The life you have forgotten to live in an attempt to better said life. You might think that money, security and money will help you in life. Hell ya! They will help you indeed. They'll get you the latest toys, that new 150 inch flat screen TV, which in turn will give you happiness. Right? You'd expect me to say Wrong, but hell I'm not going to disagree with 150 inches of high definition happiness. BUT, when you get down to it, does that crystal clear picture or the perfect sound quality give you happiness or the fact that your neighbour probably burst an aneurism when he saw the movers carting the baby into your living room.  If the answer to the latter was in the positive, then you have a problem like every other single creature on earth. You're living your life for somebody else, actually you're living your life for everybody except yourself. Ever since we were kids, adults have governed our life, what we should wear, what we should eat, what we should learn and how we should conform to an acceptable way of life. But heres the question again, Whose Life? We study, get jobs and start families, we do what we are told, we abide by laws and are respected in society, but at the end of it all, we are so caught up, in living a life that isn't ours, we forget to even be miserable at not being able to discover what we were capable of. Hell, we didn't even try to explore what we could have done with our lives. As kids the very notion of being Rockstars, Presidents and Astronauts is encouraged. It is in its very essence patronizing and pacification, cos we are stupid kids who don't know any better. But once you reach an age where you're potty trained and can aim at the urinal and can use a spoon, napkin and fork, the question of being a Rockstar goes out the window like it never existed. You tell your parents that you want to drop out and start a band, and you'll be out on your ass before you can say Gibson. But in all fairness, your parents do have your best interests at heart. And its always nice to have a back up to fall back on if things don't go as planned. Cos, sometimes life will wake you up from your dreams in a very abrupt way and you've got to have something to wake up to. BUT that does not mean, you don't go back at the end of the day and dream again.

 your parents to   others and now as adults, our peers, who themselves are adults, still govern our lives.  Then answer me

Books! BOOKS!! BOOKS!!!

They are wizards of concealment, diviners of revelation and masters of knowledge. They inform, enthrall and enchant. Some of the most sublime prose and world changing thought is contained between bound pages, encased in leather. Or for the more modern crowd, hardbacks and paperbacks. Literature has evolved and diverged into many forms and genres today. This expansion, has certainly added to the plethora of books at our disposal, but has this evolution towards an increasing quantity, compromised on the quality and substance, that used to be the norm of yore? The answer is no. It hasn't. No one can destroy literature, it cannot be corrupted by casual prose, any work of fiction or non-fiction only adds to literature. It is just a small part in an ever expanding universe. Literature is a symbol of enlightenment. And as my mentor Bruce Wayne puts it "A symbol cannot be corrupted". I paraphrase of course. But the point stands.

Can we argue that the Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey series have corrupted literature. We could, but we shouldn't :P. Now, in all seriousness. Stephenie Meyer and E.L James have written books that only entertain women. So what? They entertain, thats it period. These works are a contribution to literature nonetheless, a major contribution at that. Now, the Twilight series has been classified as every woman's domestic fantasy, the perfect man while the Shades trilogy has been classified as mommy porn, which roughly translates to the boudoir fantasies of middle aged women nearing their mid-life crisis. The author herself has confessed to her work being exactly this. So, what if its porn? So was Chaucer's Miller's Tale. And that is still considered high literature isn't it.

I have to confess, that I haven't read either of these works. This however is not a reflection on these books,. Or maybe it is, I know I'm being contradictory here, but that may be because I'm a guy, and I prefer my erotica in the good ol' visual form. And here's another thing, The double standard (This is a sweeping generalisation, but it is true, more or less), that women don't watch porn. But they'll read the crap out of it a' la The Fifty Shades of Grey series which has sold nearly 31 million copies. Twilight and Shades may not have any literary merit but they do serve the present sensibilities. Which isn't saying much, because we're in a generation that watches The Jersey Shore and The Kardashians, takes duck face photos on a phone that has more processing power than the computers that put a man on the moon and quote YOLO. 

Hopefully, in the future, sensibilities will change. Books like the Twilight and Shades series have not weakened literature, they have only added to it. Literature encompasses everything from a glossy tabloid advertising a celebrity's divorce, to a graphic novel to high art like Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.

Writing a book, any book is not easy. And the act of crafting a book requires a lot of patience and hard work. Now the above mentioned authors may not be good examples for this kind of writer, but they are writers nonetheless. A book is eternal, its leaves will remain and endure, long after our generation is dust. And thus the act of crafting a book, filling its pages with thought, words and knowledge is the noblest of acts and deserves the highest respect. 
 

Today, the traditional book, is giving way to digital devices like the Kindle and the Nook. Again, these devices only add to literature and help it thrive. Now, the Kindle, has a glare free screen which enables you to read in the sunlight. You know what else you can read in the sunlight? A freaking book. 

The publishing industry was hit hard like any other during the financial crisis and traditional publishers still stay safe. But there has been quite a change in the publishing game since years of yester. Today, we have new writers emerging everyday and Getting published. I should know, I'm one of them. Writers writing in various genres, writers who could go on to to great things. Writers who could lead this generation and the next into literary Re-renaissance. Trust me Re-renaissance is a word. Young authors with a unique voice and words to share and fill the ever expanding universe of Books and I should know I'm one of them. 

Books are sublime carriers of wisdom and allow you to explore and live life as it was, as it is and as it may be in the future.   

 

Real Life Recall

So i watched the remake of Total Recall this weekend, the movie was good enough, between kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and the Martian prostitute, i would say that i got my moneys worth. But it also got me thinking. So, here I was, another week and nothing new in life. I mean absolutely nothing, zip, nada. Its days like these that make you wonder why you exist. I personally think all of us need something like Recall, to take our minds of our mundane lives. Not all of us can become spies, actors, models or even Batman (Being Batman is my calling, so there). But we sure as hell can pretend. Even if just for a day, if we could leap off buildings, romance femme fatales in exotic locations, have millions of adoring fans mob you for an autograph, it would bring us such happiness. But heres the deal, Recall in real life, or Recall for us, is the silver screen. For two hours we get to live the lives of super heroes and spies, we get to save the world and we get to be cool. And when the end credits roll, we have to realise that all good things must come to an end. So, here i was walking out of the theatre after watching a really cool movie, with the awkward realisation that my life was far from what i had just witnessed on the big screen. But hey, its my life, i have got to live it nonetheless. Cause if  i don't, who is ? 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Other People
Age 1-5- Spiderman
Age 5-10- Fireman
Age10-15- Rock Star
Age 15-25- Engineer/ Doctor
Age 25 and above- Not a Clue

Me


Age 1-5-   Batman
Age 5-10-  Batman
Age10-15- Batman
Age 15-25- Batman
Age 25 and above- Batman