Gotta Catch Em All, Pokemon! That phrase has been known around the world for about twenty-six years now. The phrase that you always associate when thinking about Pokemon. And they’ve been creating the games many know and love for generations and generations to come. One of those games that are coming out is Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet.
This game is going to, in my opinion going to change the face of Pokemon games. Scarlet and Violet are the first pokemon games that let us have free reign over which gyms we get to choose to go to first before we challenge Victory Road. Many people have been upset about the fact because yes, it is highly different than what we are used to from the beginning games of Red, Yellow, Emerald, all of the old games where we challenged the gyms one by one in a consecutive order slowly getting stronger and raising the level with it so to speak. But, if you think about it, with Scarlet and Violet we will be able to experience exactly what Ash Ketchum went through with his journey. He didn’t go through gyms by a scaling process, no it was whatever gym he found at the time he challenged.
We also got new pokemon. A whole new species of pokemon! We haven’t had that for a few games! Now, Nintendo hasn’t released much information yet, but as it gets closer to the release date in November I’m sure they’ll give us more. And you can definitely count on me to keep y’all updated as more info comes out!
Conventions. Every nerd’s favorite thing to go to each year. It’s where we can express our love and passion for all of the movies, shows, anime, video games, whatever we are obsessed with without being judged for it. These places are even where our wallets practically cry out in pain from all the spending we do on the things that we “Must have” even though we really don’t, but it makes us happy to have it anyways.
Sadly though, ever since Covid hit, we’ve been deprived of our happy place. Its been pretty rough on everyone. From cosplayers to just regular con-goers alike.
“I’ve been feeling sad about it since I have so many cosplay ideas and I can’t cosplay them at conventions,” ButterBeret, an Instagram user and cosplayer said when asked about how they feel about the loss of conventions.
Because of the absence of conventions, many cosplayers have felt the loss of motivation to cosplay seeing that they don’t have a place where they can show their hard work. Luckily though, this has caused an increase in the use of the popular cell phone app Tik Tok.
“I’ve been feeling sad about it since I have so many cosplay ideas and I can’t cosplay them at conventions,”
ButterBeret
If they aren’t able to show off their crafty talents in person, they have found an outlet to still show of the long hours of their hard work on the app. And cosplayers have even taken to making various series with their characters. Some even find it to not only be fun and a great emotional outlet, but their videos sometimes blow up and become viral. So, in a way, Tik Tok has become a temporary fix for conventions. Even though everyone is still eagerly waiting for the return of the fun we get to experience, we can at least enjoy creating fun videos and making new friends as we do it.
The emotional effect on nerds are tough though. Even though people have Tik Tok and we can talk to each other through various technological means, conventions provide a lot of people a means of an emotional escape. They are the places that they can relax and be their true selves something that they may not have the luck or privilege of at home.
That’s why it’s incredibly important, now more than ever for the nerd community to band together and just find ways to continually concoct their own means of nerdy escapes right now. And especially reach out to each other and just make sure we’re all doing alright in these tough times. We need to tell each other that although we may not get to see each other in person for a while, we’re still together. There are still many reasons to keep creating and enjoying the things we love.
Nerd. Geek. These two words have been thrown around for years. Usually, these two words are used to mock or flat out insult and bring down those who are just merely passionate about the things that they love. Whether it be cosplay, musical theater, writing, photography, video games, or anything else for that matter.
But, what I’m trying to get at here guys is don’t be ashamed of who you are. Don’t believe me? Well, get ready my friends, because I’m about to take y’all on a ride that will make you proud of those so-called insults.
So here we go!
Several incredibly known actors and actresses are big-time nerds.
Daniel Radcliff mister Harry Potter himself is a big-time Star Wars fan and he did a Boba Fett cosplay. And yes my friends, I said cosplay. Vin Diesel The badass actor we all know and love, he’s a total D&D nerd. And he plays it whenever he has time. Even the beautiful Mila Kunis is a nerd as well!
But it’s not just celebrities who are nerds, great people from history past—who have certifiably changed our world mind you, were nerds as well. Pretty sick eh? You may even know a few courtesies of a quick google search and an awesome pop culture blog called Treat and Retreat.
Marie Curie
Marie Curie’s tale is certainly a tragic one. She was a Polish-born physicist and chemist who is perhaps best known for her work on radioactivity, particularly her discovery of the element Radium. Her life’s work won her several Nobel Prizes and contributed significantly to our understanding of radioactive elements–including the fact that they can cause great harm to organic tissue. Marie Curie died in 1934 as a result of a plastic anemia, widely believed to have been caused by her prolonged exposure to radioactive elements. To this day, all of her equipment and even her journals are stored in lead-lined containers and can only be handled with radiation-proof hazmat suits.
Octavia Butler
Science fiction has long been considered a boys’ club, and for decades was dominated by Caucasians as well. So it’s really quite remarkable that Octavia Butler, a woman of color born in 1947, rose to prominence as one of this generation’s most distinguished science fiction writers. During her lifetime she was the recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards–science fiction’s two highest honors. She’s an inspiration to nerds everywhere.
Ban Zhao
Ban Zhao is widely considered to be the first Chinese female historian. She is famous for finishing her brother’s work, the Book of Han (a history of the Western Han), after his execution. She also had a keen interest in science, particularly mathematics and astronomy. She also wrote a treatise on conduct for women, advising them to be submissive…. but hey, this was almost two thousand years ago, so we can hardly hold her accountable to modern cultural standards. Better to remember her as a righteous nerd who really dug on some history.
Jules Verne
Jules Verne is my personal favorite science fiction nerd of all time. Though he died shortly after the turn of the 20th century (in March of 1905, to be precise), his wildly imaginative and well thought-out science fiction novels have proven startlingly prescient in several instances. He is the second most translated author in history–right behind Agatha Christie. One surprising fact about Verne is that he is considered heavily influential in European literary circles as a pioneer of avant-garde/post-modern literature–a fact that might shock many English-speaking readers.
Neil Degrasse Tyson
Neil DeGrasse Tyson might be the internet’s favorite scientist; his sharp wit and deft use of social media have made him a pop cultural icon among the younger generation of science enthusiasts. He is an astrophysicist (quite possibly the coolest kind of scientist) and is currently the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. He is also famously the host of Nova ScienceNow.
Pretty damn awesome eh? History and the present are full of amazing people who can be called nerds. So the next time someone tries to bring you down, try bringing up one of these awesome people, and just know that your nerdiness is what makes you, you. Plus, everyone ends up working for nerds one day. So keep your head up. Because we nerds run the world.
The Rebel Fae 