I am going to be honest with you, this post was difficult to write for me, and not in some super emotional way. What was so hard was trying to pinpoint where the geek love really started. So I decided to go to an excellent source: my older brother.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t very helpful either, despite having known me my entire life. We couldn’t conclusively find the starting point of my geekdom. The best answer he gave me was “Since birth”. Thanks bro…
I have very vague memories as a young child of various experiences with geeky things. I remember briefly playing N64 Mario Kart, tabletop games with family, watching Sailor Moon and Studio Ghibli films, and being generally obsessed with Disney. But I have to say that my true fangirling began with Harry Potter.
My brother started reading Harry Potter before I did, and as the younger sibling I needed to do what he did. I listened to the Jim Dale audio books as I read along ( I was not the strongest reader at a young age). But I was hooked, and I remember the days where I had to wait for the books to be published. Yes, the BOOKS. And the rule was I had to finish the book before the movie released, which meant I finished Order of the Phoenix in a few days (for me that is an accomplishment ok!) My brother and I collected the trading cards, pretended to casts spells in the back yard, and cried together at the various deaths of cherished characters.
The next closest geeky thing I got really connected to was marching band. Yeah, that band geek life was real, and I was in it hardcore. For 6 years it was my number one fandom.
After leaving band was when my geeky-ness grew and I was more publicly open about being a geek. I started to get way more invested in gaming, both tabletop and video games, and openly being a geek on the internet. And from all of that came this little blog.
You can find more Origin Stories over at the Nerdily
Where did you start being a geek? Share in the comments below!
That was a fun read! I think that I was born with the gene…I know that it’s been passed it on to our kids. My husband and I met in a university sci-fi club and he proposed during a gaming session (complete with props!). I think that it’s just always been a part of me.