as small as a world and as large as alone

7:35pm April 28, 2014

lichgem:

poisondartwolf:

lichgem:

You know, something that really bothers me about nerd culture is also that… a good deal of it has to do with disposable income, and people rarely recognize that.

My brother had all those comics because he was making money regularly by the time he was twelve. I don’t remember HOW exactly, but whenever he wanted money, he just seemed to have it.

I have never in my entire childhood been able to make any money. I once went out with my dad on a job and helped him hang up lights, and he promised to pay me, but never did. And that’s the extent of it.

I would have had to rely on people giving me comic books as gifts, and that never happened except once, in spite of my clear interest in Spider-Man comics. My parents got me a really boring comic book based on Jurassic Park. And then when I tried to trade it to my brother for a Venom comic, and he just took my comic book away without giving me anything, my parents said it served me right.

Nerd hobbies of any kind are fucking expensive. They just are. Videogames, comics, movies, collectibles, cards, game pieces and guide books for D&D. You can never just buy one of any of those things, you have to amass a fucking treasure hoard’s worth.

So it’s like, even if we could somehow get it through to male nerds that women don’t live in a pop culture wasteland, that we also enjoy the things they do, I still don’t qualify, because I never had money to buy the comics I wanted.

This is such a huge fucking thing. My computer is what it is because I bought it at a time when I had very few living expenses. I got my introduction to DnD while I was living with a bunch of people who merged their collection of books so there was a decent library. I borrowed a lot of the comics I read. These days torrenting and the internet make things like DnD and comics more accessible, but there’s still a lot of collecting and the emphasis on buying stuff. There’s something unpleasant about people dismiss casual fans when those fans may absolutely love the material but just haven’t had the means to purchase it.

Yes, exactly. When I played D&D, I didn’t get a board or pieces or books. Someone gave me PDFs and we played using MapTool online.

As I’ve said, most of the comics I read were my brother’s.

I recently got into Sandman comics, by reading them at the library. I was lucky enough the library had a bunch of them.

I was lucky enough to live with people who had an Xbox and Morrowind during the time I got into Morrowind.

I think I’ve only ever bought one thing with my own money, and that was Pokemon Black, back when I had a job.

Nerds are elitist shits.

(I have heard of free comic book day but I didn’t have the time to go to a comic shop last time it happened.)

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