Building a Fandom

Last night my husband came into the office while I was putting together the finishing touches of my previous post, and he says, "I made you a book mark." He shuffles further into the room and puts the above masterpiece directly into my hands. I just... I can't even... This post needs more confetti and excited Kermit arm flailing immediately!

As we've established already through my large selection of family introductions, my name is Stacey and I am a nerd. I take issue with the definition given from a random interviewee in the movie Trekkies. This girl said something like "geeks are people who just love something very much, whereas nerds live in their mom's basements."

Look. I get it. When people think of nerds, they think of the textbook definition "a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious" and automatically conjure up an image of some 400 pound, greasy slob picking his nose, stuck in his chair that he's too obese to get out of, partially balding but still rocking the mullet. Or this guy from that South Park episode:

Swiped from Google here, but is likely from some other source.

Not all nerds are that guy. You've seen pictures of me. You know. I'm not horrifically obese. I'm not balding. I'm not male. I do consider myself socially awkward and foolish, but I don't know about contemptible. The point is... I claimed this title for myself and I'm sticking to it. 

I think nerds get a bad rep. because of people like the example above. I think Peter Dinklage reformed the nerd when he coined a phrase on that Daily Show episode, a phrase that became an entire movement. He pretty much single handedly made nerds cool. I don't think I could even ever dare to aspire to be as cool as that man, but gosh wouldn't that be nice?

So I started this blog because of a conversation I had with my friend Stacy, but I don't even remember what we were talking about, or when, or where. I only remember saying something along the lines of, "I should start a blog and call it Nerdling Academy," which was met with enthusiastic agreement all around. The idea festered around in my noggin for a while, becoming pustule and stinking, until it erupted into the word vomit you've seen in my previous posts. I'm prone to elaborate, exaggerated reminiscing. Fair warning.

What I didn't expect after regurgitating my memories onto the World Wide Web was the enormous amount of positive responses I've received from all of my friends on Facebook. After my first post, in which I simply introduced myself, the likes exploded all over the link I posted to my personal wall. And they just kept on coming with every consecutive post since.

I think the most touching and unexpected reaction came from my father-in-law, who sent me an encouraging personal message. I didn't at all expect him to be reading my blog. I didn't really expect anybody, other than maybe Stacy, to be at all interested in what I had to say about anything.

BOY DID YOU ALL PROVE ME WRONG

So I bit the bullet and mustered up the nerve to go ahead and make myself a Facebook Fan Page, for which I used the above image of my husband's wonderfully hand-crafted and personally designed Navi bookmark as the page's icon. I've landed 36 likes in under 24 hours. As soon as I figure out how to include a button on my blog itself here, that number might just improve. Eventually I might tinker around and figure out how to make one for Google+, too, but when it comes to Twitter I'm going to have to hire somebody to do that shit. I just don't understand Twitter. Maybe I'm old.

Consider this post my official thank you. 32 friends and family are starting for me what I hope will turn into a snowball effect. Though I don't care if it even stays solid at that still rather enormous number. I never thought even a single person would enjoy reading anything I write. I hope my fiction gets this kind of attention whenever I get anything finished.

In the days ahead, look forward to posts on the following topics:

• Homeschooling
• Video Games
• Ballet
• Books
• Table Top Role-playing
• Free Form Role-Playing
• Girl Power
• More Memoirs
• and more...

Primarily I wanted this blog to be about my adventures in attempting to homeschool my own children, and we'll talk about my reasons why I'm determined to go down that path another time. For now...

Thank you . . . for everything you do~oo!

Skip to 1:46 for best results.

Thank you. Thank you thank you! Thank you all SO, SO MUCH for your encouragement and support. I'll try my very best to get a post published for your reading pleasure every single day. This semi-promise may result in simple photo spamming, but for some reason I don't think you'll all mind. Especially considering my tendency to throw things like this at you:

Lilah and Amelia: March 6, 2013.