The Pop Culture Nerd

I own this shirt. Today I share it as a symbol of what I hope to define: the Pop Culture Nerd. Also, check out that mustache. I call him Benedict Cumberbatch.

Pop culture has many definitions. Pop culture obsession can deal with those who obsess over Miley Cyrus' wardrobe, the shocking new twists in the banal idleness of the Kardashians, and the dating life of Taylor Swift. In other words, the worship of celebrity. This is not the world of pop culture to which I refer.

Nerd also carries multiple meanings. The shirt I am wearing above is certainly (and I believe this is the scientifically correct term) HELLA nerdy, but the pop culture nerd-dom I seek to analyze differs from the Nerd Kingdom that can group the planets of the New Republic Era by both allegiance and distance from the galactic core or are still having night-sweats about the neglected Tom Bombadil, though these groups might share some overlap.

No, the pop culture nerd of which I speak might wear a shirt like that one. On the surface, one might notice that "What the frak?!" is an obscure reference to Battlestar Galactica, both the original series and the reboot (like I said, the shirt is hella nerdy). However, this is not a Battlestar Galactica shirt, or at least not entirely. This is actually a 30 Rock shirt from a brief scene with Selma Hayek:

An obscure quote from a geeky sci-fi show on a low-rated sitcom starring Tina Fey? I live for these moments. What does this have to do with anything important? I hope to answer just that.

By the way, here are a few more shirts I own:

1000 Friendship Points to whomever can name all six references first!

I define the Pop Culture Nerd (PCN) by the following attributes and characteristics:

• The PCN is obsessed with media. They may specialize into one or more branches, but their interests are dominated by television, movies, books, video games, and music. They are in love with creativity and often feel that their devotion to a film/show/book series actually makes them co-creators and co-owners of it.
  
  As such, the PCN tends to be excellent at indexing the names and work histories of the many people involved in the world of creative entertainment, while sometimes even failing to remember the names of those around them. I would compare some PCNs to the obsessive sports fan who can name every team member, coach, assistant coach, owner, and win/loss record in the league. They have the same disease, just different symptoms.

• Perhaps most importantly, obsessing over pop culture is a way for the PCN to understand and communicate with the world around him/her. The #1 rule for a PCN is that they must always be in on the joke and they must always be a part of the conversation.
  
  Did you not know that the ending of that one Key and Peele sketch was a reference to The Shining, but you're okay with it? You're probably not a PCN. Did you hear a classmate quote There Will Be Blood and you were so embarrassed that you could not add a witty rejoinder that you immediately pushed it to the top of your Netflix queue? You're probably a PCN.
  
  Culture at its core is a system of symbols, languages, customs, etc. that help bring people together with mutual understanding and shared experience. To thrive in the world of pop culture, one must become fluent. Some television shows only speak in the language of pop culture via reference, call back, parody, and homage. The perfect examples of this would be 30 Rock, Community, and Arrested Development. Their styles feel so similar because they carry the same cultural accent and the most fluent PCN will translate each of them to the fullest.
  
  Hence the significance of my shirt. Only a PCN fluent enough in the pop culture languages of both Battlestar Galactica and 30 Rock would get its meaning to its fullest extent and this fluency is only achieved by hours of commitment to both shows.

• This intense commitment, however, is part of the appeal to the PCN, and thus they thrive on media that asks a lot of them as a consumer. Television shows such as LOST, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad are not only required viewing because of their high quality and the cultural attention they command, but also because of their complexity that begs analysis and discussion. Perhaps, and this is a topic I hope to explore more in the future, this is why LOST's ending remains so controversial: its allure was in its mystery and if its resolution was out of sync with the viewer's theories, the allure tarnished.

There are uncomfortable side effects that comes with pop culture obsession and the ultimate article on this was written by Cracked.com and I do not want to step on their toes here, but the biggest challenge to a PCN is their desire to reach complete fluency. This goal, however, is unattainable due to the overwhelming amount of media consumption it requires. But holy frak (see what I did there?!), do they try. This results in stuffed DVRs, infinitely long Netflix queues, and piles of unread books. That's why when a PCN finally gets around to watching that documentary on the Shin Bet or finishing Infinite Jest (or any, much shorter book), they feel the relief as one who finished a school project. It is less a leisure activity than an active hobby. It is also why I am interested in how many PCNs have maladaptive perfectionism.

A less serious side effect are moments like these:

Jack puts on Jane's hate, "This is my hat now! Totally my hat!"

*No response*

"Hot Rod, anybody? Nobody?"

Jack returns to his seat, dejected, hat still on his head.

What about you, are you a long-suffering pop culture nerd? What is your obsession? Do you suffer from other side-effects? Let me know!

Next time: Why you are wrong about LOST.

The Irony of Orson Scott Card

Warning: Major spoilers for Ender's Game and its sequels

Something I have been waiting for since I was in middle school happened this weekend: Ender's Game was finally made into a movie. Though the book was written in 1985, it took decades to produce a screenplay that could acceptably portray the plot's conflict (a good deal of which takes place in the protagonist's head) and negotiate the extreme young age of the main characters (they were aged in the film) and the violence they experience (which was muted somewhat). The book has been a favorite of middle and high school English classes for quite some time and that sentimentality could easily have been expected to lay the groundwork for the next major young adult franchise, a la Hunger Games or Harry Potter.

However, publicity for Ender's Game has focused on one very rough edge: the author, Orson Scott Card's controversial political statements, especially in regards to gay marriage. It is not so much that he is against gay marriage that has worried so many, it is the sharp rhetoric he employs in his opinion pieces and essays. From threatening to destroy the US government once it had become his "mortal enemy" to suggesting that it is plausible that President Obama might set out to establish a dictatorship for life, with Michelle at its head, enforced by private armies of "young out-of-work urban men" (emphasis added) who "will do beatings and murders" of groups that oppose Obama, as opposed to "drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods."

But this version of Orson Scott Card is radically different from the one I knew. Though I have met him, once, and he really was quite pleasant, the messages and themes of his books (at least the Ender series) seem to be diametrically opposed to the rhetoric strategy he employs personally. It is unfortunate to me, as an apparent response to Card, that entertainment media has seemed to try and damage the potential success of the Ender's Game film by worrying about the editing of the promotional trailers, unflatteringly reviewing the film as "harmless", and, in one of the most asinine pieces I have ever read, suggesting the 28-year-old story is derivative of films made in the last several years.

This is unfortunate to me because if you have a problem with Card, you should see Ender's Game. There is no better argument for softened rhetoric, constructive dialogue, and pacifism than the story of Ender Wiggin.

For nearly the entirety of Ender's Game, we are left unaware of the motives of the alien fleet that invaded earth and left millions dead. They were successively pushed back, but now the human fleet has reached their homeworld. Not one of the aliens has ever been captured alive and no communication has been possible. Believing that he is directing a simulation and unaware that he is commanding an actual attack, Ender ends up destroying the alien planet and eradicating the entire species.

It is only after he learns this that the reader looks back on the anti-alien propaganda throughout the book as the danger it was. The aliens only understood the universe from a hive mentality and were unaware of the damage they had caused. Ender despairs that he was deceived into a victory that did not first pursue peace and feels sick to his being at its price. At the book's end, he discovers a way to communicate with the last surviving member of the alien species and vows to help her kind reflourish and to speak for the dead.

Without delving into too much detail, the plot of the sequel, "Speaker for the Dead" also revolves around a tragic misunderstanding that threatens further bloodshed. Only a moderating dialogue calms the tensions down in the book's conclusion.

The point is: Orson Scott Card's early books warned of what happens when we dehumanize an enemy, what happens when we let fear dictate our words and actions, and, most importantly, when constructive dialogue disappears.

I personally believe that as many people as possible should still read and see Ender's Game as it has one of the most profound statements on the value of communication. Orson Scott Card should not be silenced, but rather he should seek to soften his rhetoric. Neither he nor his opponents should address the other in degrading or inflammatory terms or seek to muffle each other. Only this way can true dialogue occur.

As Ender said, “I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”