I am never quite sure what to expect when going to NerdCon, and I am always surprised. The abundance of inside jokes and references is a high entry barrier to most. Even I, who am as well versed in the popular subculture as any, still find many things that are utterly incomprehensible to me.
There is also something distinctly paradoxical about NerdCon. Allow me to elaborate. The stated purpose of this event is a celebration of the community which has made its mark by combining the constructive spontaneity of the Internet with the mild antisocial tendencies of nerdiness. Contrast this with the strictly planned, hierarchically organized nature of commercial conventions. The idea of NerdCon is a celebration of and party for introverts and the socially inept. It is an oxymoron.
The brothers Green repeatedly stated that they believed that all they had done was to set a date and location, and that we, the attendees, had made it an event. Of course, they said this from atop a massive stage, with spotlights and cameras trained on them. It was strange, and thought provoking. Yet even more strange and thought provoking was seeing these people who I recognized from the internet and television in front of and around me, not as polished symbols, but as ordinary human beings.
The night of the concert series, I managed to meet up with some people whom I had previously chatted with online. It was strange to think that they, like myself, had come from faraway locales in order to attend this event, with minimal expectations; and had congregated together to meet each other people whom they only knew based on sparse text-based interactions. We were all immediately friends, even though none of us had ever met. I was continuously self-conscious of this, since I have never had much luck with friendship. It seemed, however, that all the little details which I had anxiously obsessed over were ultimately far less important than the simple fact that I was here. We were all here, together, all else be damned.
That evening before the concert, we elected to go out for food together. Our first choice was the Cheesecake Factory attached to the shopping center connected to the convention center. We were dismayed to discover that the wait was longer than we had until the concert. After we idled around for some moments, unsure of what to do next, a man who worked at the shopping center suggested an alternative. We set out, exiting the mall and heading out into the warm rain of downtown Boston towards where we had been assured that there would be restaurants with a far shorter wait time.
The first eatery we saw which would accommodate our group was a Pizzeria Uno’s. Four out of six of us were wearing our Pizza John t-shirts, we took this as a good omen, and went in. The wait to be seated, we were told, was no shorter than that of the Cheesecake Factory. At this point, two members of our group opted to split off and head back, reckoning that if a long wait was going to be necessary in any case, that they may as well go with their first choice, and also hoping that a smaller table might be more forthcoming. The larger portion of our group inquired as the possibility of a to go order.
We were told, at first, that it would be no more than fifteen minutes. After a brief conference, we elected for a single large cheese pizza. I gave my name, and we settled in for what we expected would be a short wait.
What was fascinating about this time estimate was that it seemed to remain constant regardless of our wait. That is to say, the estimate remained precisely fifteen minutes at the time we ordered, then ten minutes later, then twenty minutes after that. In the same way that a cure for all major illness has remained ten years away for the last four decades, it seemed that our Pizza would forever be fifteen minutes from completion.
At the forty minute mark, I began to despair. It wasn’t that I was exceptionally invested in the our pizza. I hadn’t yet paid for it, and so I had nothing truly to lose. There was the matter of my medically necessitated diet, which was fairly unambiguous on the fact that I would have to eat something, but this was still of secondary concern, even though it was probably the largest actual threat at the time.
Much as I enjoy traveling when I am able, my medical situation means that I am primarily a homebody. On an average day, I interact with the same four or five people (all family and tutors) and cover an area of approximately one hundred square meters. I write approximately four thousand words (average is about one thousand) and speak about three thousand (average is about sixteen thousand), owing mainly to a complete lack of social interaction. All of my friends are either away at university, or off working in the mythical “real world”, while I am left to contend with making the square peg of my medical situation fit into the round hole of my public high school’s graduation requirements.
Being acutely aware of my own isolation and corresponding utter lack of social experience, my greatest concern during the pizza debacle was that it might negatively color the impression of me of these people whom I so desperately wanted to call my friends. I feared that because I had been the person to actually place the order and put down my name, that this resulting fiasco would be my own shame. I feared, and indeed, expected, the immediate and harsh reproach of my comrades for this unmitigated failure to provide.
The scolding never came. The pizza eventually came. I paid at once, leaving a meager tip which I considered quite merciful given the extreme wait. I kept waiting the criticism which I fully expected. I waited to be torn into. Instead, the others tore into the pizza, anxiously attempting to scarf down an appropriate number of carbohydrates in the ten minutes remaining before the concert began. There were smiles all around. The pizza was good, if late. The only complaints were against the restaurant, not myself. The others were eager to give me cash for their share, and we made it to the concert on time.
At the concert series, Jon Cozart performed his piece “YouTube Culture” decrying the personality-cult nature of many modern online communities. The image of an internet celebrity as himself making bank on a song decrying such structures seemed both startlingly ironic, and completely apropos, given my earlier thoughts on the paradoxical nature of NerdCon itself.
There was a pervasive feeling, at least among myself and those with whom I interacted, that we were experiencing something special. It was a feeling as though, by reaching a critical mass of interesting, intelligent, and thoughtful people, we had ignited some sort of chain reaction. There was optimism in a way that I haven’t really felt since the new year, and I was reminded of the great World’s Fairs of yesteryear, when the planet’s great minds would all congregate and unveil their collective vision for the future.
There were sad moments as well, such as when John Green brought up the late Esther Earl in his speech, and was compelled to leave the stage because he broke down crying. There were reminders that they were many who had wanted to but could not attend for one reason or another. But even these were tempered by optimism and hope. Esther, we were told, received joy in her final days from gatherings of friends such as this, and those who could not attend were present in spirit, aided by live commentary and occasional streaming from us. The tone was overwhelmingly positive.
The last time I attended NerdCon (NerdCon: Stories in 2016), it turned out to be an inspiration for me, in part spurring the creation of this very blog. I do not yet know what the result of this year’s attendance will be, but I can state categorically that I left with a far better feeling about the world than when I arrived, which, I believe, makes this year’s attendance a victory.
