Whew! What a weekend. I’ve needed 2 days to recover from all the awesomeness of NerdCon: Nerdfighteria 2017. For those of you who don’t have any idea of what I’m talking about, let me explain. Nerdfighteria is the fandom name of the YouTube-famous VlogBrothers (Hank Green and award-winning YA author John Green) that are dedicated to the proliferation of awesome and decrease of “WorldSuck.” This international army of people (there were upwards of 3,000 people at the Hynes Convention Center this past weekend, and countless others who were unable to make the trip) includes normal nerds and other YouTube stars (like the SuperCarlinBrothers and The Financial Diet, just to name 2).
Basically, it’s a group of “nerds,” or people who are “unironically enthusiastic” (coined by—who else?—John Green). And, man, people were passionate. Whenever someone walked on stage, people screamed. But, obviously, no one screamed more for anyone besides the Green brothers. I spent so much of my phone battery on Saturday and Sunday filming those two just chat—my phone almost died at the end of the whole convention, and I still don’t regret it.
…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.’
John Green
The first event I went to was cool, it was a brainstorm session for the reboot/continuation of How To Adult, formerly run by Emma Mills and T. Michael Martin (who are both authors, and were on a later panel which I mention later in this blog post), which will now be run by Rachel Calderon Navarro and Hank Green (this dude is EVERYWHERE: VlogBrothers, SciShow—there was a live SciShow showdown in the Closing Ceremony, Crash Course, Project For Awesome (P4A)—a fundraising campaign for people’s favorite organizations, of which NaNoWriMo won in 2015: see video), and more—just Google him to find out what he’s involved it… it’s a long list).
There were lots of events, some of which filled so quickly, I unfortunately couldn’t go to (e.g. Accio Identity—even though I knew 2 people on the panel!!!). The problem was also there were so many good events happening simultaneously that hard choices had to be made. (e.g. John Green’s panel called Let’s Talk About Mental Health was in the same time slot as the SuperCarlinBrothers’ panel on How Not To Suck At Vlogging). The Carlins won there because I have a friend who went to the Mental Health panel & I’m waiting for her notes. Man, those two are so cool. I actually met them on Saturday during a break when I & a few other people ambushed them, asking for photos.
They were super nice about it, had an awesome selfie system set up, and were SO knowledgeable and funny, even though Ben said, “When people meet us in person, they expect us to be exactly like we are in our videos… that would be hard pressed.” I videoed the whole panel & am still in the process of transcribing it in my Bullet Journal.
I also went to a Reading & Writing panel featuring a bunch of writers who gave fun, funny, and interesting anecdotes in addition to some really good advice. It was also just super inspiring to hear them talk. I wish John Green had been there too, but given he talks about his writing a lot on VlogBrothers, I can’t begrudge him for talking about other stuff in person.
All of that, plus seeing some friends from Brandeis University (where I transferred from) made this weekend so fun.
To be honest, I’m still kind of exhausted, but I know that the next time there’s a NerdCon near me, I’m going! I’m going to sign off like Nerdfighteria does: Don’t forget to be awesome (DFTBA)!
Did you go to NerdCon? If so, what was your favorite part about it? If you couldn’t make it, who on the agenda would you have been most excited to see?