It would only be right to begin my Nerdfighter
story in early 2009, with one of the best decisions my mother has ever made - ditching
our dial-up internet in favor of wireless.
I remember helping set everything up and then spending a solid week hidden
away in my bedroom with only a laptop, soaking in the wonder of high speed
Internet and taking my procrastination to an entirely new level. I was completely mystified by the immediacy
of music downloads and Google searches (and baffled by how Facebook was still
able to suck up all of my time regardless of loading speed). Every new Internet finding was like a major
event, culminating with the realization that I would never again have to tape TV
programs using our VCR when I couldn't be home during their original airings. I’m fairly certain that
if I had an internal monologue going on, it changed into a series of
exclamations at that point (Whoa… so I can watch shows on the computer now?! Like
whenever I want?!?! ‘FLIGHT OF THE
CONCHORDS’ WHENEVER I WANT!?!?).
It was sometime during this period of
technological awe that I really started to discover what YouTube had to offer (or at least realize
that the site had users other than the all-powerful UniversalMusicGroup). At first, I primarily used YouTube to track down decent piano
covers of popular music and ensure that a substantial amount of my news would
be brought to me in song form courtesy of Schmoyoho/BarelyPolitical. However, at some point in 2009, I must have
been wrapped up in hype for the new Harry Potter movie and stumbled across the
first Vlogbrothers video I remember watching - Hank’s ‘This isn’t Hogwarts’
video. In the video description, it was
referred to as “Hank’s apparently annual Harry Potter song,” which first prompted
me to track down his past Potter songs, and then prompted me to ask a question
that has possibly never been asked before by a Vlogbrothers viewer (see title) and
figure out what these guys were all about.
While I continued to watch their
videos on occasion, it wasn’t until about two years ago (sometime in the
pre-Henry, pre-Will Grayson era) that I began regularly using my YouTube account
and finally hit the “subscribe” button.
And that was that.
So far,
I haven’t been a particularly active member of the Nerdfighter community. I’ve never been to a proper Nerdfighter
gathering, and while I have a few Charlie fans in my circle of friends, I am
only acquainted with one other Nerdfighter in real life (we figured out our
mutual love for all things YouTube after I mentioned Starkid Potter in a room
full of people, and she was the only one who didn’t give me a blank stare). I also didn’t really bother explaining anything
Nerdfighter-related to anyone in my family until my mom found my copy of TFIOS in
the mail box last month. And while she did
not understand why anything called a “Hanklerfish” would be in such high demand,
she really did try to share my enthusiasm over the blue J-scribble on the
book’s title page, which I appreciated.
So, I definitely don’t have the most exciting Nerdfighter
story, but hopefully I’ll be able to do some more cool Nerdfighter-y things in
the future. Farewell for now and DFTBA!
We used to have dial-up internet too, it was a nightmare! I was only allowed to use it after 6 pm because it was cheaper then, and nobody could call us when I was using the internet, so my family was unreachable after 6 pm (that was before the mobile phone era).
ReplyDeleteOh dial-up. Took up the phone line. Made an ungodly noise. Cost an arm and a leg because it charged use per minute...
DeleteI did the same thing recording every tv show I followed on the vcr when I wasnt home until very late too. until an angel one day explained torrents to me, xD...LOL, the awe in my brain
ReplyDeleteI mean, I was like 16, but everyone seemed to know about that before x)...
ReplyDelete