Alright, this isn’t necessarily related to anything I’m writing, or anything science fiction / fantasy, or even writing in general, but it got such a strong reaction out of me that I had to blog about it, and this seemed like an appropriate place.
There is this excellent radio show each week on NPR called This American Life, where the main writer, Ira Glass, collects unusual stories from people around the country and puts them together in a fun and interesting way. The show also publishes a fully syndicated podcast. Usually the show has a theme of some kind. This week’s theme was “it never dies.” That should have been a warning to me.
Out in the world of popular culture, they say that Science Fiction is strange, weird (which I actually take as a compliment), disconnected from real life, pathetic, escapist, and just plain a waste of time. These snobs should take a good look at the rest of society. Compared to the people who were on this week’s episode of This American Life, the sci fi geeks are living life to the fullest.
The first story was about a guy who was picked on in high school and went back to his high school reunion to try and confront the bullies. It’s not the first time that This American Life has done this kind of a story (though strangely it is the first time when the story has nothing to do with America or American culture), but this one surprised me because usually I can sympathize with the victim to some degree. After all, I got made fun of quite a bit in elementary, middle, and high school. But this guy started off his story by bragging that he was a bestselling writer and that he makes more money than the people who used to bully him. He then keeps repeating over and over this one incident where the alleged bully threw him into a pond.
Ok, first of all, I find it hard to sympathize with someone who brags about how much money he makes. If someone is a jerk, I’m going to see them first and foremost as a jerk, and I despise jerks. Second, GET A FREAKING LIFE DUDE!!! So, you were thrown into a pond twenty years ago. And? Get over it! Life is tough! Move on! I understand that it was a bad experience, and you were victimized and all that…but what’s the freaking point of holding a grudge for that one single event for twenty years? IF YOU @#$@#! HATED HIGH SCHOOL SO MUCH, STOP LIVING IN IT!!
He meets up with the two bullies at his high school reunion. The first guy remembers the event completely differently, but in a very believable (though false) way. The bully no longer sees the guy as inferior or anything, and in fact regards him as an old friend. That might be weird, but it’s hard for me to hate the guy. Is this guy really an evil “bully,” or a regular human being who hurt someone’s feelings once?
The second “bully,” though, hits the nail straight on the head. He remembers exactly what he did and why he did it: the guy was being an ass and he threw him in the pond for it. Honestly, at about this point, I wanted to do the same thing, because the “victim” was STILL being an ass, in so many ways! The alleged bully then continued: “it seemed that so and so always wanted to be the popular kid, and because he tried so hard to be one, he just wasn’t.”
EXACTLY. You don’t have to have been the popular kid to still have your life stuck in high school. And that’s where the geeks and nerds differ from everyone else. When they were getting picked on and shunned by all the popular kids, they renounced the clicks and in-crowds and formed one of their own. They all got together and did their own nerdy things, like playing computer games, watching sci fi / fantasy movies, doodling dragons and spaceships, and reading and writing sci fi / fantasy stories WITHOUT CARING WHAT THE POPULAR CROWD THOUGHT. And because of this, it’s easier for geeks and nerds to grow out of high school and get on with their lives. Thank freaking goodness I was a nerd in high school!
This rejection of the popular culture by the geeks and nerds, many of whom would become avid devotees of science fiction and fantasy, seems to have played a big role in keeping the genres as good as they are. Postmodernism has taken the hero out of fiction and screwed it up in dozens of different ways. The literary elite tells us what is “good” fiction and “bad” fiction by arbitrary standards carefully calculated to create an in-crowd where they are the ones in charge. They preach their values and fashion metaphors and symbols that keep you from thinking honestly and independently of things–in the name of “open mindedness.” Mainstream fiction and popular culture believes these lies and changes with them. Science Fiction and Fantasy, however, has gotten away relatively unscathed. There are still heroes in sci fi and fantasy! There are still good stories! It’s still fun and enjoyable to read! It still makes you question and think about the world! Hooray for the geeks and the nerds!
I stopped listening through the first story on the podcast after about two minutes. But the next day, when I had nothing else good in my mp3 player, I turned it on again. Boy, if I thought the first story was bad, I was completely blown away by the second on!
It was an episode from some sort of podcast/radio show that a guy wrote that was all about…his ex girlfriend. It was ridiculous! He had an “ex-girlfriend sighting” segment, where people would talk about whether or not they saw her somewhere, a segment where he and a bunch of his friends got together and talked about how physically beautiful this girl was, a segment where he encouraged people to walk up to her and tell her how much she was missing, and all kinds of other stuff like that!
HOLY COW. If I were this girl, I would have gotten a restraining order on this guy and thrown every possible law against him! If that’s not stalking, I don’t know what is! It was just CREEPY and GROSS.
And then, a friend of his called up and said “dude, get a life! It’s over! There are hundreds of other girls in the city–go after them! Let it rest!”
To which the creep responded “you don’t know what true love is.”
WHAT???
I know what true love is! It’s in the Ender’s Game series, where Andrew Wiggins stays with Novinha even though she lashes out at him for the problems that she’s unable to deal with in her own life! It’s in hundreds of other places in sci fi / fantasy as well! Maybe, if this guy would just leave his miserable can’t-get-over-the-breakup-with-her life and escape into a good story, he could learn a thing or two about “true love.” And they say that people who like sci fi / fantasy are escapists who don’t know anything about the real world! Honestly, sometimes the only way to keep your sanity is to escape the “real world” for a little while! You can carry it to extremes, of course, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t do you good!
Holy cow!
Listening to This American Life is, among other things, one of the ways that I keep in touch with “mainstream” culture (whatever that is). And it’s an awesome show–I would highly recommend it. But quite frequently, I see stuff in these stories of people’s lives that makes me think “holy cow, why are they so bothered by that? Why are they letting that ruin their lives?” And I don’t want to be snobby about this, but sometimes I’m really glad that I left the popular crowd for geekdom when I was in high school. Listening to this last show is one of those times.
If you’ve read this rant through it’s entirety, I congratulate you. And please, if this post ends up getting linked to and flamed by tons and tons of fans of This American Life, just like my criticism of Firefly was flamed by dozens of Firefly fans, please realize that this is just a rant, and it probably contains a ton of inaccuracies and exaggerations.