Joseph Forrest addresses the rise of the geek in today’s world through his own personal perspective
I started a love affair with comics when I was 5-years-old. Instead of getting the Golden Book stories read to me at bedtime, my mom would instead read Spider-Man and Captain America. This began my long life of geekery. From comics, I went to sci-fi flicks. Then I read the first Dark Tower book from Stephen King and fantasy became a thing for me. I drew my favorite superheroes/heroines. I wrote stories and fell in love with science fiction after I read Dune by Frank Herbert. I was a geek in my heart of hearts.
This, of course, led to no small amount of derision from the “cool kids” towards the little den of geeks I hung with, but I still got invited to parties because (a) I knew where to get weed, and (b) I was cute and didn’t look like every other redneck. For the most part though, I talked about my geekdom only with those who would understand.