But ever since I can remember, people have been talking about media--movies, TV shows, games, events, and more--for which I have no experience, no knowledge, no point of reference. In 8th grade, I realized I could only name a single celebrity. By college, I even had a tidy little title to explain away all the times I missed some reference: I was Pop-Culture Illiterate. So when I saw a class called Mass Media and Pop Culture, I knew it was time to make a change.
Now admittedly, I've always been a better student than I've been a participant in culture; by the end of that course, I had managed to write my final, seven-page paper on American Idol without ever seeing an episode. But my enrollment in the class was the start of something new in me--the first step in addressing my desire to change my sorry state and immerse myself in the things everyone else seemed to consume so naturally.
It's been a slow evolution, one I've enjoyed immensely, but I've come to realize I need to take a more active role in pursuing my pop culture education. Last week, I made a list of comics, TV shows, movies, books, and more that I wanted to experience, a list I fully expect to grow and grow. To look at it, you'd think I had masqueraded for years as a nerd; not only did I miss everything pop culture, but I hadn't even managed to watch and read and play all of the fantastic material that all nerds are entitled to. It simply wasn't right.
As I consume each of these, I've decided to catalogue the experience and formulate an actual opinion on them, rather than letting them come and go as it can be so easy to do. While I can't promise any kind of revolutionary analysis for any of them, my hope is to at least give each experience the focus and consideration it deserves.
And hopefully, as I cross each graphic novel and video game off the list, I can start to actually earn the nerd status I've always worn so naturally.
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