My MP3 player contains songs by S Club, I like almost any TV program with Star in the title, I don't like football and I'd rather spend my evenings reading than dancing.
So from this I guess you infer that I'm horribly uncool. Maybe you're right but what is cool? Its a question that I've often wondered about. I suppose the obvious answer is that its articular.
I suppose coolness begins at school. It is expected that boys will like football and that those that don't are a bit strange. For some reason liking science fiction is seen as odd and is coupled with the cliché of basements and virgins. What this misses of course is that anyone and everyone can like anything.
At school I was bullied, not specifically about this, but it was one more thing that made me different. The strange thing about bullies though was that sometimes they acted as friends. One sports day practice they were quite encouraging and during a pot luck quiz people appreciated my knowing that William Shatner played Captain Kirk.
Even now that I'm 24 I still find myself hesitating to say what I like. It feels risky in a way that I can't quite pin down as to why. My dvd shelf contains: Babylon 5, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Bones.
I also have three Star Trek: Enterprise T-shirts. These were a set and a gift some years back. These seem especially risky to wear. People who don't like Star Trek will know you like it and people who do like Star Trek will know you like Enterprise!
In all seriousness don't apologies for what you like. The world would be pretty boring if everyone agreed on everything. So while I now tell people I write science fiction, join discussions about science fiction, if they occur around me, and have just bought a The Big Bang Theory t-shirt, I still have the feeling of being apologetic in my mind. It would appear this is the final frontier I need to over come.
Live long and prosper.
Below is a nice nerdy video to close this out.
Yeah, I see we have similar tastes, and I myself have often neglected to tell others about something I like because I'm afraid of what the response will be. I watch a lot of TV and my 'guilty pleasures' as I call them to disguise how much I like them include Desperate Housewives and The Vampire Diaries.
ReplyDeleteNever apoligise for liking Buffy though, I never have, despite the strange looks and laughs I sometimes get. It's a great show and all I can think when I get these responses is sad for that person, because they will never know the genius *sigh*.
I think with Buffy people shy away from it because the premise sounds so silly. They think it'll be about a bimbo who fights vampires. More than that though there seems to be this idea that because its fantasy it lacks value.
DeleteI've often thought that if you take a line from science fiction or fantasy, such as this from TNG: http://tinyurl.com/c4t9e8 and show it to someone without context they'll like it and be interested to know what show it came from. Tell them its sci-fi and they will lose interest!
Having said that I'd be the same if the line came from a romantic film or something like that.
Thanks for commenting.