Nerd badges

This week’s shared topic on Blog Azeroth comes from Akabeko of Red Cow Rise who asks

How do you express your geekery? Do you own obvious paraphernalia like a Horde-symbol bumper sticker, in-joke tshirts like the dps/ups pun, or less obviously related items like a gift from a guildie? Rather than physical indicators, do you mix nerd lingo into your everyday speech or talk/post about geekdom in non-nerd spaces? How do you advertise your nerd tendencies? Does it help you to attract new nerd friends?

You will be considered a geek, nerd, gamer or whatever if you wear like a WoW shirt, badges on your bag or similar things. Some people I know are ashamed of being gamers and don’t want others to know. I’m not like that. I would wear it proudly.

But I don’t own any WoW things, not yet, cause I would if I had the money for it and I’ve been looking at some shirts from Jinx for a long time so I might buy them soon. I do have some Nintendo posters, of Zelda, Banjo-Kazooie, Mario etc which I got from Club Nintendo when I was like 10 years old. I also got some Mario and Peach from Mario Kart keychains and small GameBoy keychains.

And if being a fan of Donald Duck counts as something nerdy, then I’m that too cause I have a ton of cartoons and posters, I love the cartoons drawn by Don Rosa.

I think it’s a good thing to be proud of what you are, show what you’re interested in and I admire people who do it. Like Lufitoom with her moonkin tattoo and Restokin with her moonkin hoodie made by Ginny. Wish I could have that! Other things I would want is one of those small models of my character or maybe just a moonkin, and a moonkin plushie, some badges and patches for my favorite bag. There are some other geeky stuff I’ve been wanting for a long time, Think Geek has plenty I could spend my money on.

All this can be a good way to attract new friends cause often only those who actually play the game or whatever who recognize it and then you got something to talk about. I did draw a Horde symbol on my bag when I was bored in class a few years back and some people at school asked me if I played, so it works. None of my real life friends from my hometown plays WoW so I rarely have any in real life to talk about it with, but when I was at the Wrath of the Lich King midnight release there was this long queue and everyone talked about their characters, where they played and what. It felt weird to talk about it, but also good to know there are so many other WoW players in my city.

Sometimes I post about WoW or other games on Facebook, and with my friends I forget about them not being gamers or geeks in any way and say stuff they don’t really get like AFK, epic and pwned.

I am and will always be a geek.