I miss being a social pariah. In 1992—the year I graduated from high school—when someone was heard quoting from Star Wars or Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there was an instant kinship between speaker and receiver. One was lucky if there was a comic book store in his or her city, and otherwise, had to keep fingers crossed in hopes of finding The Uncanny X-Men in the periodical aisle at the grocery store or the shoebox in the corner of a dirty flea market booth. In 2015, Harley Quinn looks like a prostitute working an NRA convention; the Doctor’s companions are aloof hipster biscuits, and I can’t roll a d20 without half of the table quoting, spoiling, or asking if I Nerd Block or Lootcrate. I get vacant looks if I tell people I’m listening to Mazzy Star or P.J. Harvey, but they all know Amanda Palmer because she’s married to Neil Gaiman. The success of comic book movies and the explosion of popular culture have turned the novelty of being a nerd into a brand.

There is no point in attributing a single source; one could throw shade at Buffy or Xena or the evolution of the Internet, but the phenomenon has occurred across the board in all mediums. The two things that are more important is: 1) Identify the problem, and 2) Fix it.

So, # 1. Media saturation has wrung curiosity from the young, the worst sin ever perpetuated in human history. Words have been devalued by the spectacle of the image, itself cheap currency. Having to search for back issue rarities, bootleg movies and CDs, and making new friends with other fans has lost all meaning when once can stream a digital copy of a comic book, watch a movie on their smartphone, and legit fans are hidden behind the legion of buttholes ironically wearing Marvel/DC/television/movie t-shirts they copped at Walmart. This age of accessibility and instant gratification is not promoting resourcefulness and innovation, but creating a generation of self-entitled brats who expect to find whatever they want when they want it. This is problematic because they will evolve into adults who never had to be patient or work for their passions, instead becoming mindless, lazy consumers, and then the cycle repeats.

# 2. I don't know how to fix it. I don't expect to find the answer instantly, and I know Googling it will give me a jillion hits to links that are nonsensical. Besides, wouldn't that be a bit hypocritical? No, no. I want to work out the problem for myself and my own family. I wanted to share in case you're feeling the same malaise, and haven't yet figured out step 1 so you can proceed to 2. Some of you may have been caught up in accidental misdirection and are trying to find someone to blame, which, as I said before, is a futile effort.

Good luck. We all need it.