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Nerd Processor
The Anxiety of Nerd FOMO
This golden age of nerd pop culture can be an exquisite torture for actual nerds
It’s very likely first among first world problems, but there’s just too much good entertainment out there. It’s an actual dilemma, especially for geeks. Because even though we’re living in a golden age of nerd entertainment, the likes of which we never could have dreamed about as kids and teens, all that beautiful content is stressing us out.
Even if you’re just an average consumer of entertainment, you might feel like it’s impossible to check out everything you might be interested in — to watch every popular movie and great TV show, hear every hit album, read every critically acclaimed book and comic, play every lauded video game. You’re right — it is straight-up impossible. The only way to navigate this plethora of art is to become increasingly picky about how you spend your time and what you spend your time on.
Nerds don’t have more hours in the day than regular people, of course, but we often don’t have the luxury of being selective. Nerds are completists by nature, whether we want to collect the entire run of a comic book or all the action figures in a certain toy line or make sure to see every Star Wars product.
With so many new series, so many movies, so many sequels and reboots and revivals, it is extremely rare that there’s an actual end, which means almost nothing can be completed anymore.
And nerds are never satisfied with a single subject. They’re likely to be completists for multiple genres — science fiction, fantasy, superheroes, and a few assorted other things, to cite the example of one geek who also happens to be me. Or rather, I’ve tried to be a completist of many, many things, but with so many new series, so many movies, so many sequels and reboots and revivals, it is extremely rare that there’s an actual end, which means almost nothing can be completed anymore.
Yes, I could theoretically try to be pickier, to winnow down the entertainment I consume to the subjects I enjoy most, but that’s not how being a nerd works. You don’t stop…
