How a Non-Nerd Can Enjoy Comicon

Are you one of the few people left who identifies not as a nerd? Tired of feeling left out of the joy everyone else derives from new film adaptations of comics? Do you reluctantly keep track of them just to have something to talk about at work outings? And now that Comicon has taken over your city for the weekend, your options are 1) Go to Comicon with friends or 2) Sit on your faded paisley couch and remember all the embarrassing thing you've done while eating baby carrots and turning the light on and off. Are you tired of having to siphon your friends' joy from the holes on their faces?

Well good news! You can stop sharpening your hollow, glee-sucking tooth, because I went into the field with friend and comic aficionado Kevin Patterson to devise a list of non-nerd activities so you can have a creamy wedge of fun all to yourself!


-Try to discreetly photograph people discreetly checking themselves out in windows. Start a Tumbler account for this. Get Twitter-bombed for "narcissism shaming". Be unemployable for 3 years. Learn to play standup bass.

-Wonder if anybody has tried to patent a sort of neck cone to prevent cleavage glaring.

-Punch yourself in the arm until you stop having feminist thoughts.

-When passing the badge checkpoint, cover your friend's badge with your hand and tell the usher "You don't need to see his identification". They proceed to tear up your badge as a crowd gathers to pick you up and wordlessly pass you crowd surfing style out the door, each set of hands knowing exactly what you did. For several months, you will keep noticing shadowy figures in brown robes in your peripheral vision that will never be there when you turn to look, and that your internet is running slowly.

-Finally deploy the "personal space invaders" pun in live action!

"When I grabbed a pen and wrote "I HAVE LOCKJAW", I figured you'd take me to a hospital, but this also works"

-When you're walking towards the convention center, try to see how far away from someone you can stand and discern their sweat beads because they're wearing three layers of robes.

-If attractive, do the speed dating session, then proclaim non-nerd status and see how many people try to downplay their nerd-ness. Then when there's 45 seconds left tell them that you really are a nerd and that you are paid by ComiCon to test nerds for authenticity, and that they can leave quietly on their own or you can have the nerd authenticity agents escort them out.

-Side eye all the clever t-shirts you'll see this year at once.

Warning: If you zoom in on these and read them, you'll expend the one laugh they are good for, leaving only groans for when you see one attached to a person, who might be really attractive or saving you from drowning.

-Realize that every possible dystopian and utopian future has been speculated and elaborately drawn, so you can go ahead and stop coming up with those.

-Wear an elaborate costume that means nothing and let people guess what it is, giving them vague but enthusiastic hints, as though you want them so badly to get it so you can emotionally abscond to your remote cultural cache and bond over your niche-ness. This is the Comicon version of talking about made-up bands with scenesters.

-Check out all the steam punk costumes and crafts and realize that you don't actually need to throw anything out anymore!


You can enjoy Comicon any way you like, but remember: if you think intentionally mixing up Star Trek and Star Wars is still funny, you probably also make archaic jokes about the virgin comic book nerd, both of which can be safely deployed at work on Monday.