Toot the nerd trumpet, and toot it loud

"BALL BALL BALL, FOOTIE FOOTIE FOOTIE!"

Ah ha ha, this is brilliant. Look at all those sadcases, sat there gormlessly whooping because a bloke in a snood booted a chunk of leather around a graffiti-ridden lawn. What’s so special about that then, you crimson-faced dribblesacks? I’m amazed that they have the brain power to rearrange their pudgy faces into such expressions of mindless, drooling glee. Some of them were even sad enough to catch a train to be there, can you believe it? And, as for the ones with the adorably pitiable scarves, I…ah…ah ha ha! Ah ha ha, oh wow…I just need a minute here to…ooh hee hee! Ho ho! Sorry, it’s just that these guys are such, such…

…such nerds.

Except they’re not, because football is one of the few things you’re still actually allowed to give a toss about these days. Still, if you’re reading this and you happen to rather like football – which statistically speaking, you probably do – then you might be a bit upset by all that hoo-hah up there. Why wouldn’t you be? It’s plain wrong. Football’s great, what with its emotional highs and colourful history and father-son bonding. And, er, organised violence, but we’ll skip over that. Still, if you bear with me on this, those guys up there really aren’t any different from these guys down here…

"CLICK CLICK CLICK, MOUSIE MOUSIE MOUSIE!"

….apart from that they chose different games to attach themselves to. Yet it’s perfectly fine to treat the Warcraft fans with hoots of derision, snorting with such violence that your nostrils invert. Why is this the case? Well, football’s undeniably far more popular. It’s been around long enough for everyone to consider it a normal activity rather than some bizarre modern aberration. And there’s a commercial imperative to encourage people to be football fans – not only will they buy team kit and coloured bobble hats, they can also be sold all kinds of utterly unrelated tat ranging from shaving gel to corporate IT. Lazy advertisers know they can use football as a simple shortcut to emotion, to ideals of speed and victory and discipline and all sorts of other words which should never, ever be associated with shaving. So football is cool, and comparatively, even such an outrageously lucrative creation as Warcraft is still small fry and, therefore, nerdalicious. (This commercial effect may also explain why it’s cool to like Apple, with their sleek designs and eye-watering prices, but it’s unspeakably nerdy to like Linux, which costs nothing and has lofty political ideals, even though the two have a lot in common.)

Recently, I had the pleasure of knocking around the GameCity festival in Nottingham, a unique event which celebrates videogame culture – rather than the actual games themselves – with madly inventive activities like molecular-gastronomic dinners, art classes, giant singalongs and treasure hunts. If you even slightly think that videogames are of any cultural importance, and you want to be in an environment full of people who strive to invite the entire public to share in that view by giving them a programme of inclusive, brilliant, free events, then there really is no better place to go. Whereas sweaty expos like E3 only want you to buy things, GameCity just wants you to have a good time – rather than the forced smiles of PR reps, GameCity offers a genuinely warm and friendly welcoming hand, extended by a hardworking volunteer, and often accompanied by a slice of tasty cake.

I am such a nerd for GameCity.

Anyway, before I veered off into all that doting nonsense like a doe-eyed tweenager having a bit of a funny turn following exposure to the Robert Pattinson calendar, I was trying to go somewhere with this. And here I am! On the last day of the festival, there was a big all day knees-up to celebrate the Legend of Zelda games – see here for why they deserve to be so lauded – and the atmosphere was, in the GameCity style, tremendously jolly: somewhere between a village fair and a really good children’s birthday party. IGN captured a rather nice video of the whole shebang…and it’s here that things start to get a bit nasty. The bile bubbled up from – where else? – the anonymous comments:

“Seriously all of you need a life…

u can get one easily but for you people you gonna need to die first!!”

“Wow people are this gay?”

“Looks like a Zelda orgy of nerds… lol but I would probs still go”

To be clear – these are people who are members of a website dedicated to videogames, making fun of people for, er, liking a videogame. Also, for the sake of veracity I should point out that for every one of those above, there are ten more in disagreement. Nevertheless, comments like that last one are just phenomenally despressing – acknowledging that you actually think it would be pretty good fun, but also trying to distance yourself from it all? For the sake of what, exactly? Who is this this guy trying to impress? Bereft of the confident self-belief in which sports fans can gently luxuriate, gamers often seem to face some sort of identity crisis whereby they suddenly flip out harder than a flubber tiddlywink, twisting their knickers around so far that they have to sit on a corkscrew for four minutes prior to every toilet visit. They turn on their fellows like snotty schoolchildren trying to score points with the older kids, hoping to claw themselves some respect and acceptance – but from where? And why?

The saddest thing I ever saw was a few years ago, in the midst of a big Warhammer event (I have, in the past, flirted with the world of plastic rulers, tiny soldiers and flabbergastingly-priced paint pots). A man of about 35 was stood there, glumly mumbling to nobody in particular, “I don’t know why I’m here, this place is just full of nerds.” I grabbed him by the lapels, my lips quivering as I bellowed – “What were you expecting? It’s a Warhammer event, in the middle of Warhammer HQ! Of course it’s full of flipping nerds – and you’re one of them, or else you wouldn’t have got this far! But you’re such an absurdly tragic figure that even here, in this place at this time, surrounded by people who love Warhammer, like you clearly do, and are looking for other people to share in that love, you still can’t let go of your childish anxieties and allow yourself to actually enjoy it? You’re a fool, man! Pull yourself together, unpack your little figurines and stop being such a bell-end!”

Well, at least that what’s I did in my head. Out loud I just very quietly mumbled “tsk, shame” and carried on enjoying myself. Still, the thing is, when people point at other people and call them names like nerd or gaylord or spoddy-spoddy-spodpants, all they’re really saying is “you’re enthusiastic about something, and for reasons best known to myself and the hardworking staff at the Institute for Dickhead Studies, I have a problem with that.” Pfff. Life’s too short for that nonsense. I don’t know why people have such an ingrained need to become passionate about something, develop a tribal identity around it, and then attack everyone who’s developed that passion around something else, but surely we as a species can rise above it. We’re all nerds of one colour or another: Aston Villa nerds, model shipbuilding nerds, X-Factor nerds, upholstery nerds, celebrity gossip nerds, word nerds, bird nerds and curd nerds.

From our first tentative forays into the social punji pits of the school classroom, we learn that effort isn’t cool, achievement is an unconscionable sin and enthusiasm is beyond the pale. However, the people least hung up on these petty reservations inevitably end up doing really well for themselves. I’ve recently been enjoying magnificent radio show called One Life Left, all about (of course) videogames, and it’s absolutely chuffing hilarious: I listened to the podcast with my breakfast once, and I’m still scraping bits of cornflake out from the corners of my mousepad. You can bet that its presenters didn’t get a radio gig by worrying to themselves about how nerdy they are. James Dyson was a massive nerd, for vacuum cleaners of all things, and look where it got him in the end.

So whether you’re into Arsenal or androids, sperlunking or stamp collecting, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. Don’t be ashamed, and don’t try to sell your fellow fans down the river for the sake of illusory cool points. Cherish your nerdiness, nourish it and let your passion flourish. Go to the meetings and conventions and festivals and matches, and have a good time doing it, because nobody ever got anywhere by not giving a toot about something.

For more reasons to love GameCity, look here (thanks, Simon Parkin!) and here (thanks, Rich Keith!)