My name is Samantha, and I'm originally from Dayton, Ohio, but I'm coming from El Paso. Prior to that from South Korea.
I'm in the Army, which explains the distance thing.
How I came across Nerdfighteria basically was through my husband while I was deployed in South Korea and he was at home.
I was sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere South Korea in a tent. It was about ten degrees below zero.
And I wasn't supposed to have my phone in there, but I did have my phone in there, and my husband had sent me a link to a Crash Course World History that he thought that I would like.
So I watched it, and watching that one video led to another video led to another video.
And by the time I came back to the States that summer, I had watched Crash Course World History, US History, Chemistry, all kinds of other things.
And when I got home, my husband was watching the Vlogbrothers. That's how he got me in.
I've been a nerd my whole life, always kind of on the outside circle.
And what Nerdfighteria has done is it's taken all those people that are on that outside circle,
and we've created our own circle based on respect and dignity for everyone.
It's just such a fulfilling and empowering and calming atmosphere here,
because you are among like-minded people that think and feel the way that you do.
and it's great to be a part of that community that is doing things that are positive for the world.
So... especially the world being as messed up as it currently is,
it's great to find those people that want to move it in a better direction.
I'm David Hovey, son of Scott Hovey. I live in Northern California.
So my road to Nerfighteria started probably in 1977, when a friend I had and a couple other friends went and saw Star Wars
and started playing Dungeons and Dragons.
And we were nerdy core friends, and we continued to add on more nerdy friends,
and we still play D&D at least once a year.
And that's been kind of my nerdcore community, but
I've been a Nerdfighter since before that because
my dad is responsible for making the phone company improve basic 911,
which totally sucked into e 911, which is know where you live and
get the right phone call to the fire department and tell them where you live. The phone company didn't want to do that and
my dad made it happen so I was raised
Nerdfighter. I've always been trying to
increase awesome and recognizing the
awesome and everybody, but I didn't have
a name for it.
"Nerd"and "geek" have such emotional baggage that they are a
tool by which you were bullied,
and so I was never
comfortable embracing whatever their
idea of "nerd"or "geek"was.
I've got a podcast with some buddies
Four Guys Walk Into a Bar
and one of them was mentioning Brotherhood 2.0
but I didn't make time for it.
And then some teenagers I was advising
pointed out the Obama Llama Duck video,
and that was hysterical. But in it,
he started talking about Nerdfighters and DFTBA.
I was curious what these were,
and so it took awhile before I found them,
but when I found them it was like,
"This is it! This is great!
This is a nerd pride community."
It's a word that isn't "nerd" and it isn't "geek,"
it doesn't have any baggage, but it says, "That thing you are
that you love things and you care about people
and you want to make the world better
that's totally legit!"
The fact that you are not like other people,
that's not a problem.
That's just being individual and being yourself.
And it makes the world so much better.
And so, once I figured that I started
getting into the Vlogbrother videos,
and I've consumed them all.
Although I think I went pretty fast through 2013
and don't have those as well internalized.
It makes it possible for everyone who feels
that they can make the world better
to know that they're not alone in that.
That there's a community of people who are soldiering
on in the same fight to fight worldsuck.
And there are Decepticons! There are people who go,
Let's troll that group into the ground."
And that's disgusting. It's tragic,
but it's also dangerous and disgusting.
But fighting that is hard,
trying to create safe spaces is hard,
but knowing there are other
people who want that,
that community, makes it more possible
to do the right things,
to invest the energy, to have hope that you can make the world a better place.
And I'm so glad Nerdfighteria, Nerdfighters,
exclamation point, exists. Nerdfighter community...
NerdCons being a place where nerds can
come together and be happy in their nerdom -
that's just so valuable
and I'm so glad it has existed.
And I hope Hank doesn't despair unnecessarily
about nerd community being a thing.
I admire Hank a great deal.
My two priorities for him are
take care of himself, and keep being himself.
And I think as long as those
two things are doing great,
the world's going to be a much
better place and keep being good.
But that is my personal road to Nerdfighteria
and what it means to me.
I'm so glad of all the people I've met. DFTBA.