Nerd Lessons: Finding Myself Through Cosplay

We love our fandoms. For those on the outside looking in, it may be their impulse to discount our devotion as superficial or childish. That’s because they don’t understand or see how nerdom has effected us. At BNP, we know that comics and movies and anime and cosplay does so much more than entertain us, it shapes us; we learn what kind of people we want to be—and who exactly we are fighting against becoming. We sent out that bat signal, we sent out notice for an open call for submissions on what nerd lessons you learned and y’all answered the call. The Author of This Piece and Teacher for This Nerd Lesson : Fadhili Samba, @FadhiliTheOne January 5th 2017. Walking through the bookstore with a friend before (finally) watching Moana, my footsteps take me once again to the manga section, first bookshelf, bottom left. There it is: the entire Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon series in all its glory. My fingers instantly grab book twelve and I flip through the pages directly to the last picture. ‘’Are you going to buy it?’’ my friend asks. In an instant my head flashes 365 days in the past. FLASHBACK I was 18 years old and in my first year of post-secondary education when I first got into cosplaying. Looking back at my high school days, I can say that although my high school was quite diverse, the special arts program it offered (and that I was part of) was composed primarily of Caucasian students. And my community college program was divided into two distinct groups of students: middle-a…