An unspoiled pop-culture canvas!
Okay, everyone, I’ve been alerted to the presence of the white whale. No, strike that, it’s not strong enough. This is the geek equivalent of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster having a bath in the Fountain of Youth.
There exists on the Interwebs a young man named Jeremy (age 19) who identifies as a gamer and “would-be geek” who has never seen Star Wars. He’s never seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. Alien. Terminator. The Princess Bride. Ghostbusters. Any of the quotable movies from geek culture of the past 35 years, he has not seen.
Unspoiled.
Now I know, you probably called bull#*@& midway through the last paragraph, but it’s true! Apparently he grew up somewhere in Canada with his grandparents, a minimal Internet connection, and very little television access. The grandfather only liked old movies and the grandmother only liked musicals. For most of his life he’s been an athlete and an avid tabletop gamer.
“…those hobbies took up a lot of time; I wouldn’t have passed them up for anything.”
Now that’s not to say he disdains movies and TV and such. Judging from what I’ve seen, it’s solely a question of access, because, as he puts it:
“For the first time in my life, however, I’ve got a real Internet connection for personal use, a media library at my disposal courtesy of my roommate (“Roomie”), and a lot of free time to kill.”
An injury of some kind has him laid up for the summer. So what’s he doing? Guided by the aforementioned Roomie and a few other friends, he’s taking a tour of geek culture long overdue, and–more to the point–he’s blogging about it as he goes.
Unspoiled.
And I don’t just mean “I watched Star Wars yesterday. Thought it was cool!” Nope. He’s blogging as he watches. Not only that, he lists everything he knows (which isn’t much) about a movie before he starts, and gives his own predictions on how the movies might go, which are sometimes so joyously wrong, such as this one during his viewing of the original Star Wars trilogy:
“I feel like the emperor was mentioned as kind of a politician type in the last film? Dealing with senates and stuff? So I’m getting the impression he’s not the real power. He might show up in this movie so that he can get replaced, but I don’t think he’s going to matter.”
I absolutely love to watch someone experience a good story for the first time. Part of that comes from my own storytelling proclivities, but it’s also a way to vicariously recapture the experience of watching something fresh; doubly so when it’s something I never GOT to experience fresh because of spoilers. (I’m still irritated that the original trailers for Terminator 2 blatantly told us that the T-800 was the good guy. Jeremy’s reaction to finding that out as he watched was priceless.)
So far he’s watched the original Star Wars trilogy, The Princess Bride, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, Terminator 1 & 2, and Jurassic Park. His entries while watching are very stream of consciousness, and sometimes it’s hard to be sure what he’s reacting to, but it’s just as often hilarious to read, because he does not have a problem with self-expression.
Jeremy’s stream of consciousness as they opened the titular Ark in Raiders.
You can find his blog at somewonderfulkindofnoise.blogspot.com. Tell him I sent you. And enjoy. I cannot wait until he watches Alien.
The comments on the blog are apparently being screened for spoilers by his friends, who I expect are having even more fun than I am. But if any of you spoil him on anything, by Grabthar’s hammer, I shall be avenged.
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