The Nerdery of Things

We have become dragons. But not in a cool way.

Being a member of the geek community is full of ideas, debates, and experiences, but underneath it all, we are a community of things. Books, comics, toys, games, discs, shirts, accessories, posters, and more. Some of these are fun, useful, or deeply meaningful. But I’m not talking about those things.

I’m talking about the rest of it. The piles of once-read novels by mediocre authors creating licensed works. The keepsakes from a long-forgotten convention. Video games that only live because of the phrase “backward compatibility.”

In other words, we all curl up at night on our hoard of valuable, useless junk. Like a dragon sitting on a pile of gold coins you can’t spend on Amazon.

Illustration by Pauline Baynes in Voyage of the Dawn Treader