What/who brought you into "nerdism?"

[EeveeElectro]

I don't really know. I always knew I didn't fit in with the typical girls and ended up gravitating towards the geeky crowd.
I can't really pin it on one person. I made a friend who sat next to me in art (who is a huge geek and started me off on the road to nerdy land) and he introduced me to my ex-boyfriend who I'd say really accelerated my geekiness. He bought me a PS3, got me into a few games like Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Halo, COD, Burnout and YGOTAS which inadvertently got me interested in more Anime and all Japanese culture.
He got me to join websites like Roosterteeth where I found out about the Escapist and joined up.

Suppose I have a lot to thank him for. Still wanna kick his teeth in though.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

My dad I guess. He was a massive computer geek, taught me how to code when I was like 6, not that I have a bloody clue how to now. He got me to draw good guys, bad guys, weapons etc. in a paint-like program, and then showed me how to code them into a super basic 2D platformer thing.

 

[Hoplon]

My Ma has a signed copy (single volume that looks like a normal novel) of tolkein's Lord of the Rings and my dad was an engineer and IT guy.

I didn't have a chance.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I've been playing video games since I was 2, starting off with an Atari Lynx and, NES. It just progressed from there. I had an identity crisis in Middle/High School but I've come back to mostly embrace my nerdy, nerdy ways. I say mostly because I can't comprehend basic algebra and other forms of mathematics. I guess that makes me a fan-fiction inclined nerd then!

 

[Musette]

I was born into my nerdism. My dad chose his major because of his love for Star Trek and sci-fi in general (but mostly his Trekkie instincts). He also played tons of PC games, especially RTS titles, so I used to watch him play Command&Conquer games all the time when I was little. My dad exposed me to point-and-click adventure games at a young age to encourage my taste for critical thinking and puzzle solving. My twin and I also took turns playing Donkey Kong Country at very young ages, and I really took to gaming when we both got Gameboys and our first Pokemon games. I was a bookworm too and didn't really engage in Internet culture until I got my first laptop at age 12. When I got my laptop, I started to discover that I really liked video game soundtracks and researching the video game industry's history. Even when I took to other hobbies, like playing percussion, I only knew how react to it in fairly nerdy ways.

I was always a nerd, but the ways in which I channel my nerdiness have only grown over the years.

 

[C F]

I grew up loving all things Star Wars, to the point that I started learning more about the Expanded Universe than my dad who had gotten me into it. I read the novelization as a kid in elementary school whereas other kids wouldn't be reading much at all.

Also: my first video game was Pokemon Crystal on the Game Boy Color.
Welp, my fate is sealed.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Myself. I watch what I like and that just happens to be geeky things. No more complicated then that.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Definitely my dad.

He's always been big into movies, so I liked to watch movies with him on the weekends when I was little. My favorites were always the science fiction movies that he grew up with, like "War of the Worlds," "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," "Invaders From Mars," "The Thing From Another World," etc. This expanded into a love for most things SciFi.

Still not entirely sold on fantasy, though. Anything D&D, Tolkien, or D&D/Tolkien-inspired tends to bore me. I guess that means I'm really only half-nerd.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

My sister jumped on me early. Mario, F-Zero, Starfox, Sim City, Comics... I just expanded on my own after she moved away from the house but she definitely got me pointed in the right direction.

 

[Vigormortis]

I can honestly say I've been a "nerd" probably since the very first moment I was capable of lucid thought.

Seriously, I used watch Star Trek with my parents when I was seven. I read classic science fiction novels before that. Hell, I was obsessed with NASA and the shuttle program when I was five. When most kids were drawing crude pictures of their dogs, house, and parents in kindergarten, I was drawing pictures of my self in a space suit standing near Saturn.

Also, when I was around ten, my parents brought home our first computer. From that day forward, I've been both a willing and happy participant of nerd culture.

 

[MasterMasamune]

Probably my dad and older brother. They're both the reason why I have pretty much all of my consoles right now. Thanks to them, the first games I ever played were Diddy Kong Racing and Super Smash Bros. for the N64. I was four years old at the time.

As for all of my other nerdy interests, I did that myself. I read Dragon Ball in third grade and watched Digimon Tamers in fourth grade, resulting in my current love of anime and manga. My brother had Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire for our N64. I played it quite a bit, so now I'm into Star Wars.

 

[A Satanic Panda]

My dad, he's a computer tech guy so he got me started really early. My interest in Godzilla, MST3k, and Simcity also stem from him.

Other then that I just pick up stuff my friends like. MLP from school friends, Zero Punctuation friend's friend, Call of Duty and Ace Combat from the same early childhood friend.

Though the value of intellect is something I've always had.

 

[Nemesis729]

For me it was Shadow of the Colossus, It was the first video game I ever played on the PS2 and it blew my mind. After that my expectations were pretty high for future games, but SotC taught me that games could be so much more than just mindless entertainment.

 

[CleverCover]

My father brought me up on videogames and comics. It was common for us to be around the tv on Fridays when JL and Batman came on.

My brother solidified it when he showed me some anime at the beginning of High School and then showed me the glory that is Mass Effect.

I love my family. Gonna go give him a hug just for that now.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Depends on how you mean.

Computing? My parents got me a second-hand C64 when it was clear I'd outgrown my Atari 2600.

SF reading? Someone gave me a stack of old Games magazines because I liked puzzles. In the pile were two issues of the short-lived Adventure Magazine [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?57361] that were as old as I was. I found some of the stories (like The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You!, Frost and Thunder and Where Now Is Thy Brother, Epimetheus?) were awesome, so I started finding books by the same people.

<IMG SRC="http://s91291220.onlinehome.us/formica/Parad883.gif" align=right>Doctor Who, specifically? This one's funny. I'd played Paradroid on the C64 and one day in my channel-surfing I tripped across Genesis of the Daleks. I recognized the metal things roaming about shooting people as the 883s from that game, so I kept watching to try figure out what they were.

 

[pilouuuu]

My dad. He was interested in Astronomy, movies, classical music. He got me into computer. We spent so much time together, first with a MSX, then with an Amiga 500 which gave me fantastic experiences in gaming and finally with PC gaming.

We used to type Basic programs from magazine in our MSX and he even taught me some programming.

Even if he was older than most people that's interested in this sort of thing, he liked comics, animation and rock music. He also made me have interest in different languages and he was a great help to start studying English.

We saw the first episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation together and having seen them all again this year brought me a lot of good memories about the great times we spent together.

He also took me to the cinema being a toddler and we saw all Star Wars movies together in the cinema. He would have been very disappointed if he had the chance to see the prequel trilogy. But even then it was Star Wars who gave me the first glimpse of what is to have a spiritual side.

We watched together amazing movies like Close Encounter and 2001 and discussed them afterwards.

He taught me to play chess when I was 5.

Basically we could talk about everything that's considered nerdy, but which at the time was what's normal to me. He showed me this amazing life style which made a more complete person and let me enjoy life and use my imagination. If it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't be in this Escapist site.

For all that I'm thankful for all the nerdism he gave me and while I don't consider myself a nerd, I would be proud to do so because it's something that reminds me of this noble gentleman and the great times we spent together and it makes me a happier person everyday.

 

[bulbasaur765]

It was the video games that got me into nerdism. Then when I was introduced to the internet my brother and I started listen to video game soundtracks from the games we owned for hours. After that came the point where I started to look up video games and their differences in the Japanese and Western releases (Pokemon Red & Green/Blue, Sonic CD soundtracks, SMB2/Doki Doki Panic, etc.)

 

[MPerce]

My parents, though I'm not sure if that was their intention.

The first movies I ever watched were Star Wars, probably about a month after I was born. I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't have original trilogy almost completely memorized, line for line, music cue for music cue. This makes watching the Special Editions quite difficult, since my brain gets really confused every time a scene is different from the original cut (it nearly exploded when I saw the new palace song in Return of the Jedi).

Star Wars is a part of my DNA. There was no way I couldn't become a nerd.

 

[Johnny Impact]

TL/DR: restrictive parents, my own interest, ostracism by peers, natural intelligence.

I don't like sports because my folks don't like sports. I believe fandom is usually inherited. Not liking sports meant I had to like *something*. Nerdy stuff was as good as anything else.

I got into books, video games, and comic books because my mother was paranoid and excessively restrictive. I wasn't allowed out of sight of my folks' house until I was thirteen? All the neighborhood kids could go wherever they wanted, which meant they were always far away. Without much in the way of real-life friends or outdoor activities, I turned to worlds of imagination.

I always sucked at sports, which gets you pigeonholed as geek, fag, lamer, whatever the word of the moment is. Coming up through school, whatever the best athlete says about you is as good as true. This further encouraged me to keep my head down and not talk, living inside my own mind.

I consistently score 98th-99th percentile on intelligence tests. I waltzed through school without effort and everyone knew it. I won't say I was terribly interested in the coursework but I read a great deal outside the textbooks. I actually enjoy knowing how fast light travels in a vacuum, how methane molecules are structured, things like that. If you aren't already considered a nerd, knowing that kind of thing will seal the deal.

 

[AlexKasper]

My brother bought me a GBA with Super Mario World on my seventh birthday. I got into anime when a friend of mine showed me Death Note and I branched off from there.