Where are London’s Nerds?
I recently went on a two week family vacation over the pond to the UK. It was my younger brother’s reward for completing his undergraduate degree. While we vacationed as a family, the geeky siblings had free reign to enjoy our week in London and Glasgow. We are both massive fans of Dr. Who, Sherlock and Warhammer. So, this trip felt like more a nerdy pilgrimage than a vacation. That’s, however, where I notice something quite baffling. An odd little pattern, that at first didn’t make it past the back of my mind but quietly grew to bother me like a twitch until I was finally able to stamp down and recognize what the problem was.
Where are the UK nerds?
Let me be clear about something. I live in Toronto Canada. I can spot geekery at 30 meters and I usually throw out a thumbs up. This isn’t due to some innate sense or the observational prowess of a grizzled private investigator. It’s because we wear nerd shirts. It’s because we wear rings and hats and jewellery and back packs that declare loudly and proudly: “I CATCH POKEMON”, “I WISH I WAS A JEDI” and “DAMN THE POTTERMORE QUIZ I KNOW I’M A RAVENCLAW”. This isn’t something unique to Toronto or even Canada. In my travels across the United States, I’ve seen the same outpouring of love towards the lands of entertainment we all love. We wear our nerd memorabilia like badges of honour.
This visual outpouring of fandom does not seem to be evident in the UK. That isn’t to say that there is a lack of geekery, far from it. London and Glasgow are relatively massive cities and have plenty to offer your inner nerd. The UK was the birthplace of the single largest table top game in the world and Nottingham sports Warhammer World in celebration of the hobby and lore. Cardiff has hosted the Dr. Who Experience for years. Kings Cross station itself hosts a massive Platform 9 3/4 shop dedicated to Harry Potter. This is not counting the numerous comic book and hobby shops scattered about. What’s more is that these areas are by no means just tourist traps. If they were you wouldn’t have the various comic conventions and shows that dot the calendar each year.
Being the inquisitive creature I am, I spent many of my outings chatting with locals who I found frequenting these locales. The conversations went mainly as I had come to expect from my time in Canada. Talking about what we shared appreciations for and trading stories of epic dice rolls, card combinations and cool people we have met at conventions. It was striking how similar the communities are in their deep appreciation for these forms of entertainment. In spite of this, outside of the specialty stores, nerd merchandise was rare to spot on the street. Hell, the people I was chatting to IN geeky stores weren’t wearing that merchandise. To put it in perspective, because Games Workshop rarely made t-shirts for any of their products, folks who play the table top games would and do make their own custom shirts to wear in store. I’ve been part of 3 major gaming communities in just this hobby and the members of the community didn’t matter, we all had at least one shirt custom made to show off our love for the hobby and to wear on our gaming days in store. I went to Warhammer World. Literally the Mecca of this gaming system and one of the few places you can find official shirts to show off your love of the hobby. Not one person gaming on those tables was wearing them.
Why is there no market for fan clothing merchandise in the UK?
There doesn’t seem to be a market for fan clothing memorabilia in the UK. Walk into any Walmart location and go into the clothing department. You’ll instantly find a plethora of shirts, socks, belts and underwear to help you showcase your alignment to the various houses of geekery. Despite this, when I went to Asda (the UK version of Walmart owned and operated by Walmart in every way shape and form) this simply wasn’t the case. The comic and movie based shirts were there but with far less selection and displayed less prevalently when compared to the North American equivalent.
After my time abroad, I went for a walk through a local park and saw two buddies wearing DC shirts on the skate park together. But this isn’t to say that to us, it’s every day wear. Since I’ve been back, I’ve gone out of my way to talk to people about the merchandise they are wearing at my day job. Be it a shirt, necklace or a visible tattoo. Everyone wearing a Star Wars shirt loves talking about Star Wars. I geeked out over being a Hufflepuff with a perfect stranger just because she and her mother were wearing Deathly Hallows lockets. For us it ISN’T just casual wear. We wear it because we like it. We are passionate about it. It’s a treat to share a moment with a stranger over something we both love.
The conversations are the same around the globe but..
These interactions were very similar to the ones I had in the UK. What explains the difference in what we wear? Perhaps, it’s a difference in cultural fashion senses. Perhaps it’s a sign that consumer culture has a deeper hold in North America than it does in the UK. Perhaps it’s a sign of a deep seeded hold over of the pioneer idea of planting your flag and standing tall for who you are and what you stand support of. Okay, perhaps not the last one. But why then this difference?
America, the land of superheroes
A quick bit of searching reveals that the local conventions in North America are just as filled with high quality cosplay and merchandise. There is however one major difference in the history of conventions and especially nerdom when comparing North America with the United Kingdom. The Brits got their heroes from us.
The very concept of super heroes comes primarily from the United States, from invention, to marketing to distribution. The super hero culture gave rise to the various factions of nerdom that exist today. That isn’t by any means to say that the UK hasn’t been the source of amazing nerdoms throughout history, but that the commercialization and industry built around it was pioneered in North America. In this way, the nerd culture is far more common place and readily accepted outside of what used to be private meetings with friends or specific conventions. The nerd wear that had so shocked me by its absence is the greatest expression of that consumerist culture meeting our individual passions. This isn’t to say that our culture is ruled by corporations, far from it, in fact.
Looking at the online marketplace, Etsy, reveals a slew of fan made wearable merchandise. These are works made by the very people that proudly wear them. This sort of wearable merch has broken down social divisions at a glance, for those of us willing to have a conversation about what we are impassioned about. This is a very rare thing in the world but those of us that follow in the varied lands of nerdom and geekery can revel in it. We can glance at a perfect stranger and learn about what they love at a glance. It bridges divides without a word needing to be spoken. The UK may not be there yet in terms of nerd culture, but that day is coming and I for one cannot wait.
Until then, I plan to iron my Batman shirt, dust off my Targaryan hat, polish my dragon ring, wear my Pokemon Go necklace and spend all of October carrying one of my three lightsabers. FOR I AM A NERD AND I AM MY OWN FLAG.
