Awesome Every Day

Admissions of a former Anime Nerd

All the kids seem to be into anime these days. Back in the 90’s when I was a teenager, only the most serious of hardcore nerdy trendsetters, such as myself, were seriously into anime.

“私はオタクだ!”

“Watashi wa otaku da!” We’d announce about ourselves, proudly.

“I’m a nerd!” is the translation. A proclamation of how geeky we were for Japanese cartoons and certain aspects of the culture. We were Otaku! [otaku means geek or nerd] We were were loud, out and proud.

Well, I was, anyway.

I spent a lot of time on SailorMoon.org in the early 90’s, which was basically a place for girls and boys who loved sailor moon to go and talk about the show, share pictures and … well. That was pretty much it. To get totally hipster on you, we were sharing gifs before a lot of y’all tumblr users were born. We’d do AIM chats and talk about everything in our lives, and talk a lot about Sailor Moon.

Feb. '11

Black History: Never Minds

mizjenkins:

I have made a point these last few days to note the recency of many of the traumatic events and environments that African-Americans have had to contend with throughout the history of this country. I do this not only to point out how relatively little time White America has had to adjust its…

This is a really spot-on post.

I think about this all the time. So many Black people I know suffer mentally and just shun it away, or say it’s related to character.

Most white people I know who have the same issues say they’re depressed, and seek out a therapist to prescribe them something.

It’s heart-breaking that mental health is utterly ignored in predominantly Black communities, by both health care providers and community members.

Give MizJenkins’ post a full read. It’s powerful.