Growing Up Geek - 1978 A Geek is Born
I've been writing for GeekTyrant for over six years now. It's been an amazingly fun and crazy adventure. Some of our readers have been with us from the beginning, others have jumped on board along the way which is so cool. As you know, I write a good amount of articles to keep you all informed on what is going on in the movie and geek world. I try to incorporate little things about my life in some of the articles I write so you all get a sense of who I am and where I'm coming from.
I thought it'd be fun though to start a new column on the site where you can get to know a little bit about me. It's a place where I can share some fun experiences and stories with you of what it was like to grow up as a geek. I'm doing this in hopes to give you a better idea of who the guy behind the website is. I also hope it sparks discussions. If you are so inclined, please feel free to share any experiences or stories about yourself in the comment section below.
I'm seriously grateful for all of you who come to GeekTyrant to get your geek on. It really means a lot to us, so thank you.
Now on with the show!
I thought I'd start from the beginning with this first post, and work my way up through the years in the posts to come. I was born June 25th 1978, and summer blockbuster hits were relatively a new thing. The first true summer blockbuster movie was Steven Spielberg's 1975 film Jaws, which later in life would become one of my favorite movies ever. My dad was in college and an aspiring actor, and my mom was a secretary. I was born into a set of parents that loved the movies. About a month after I was born they ditched me at grandmas house so they could go see John Carpenter's The Thing. When I asked my dad about that era, he said back then if you were a geek "They'd beat the hell out of ya." I'm not sure who "they" are, but I guess we've come a long way. These days it's actually cool to be a geek.
There's really nothing to say about being born, it kinda just happened. So I thought I'd just give a little rundown of what was going on in the month and year that I was born in starting with the movies that came out. So, in June of 78 we had The Cheap Detective with Peter Falk (I've never seen it); Damien: The Omen II (I've seen it, but I don't think 666 is a good sign to be born under!); Grease (Everyone loves Grease… almost); Jaws 2 (What a terrible sequel); Convoy (Whatever that is); and Heaven Can Wait (Hey! I've seen that Warren Beatty movie once). They aren't the greatest movies ever, but my favorite flick out of those choices would have to be Grease. I've included the trailers for these films below for you to watch. The trailer for Jaws 2 is 4 minutes long! I guess they didn't really have the regulations on how long trailers could be back then.
I went on to look up to see what was going on in the video game world, and found that the Taito Corporation released Tomohiro Nishikado's classic arcade game Space Invaders in Japan that June. The worldwide success of this game marked the beginning of the golden age of arcade video games. So I have that going for me! My dad says that him and his brother spent a lot of time and money playing this game when it was first released.
It's amazing to me how much the world has changed, but it's been a lot of fun growing up with those changes and witnessing the awesomeness that has come along with it. I was lucky enough to have family like my parents and my uncle to introduce me to so many awesome geeky things growing up. They really played such a huge part in making me the person I am today.
Again this is just kind of an introduction to a new column I'm going to try out, so stay tuned for more. In the mean time let us know what movies and video games were released the month and year that you were born?