“The details of my life are quite inconsequential…”

If you know where that’s from, then we’re gonna be great friends! Hi — my name’s Will, and I’ve forgotten more about pop culture than you’ll ever know. It even says so on my website! I’ve been invited to tell my “origin story” here, and I don’t quite know where to start. You see, I did this on my own site a few years back, and it ended up being five parts. It’s just kind of hard for me to boil things down to the basics sometimes. Anyway, I guess I was invited because I’m what you might call a “nerd of color.” I’ve never really thought of myself as such, though. To me, I’m just a nerd who happens to be black. That’s the mindset I’ve carried with me over the past 10 years of my blogging “career,” and it’s really only recently that race came into things. You see, the whole “blerd” (black nerd) movement was starting, and I decided it might be nice to appoint myself King of the Blerds. As I saw it, no one had claim to the title, so why not? I’m just another guy trying to make it in these mean internet streets, so why not aim high? It was at that point that I realized there were many more like me out there – more who had more claim to the title than I had. I also started to realize I was the lone black voice to a lot of my web pals. This was great power that I hadn’t asked for because, as we all know, it came with great responsibility.

Continue reading “The Comical Life Of Will West: An Origin Tale”