Exuding Geekiness since 1984

Oh for the love of Mike!!  So, one merry day while I was doing my routine fan girl duty of scavenging on YouTube for videos of my favorite geeky/nerdy things, I bump into one particular parody video where they are clearly making fun of Ariana Grande and her one look hairdo.  I honestly got a chuckle or two for the reference of Anime and Ariana's infamous hairdo.  Nevertheless, I usually do look at the comments (mainly to see other peoples' opinions and what not, sometimes witty comments to the videos I have just seen) and couldn't help but notice that not only this particular video had garner a lot of anger from fans of this singer and also fans Anime. What struck me in particular was that many Anime fans were up in arms about the reference that was made of Anime being equated to "cartoons." And this is when all hell broke lose!! There were abundant comments stating many many reasons why it was an insult to call Anime "cartoons." To the point...

I've always known that I was quirky and never truly fitting in the "popular crowd" (whatever the heck that means) throughout grade school and high school.  I was one of the few little girls who felt I had a sense of self from very early on.  I fought my friends over me wanting to be the bad-ass and not the damsel in distress. I knew what I like and who I was, quirky, misfit, completely interested in TMNT, RoboCop, Transformers, Batman, etc, etc.  I wish I could say I look back with fondness my elementary years, but like so many of us (who have been labeled Geeks/Nerds at this point by our peers) these years were torturous.  Being pushed, teased wasn't a very pleasant experience.  I truly felt out of place. By the last years in elementary school I was suffering through the most severe form of bullying, being shoved, hit, slapped by my peers just because I couldn't associate with the "in" programs of the 90s, and for liking Star Trek TNG, Sta...