• Your story sounds exactly like my husband's. Must've been something about children of the 80's.

• Holy skrull-cows! This is a real winner. Seriously, can I get a permalink?

• at first he was reluctant but i told his little 13 year old mind i'd set him up with my best friend. so began his two all nighters perfecting every line. eventually i got him to perform it all in some talent show (his favorite parts) in klingon. lol unfortunately he didnt do it in klingon but now the school calls him spock. the best part? he doesn't care. hewants the whole series of the orginal star trek on DVD for christmas. that's how you make a nerd.

• i made my cousin a nerd by telling him if he could reenact the star trek movie i'd give him 50 bucks =D

• I hid nerd aspects of my personality for years from my wife. But I gradually broke her in, Diablo II ensnared her, but she never became a gamer. It did break down a barrier though. When the kids were four and five, they really loved Teen Titans on TV. I used this as an excuse to take them to buy comics (which I hadn't done in years, as I was hiding this stuff from the spouse). She then started reading them. She now digs all sorts of nerdery without admitting it. Even though we're divorcing now, when I get comics for the kids she reads them all and asks me to pick up titles for her. Damned if I will though, bitch can go to hell. But I did expand her horizons a bit without her realizing it. Like water wearing down rock... incredibly stubborn, dense and bitchy rock.

• Damn, dude. I just shed a tear. A single manly tear.

• I myself am completely guilty of turning my best friend into a nerd. We were close friends and would meet up once every month or so to discuss how life was and stuff like that (we went to separate schools), and I mentioned on an offhand note that I was practically raised on video games. Immediately she demands that we go over to my house because she does not own a single console and desperately wants to play on mine. I relent, and discover next time we've met that she has gone and used up all her savings to buy herself a PS2, much to the displeasure of her parents. The time after that, I told her about cosplay, and she freaks out. Turns out she aced home economics and desperately wants to cosplay. So we make costumes, and I discover after she is hesitant to show her parents the photos, that they don't know what she's been doing at my house this whole time. So first I got her into video games, then cosplay, then anime, and for her birthday this year one of our friends decided to 'initiate' her into nerd-dom by buying her Pokemon Pearl as a birthday present (oh yeah, she bought herself a DS too XD). She almost fell out of her chair and has spent about 50-60 hours playing it so far. She's only had it for a week.

• I ensnared my girlfriend into geekery by attacking all fronts. Last Christmas I got her a DS and Professor Layton. She has than graduated to playing Castle Crashers with me on my Xbox. I've also pointed out the love stories that revolve around Final Fantasy. For comics i got her hooked on Sandman and Fables. In terms of books, Paulo Coehlo is her new favorite author that I introduced her to. And she hates Twilight! Cha-ching. As for TV, LOST is her new cocaine. After 8 years together we went to our first comic-con last year. We took her 7 year old nephew as a guise. Turns out she freakin' loved it. She insists we go this year and ditch the kid to get max exposure. She is the Princess to my Mario.

• Nerd's are not made. We are born. End of story.

• Not sure if it counts since it wasn't ME doing it, but my dad conditioned me into my nerdom for as long as I could remember. First up, we had a computer back in a time when NOBODY had a computer, in the 80s. So whenever he got a new one, I got the old one. There was a point that I had 3 computers in my room, including a brand new Apple of my own, and again this was when it was close to unheard of for a household to even have one, and I was in elementary school. There hasn't been a moment in my life when I haven't had a computer. Same goes for video games. We spent hours and hours playing Atari together (take THAT Wii). And Star Trek...oh dear god the Star Trek. It was serious daddy daughter bonding time. The first non children's book I remember reading was a Star Trek novel about singing space cats that my dad got me for my birthday. It wasn't until years later that I realized none of this was exactly normal. Like...nobody else's family spent their weekends decked out in costume at the Renaissance Faire or conventions and instead went like camping or some shit. And other families didn't have models of the Enterprise or statues of draons as part of their decor. And while having and being on computers was utterly second nature to me, it wasn't until I was in late high school and the internet was first starting to really be a thing that not just nerds fiddle on that talking about a computer didn't elicit a confused head tilt to the side and "com...puter?" response. So to sum up, I really have my dad and his life long of coaching to thank for the way I am today...and I wouldn't change it for anything. For my part though I did get HIM into anime.

• "Y" is a choice book for getting non-comics readers into the funnybooks. It's still a jump from there to the tights, but it's a damned good beginning. Nice call.

• My nerd protege is my little cousin and the apple of my eye. I was the only person other than his parents in our big family that reaaly gave him the time of day (due to his age) so he came to me with his problems. I taught him all the double-speak, non-sensical arguments to use when fighting his parents for privilges. I told him that these skills were aquired through my moral relativism, cultivated by years of comic book villian/hero exchanges. After a couple signs of curiosity, I relented in my instinctual guardedness and introduced him to all things comic. Soon after, I sensed that his idea of me as the conventionally cool older cousin died, but our relationship didn't suffer for it. Turns out the kid loved debate and was looking for a context that resonated with him. He was voracious, challenging me on everything. He took me as the ultimate authority and relished every victory or offer of concession. Anything I had he either asked to borrow or was strongly recommended by me to borrow. Soon we began recognizing the patterns of our arguments and cited the outcome of previous arguments (which we started to name) to bolster present arguments. He did all this, too, while maintaining a healthy social life, a true wunderkind. He decided to pursue political science in college, fascinated by rift between our ideas of justice vs. the actual substance of the law, as highlighted in the fictional aspects of legal dramas and especially superhero stories. He loved seeking historical parallels and picking apart everything from speaking styles to costume colors for bits of metaphor. I chipped in with him and his parents to cover college cost, with a chunk going to feed his comic habit because he couldn't bring himself to ask his parents for that on top of everything else. Not exactly being a social butterfly, I was still around to hear him out on his problems, get reviews of new releases, or to resume our new debate over whose generation of comics were superior. As a graduation present we went to Comic Con, and I learned how much smarter he was than me in every way, including my beloved comics, and for the first time with any person, that made me proud instead of intimidated and all self-loathe-y. Later, when he was just starting law school, he sent me a copy of his acceptance letter, a draft of the thesis that won him some kind of accolade ("Truth, Justice, and the American Social Climate", which is about how the times influence the characters, storylines, themes, and popularity of comics and comic movies), and last but not least, a note reading, "Dear [Immortal Wombat], couldn't have done it without you, and I can never make it up to you. You are the horrifically murdered parents to my Batman. And when I collaborate with my first masked vigilante to bring down a sociopathic megalomaniac, I'll arrange a meet-and-greet for you, hero to hero. All the best." I cried. Hard. For a long time. And when he's president, he'll make Obama's nerdiness look like that of a stereotypical eighties movie jock. So my best guess on how to make a nerd? 1 part facilitation through subject matter introduction, 99 parts investment through patience, open-mindedness, and generally listening.

• When I first met my friend in junior high, he was trying hard to stick to the many macho-jock-like perceptions of manhood save for his extremely random sense of humor. I, however, still wore Episode I shirts on occasion (it was 2001) and sprinkled almost everything I did/made/spoke with nerd references. He only spoke of his closeted nerdiness to close friends and never spoke of it to girls. Needless to say, he was more successful with the opposite sex. By high school, we were best friends. I learned that he had a love of comic books and action movies that stemmed from his father. However, his knowledge of comics didn't match this love. So, I made it my duty to research the convoluted histories of many characters (Thanks wikipedia!) until I knew more than he did and often corrected him on comics. This culminated in helping him paint his TV room the colors of Superman (a positive step that this was, he still wasn't going to allow girls to ever see it and rightfully so). He also had become disenfranchised by high school football and we made it a habit to play Jak 2 after school until it was beaten. We co-purchased Final Fantasy XII and I learned that his dad was a meticulous RPG player. We produced videos for our school (we were better than those video class chumps) including parodies of Where's Waldo and Mortal Kombat. By the end of high school, I had convinced him that it was okay to embrace nerdiness. Now, he has begun collecting DC comics and drives a green mustang that we call 'Hal' with a license plate giving homage to the Green Lantern. With several years out of the social cluster-fuck that is high school, I'm sometimes afraid I was too effective in my methods (and I was the one who finished our graduation speech with the theme from Independence Day and remarking 'May the Force be with you'). So, while the nerd in him always existed, I feel that I have effectively awakened it. Now, I am not alone in my references. It just took years of convincing him that it wouldn't affect his status among those females to do it.

• Whoops, that wasn't intended to be a reply to the comment above mine.

• It takes a village to make a nerd. I think my poor younger brother didn't really have a chance. Growing up, he shared a room with my older brother until my older brother went off to college. There's a 10 year age difference, and my older brother is a big astronomy nerd who also did the Geography Bee, so with that influence he was able to recite all of the planets almost as soon as he could speak and was pointing out any country on the world map before he learned to read. My older brother and I were always big Star Wars nerds (the first movie I ever saw in the theater was RotJ when I was barely 3 years old), so you know that we made sure he was a Star Wars fan. My mom got him hooked on Star Trek. My dad used to be a math teacher so he started giving him simple algebraic equations to solve in his head before he even started school, and I don't know how you can avoid at least some level of nerdom when you have a parent trying to teach you algebra at 4 years old. I don't know who got him hooked on Tolkien, I think it's probably all of our fault for turning him on to the gateway drug that is the Chronicles of Narnia. He's done his best to fight it, he played traveling hockey growing up and has tried to maintain a public persona as one of the cool kids, and it's been pretty successful. Pretty successful, that is, until The Big Bang Theory started airing. Now all of his coworkers claim he reminds them of Sheldon Cooper. Maybe it is nature though, my younger sister grew up in the same environment and isn't a nerd. It's definitely not gender though, I'm a giant nerd and I'm very much a girl.

• Whoo..NR3D is gonna be a tough act to follow. I will say, there's a lot of good contenders here. Good contest so far! I certainly won't hack on folks with kids here, but some of the most impressive stories to me are ones where people who have converted full grown ( or at least mostly grown) adults into hardcore fans. You can give a kid a whole pile of toys, games and cartoons, and most of their friends and family don't bat an eye, unless they are religiously or socially strongly disinclined. That's almost not a fair fight. The full arsenal of nerdly panoply thrown at a five year old is a blitzkrieg of cool shit that few young minds can withstand. But what really impresses me, is when you can take someone older than 18, and turn them from their "normal" social paradigm of sports, prime time, sitcoms, and middle of the road mainstream culture and make them into someone who can actually argue the specifics of elven races, Iron age weapons, or silver age comic heroes, or recite science fiction "B" movie quotes and passages of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams at at a moment's notice. If you can do THAT, then I tip my hat to you, Sir or Ma'am.

• I've gotten a lot of different people into various nerdy things but my personal crowning achievement nerd conversion was of a roommate of mine in College. I used to play Diablo 2 a lot. I played Diablo 2 the way people play WoW now. So when I got assigned to a roommate that I barely knew except that we had both been on the football team together and that he was a jock with a smoking hot girlfriend. We ended up getting along pretty well and occasionally he would watch me playing Diablo and express some interest in it. So I loaned him my spare copy (yes I bought a spare copy of the game that I kept around so I had a CD key available for anyone who might be interested) and in less than a week he was hooked. We started playing together all the time day and night and then things really turned for him. He started calling in sick to class so we could play more and then came the phone call that convinced me I had converted him into a nerd far too effectively. His girlfriend called clearly looking for him to come over and get laid and he explained (while continuing to play Diablo with his mouse hand) that he couldn't right now because he really had this paper he had to finish up for class. He hung up and continued playing and I confronted him. "Did you just pass up sex to play Diablo 2?" "Um, yeah, I really want to get this one quest done." It was then I realized I had turned this jock not only into a huge nerd but he was even more obsessed than I was.

• There's also the strange tale of how my mother is now a massive Supernatural fangirl, but that's a story for another day...

• 4how i wound up turning someone who was not a nerd into one. easy one night hanging out with some pals we wound up with the teen titans cartoon on and my friends after watching the show got curious to learn more so i wound up giving them my titans comic as gift should also mention one of the ones i corrupted was a female. and the next thing i knew had them sucked in the dc world.

• By the time my now 9-year-old littlest sister was 6, I had her watching Pokemon and YuGiOh! and she was learning fairly quickly how to play the latter's card game. Started her in on Zelda games shortly there-after and her favourite game still remains Wind Waker, which she took to the easiest, to this day. She was even Link for Halloween this year without any prodding from anyone. About a year ago she started watching Doctor Who (she plans to be a Dalek next year for Halloween!) with me and whilst she doesn't quite understand it yet, she can't wait for the episodes/specials every few months, even if they scare her sometimes. She's seen a select few episodes of Torchwood (covering her eyes at appropriate times of course) and all appropriate Jack-inclusive Who episodes, as I'm currently trying to use Captain Jack Harkness's open omnisexuality as a way to teach her about being tolerant and kind to everyone (a teaching that's a little hard to come by around here.) She's taken a keen interest in the moon and stars lately and when she's a little older and can fully understand the new film (though she loves it now) I plan on introducing her to Star Trek (TOS and films) and its many wonders. Not sure where I'll go from there, but I imagine by that time she'll be able to pick her own fandoms fairly well. So this is how, regardless of if my parents realize it or not, I'm shaping my little sister in to a nerd, and maybe even a better person for it.

• Girls and X-Men seem to be a winning combination. Don't know why this is exactly...I think it has to do with Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine and Rogue. Just Rogue. They all love her for some reason. I think it's the stripe of white in her hair and the punching of dudes all the time.

• When I was a kid, every Sunday, my dad would take me to the store and buy me some donuts and a comic book. It was great Pavlovian training. My husband, though. He really pushed me into my current form of nerddom. When we started dating, he took me to his church: a 5,000 sq ft superstore filled with nothing but toys (vintage and new) and comic books, which started a serious toy buying habit and $100+ a month of comic book subscriptions. One day, this superstore had a few comic greats come in for the day, raffling off on-the-spot art. He was trying to win the raffle for George Perez but instead landed Chuck Dixon. He generously passed it to me so I now have a very awesome and cartoony Batgirl drawn by Mr. Dixon himself. In a fire, I would push my husband down and grab my Dixon art. This is also the man who has purchased all of my World of Warcraft games, though he doesn't play, and has run through all the Halo games with me. He bought a copy of "Stardust" signed by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess and gifted me with one of the rare pink Masterchief figures. He buys me comic book figures and statues on a regular basis and even picked up the tab on our books on more than one occasion. He absolutely delights in picking up rare or hard-to-find items, like the Phoenix heroclix (when it WAS rare) and the She-Ra Wizard World figure and an original She-ra toy from my childhood to go with it. It has been through generosity and gentleness that he has won me over, fully brought me over to the nerdy side. (Not like it really took a big push or anything but still.) Yes, I definitely married up.

• I transformed my wife in one harsh stroke on a fateful night. She was suffering from diarrhea and had been sitting on the bathroom for an hour. I asked her how she felt and if she needed anything - the only thing she wanted was something to read. I went away, comeback with a bag filled with tiny books and sent it through the bathroom door. "What's this darling?" "It's my complete Dragonball collection. I think you will like it." "Dragon's balls? What? I will not read this. Go and get my Jane Eyre." "I will not get you anything else. You'll have to read them." "Okay, I look... it's about a pervert monkey boy! Give me something else!" "Never!" I screamed as I ran away, ignoring the shouts and swearing she threw after me. I sat down to play some video games (Metal Slug, to be precise). Time flied by, and I was shocked to see that four hours had passed since I started playing. My wife still hadn't left the bathroom. I went to the door again, worried something had happened. "Darling, are you okay?" "... yes, I'm fine." "Still problems with the diarrhea?" "... no." "But why havn't you come out?" "..." "Darling?" "... Freeza is about to enter his ultimate form." Since then, things have been going smoothly. She has read and enoyed Watchmen, learned the difference between Keaton Batman, Nolan Batman, West Batman, Miller Batman and Normal Batman and created several characters for a GURPS-campaign. My proudest moment was when she entered a contest on this very site and got a honorable mention.

• I thought I'd be nerdifying my girlfriend. I knew she had nerdy tendencies, but didn't think she was over the line. She had never seen Star Wars, FFS! Then SHE dragged ME along to a pen & paper RPG.

• The best way to make a nerd? Give her mono so that she's trapped in her room and too weak to do much but sit about or sleep, and load her up with the Monkey Island Series, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Fables and Y the last man trades, a couple of Lawrence Watt-Evans books and the lord of the rings movie. Feed through a tiny slot. In a week, there shall emerge a nerd, suitable for marrying.

• I have an 8 year old brother and a 6 year old cousin. Both were born fresh and innocent with their mothers putting Mickey Mouse and other tres boring programmes on the TV for them, nice books with small words and big pictures - until I got left alone to babysit... Being a huge geek myself Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Star Wars, TMNT (original), etc in the form of comics, TV, books and movies started to get ingrained into them. Birthdays would have strategic presents like a 'My First Laptop' the Batman version, or the entire run of Justice League and Unlimited on DVD. It paid off. My proudest moments came in my cousin's report card when his teacher called me out as a bad influence saying he mentioned me by name and used me as a defense when he found class to boring (and hey, this is primary school, they have to paint and do numbers 1-10 at the age of 5) and decided that he'd rather run around class proclaiming 'I'm Spider-Man!' and making with the web shooting actions whilst encouraging his friends to be villains to beat them. The other I secretly love, but can't admit for various reasons of setting examples, is that when someone turned around to my brother at the age of 6 saying that Spider-Man was crap and Superman couldn't dress properly my brother punched him in the face. The kid bled. When asking later why he did it my little brother turned round and said (after the countless 'dunnos' that kids cite) "Because he was stupid and it felt like the right thing," followed by "and I think it's what Batman would have done". Now both houses are filled with cards, toys, video games, mouse mats, advent calendars, DVDs, comics and books all of total geeky things that they think are really cool. They're still young, and there is lots to introduce them too, but it's a good starting point.

• Sadly, I have never turned anyone into a nerd, as that would mean I'd actually have to talk to people......

• Oh! I didn't mean to write today, it happened a while ago

• Well, things worked a bit more differently out where I live. Here, nerds actually GETS respect, albeit still dry on the ladies department. My younger sister, however, made nerddom COOL moments after I converted her. For me, the timing couldn't have been more perfect. I was in highschool, she was in 7th grade, it was the 90s, and she was high on boybands and pop princesses. I set her up to listen to some sugary J-Pop anime songs and she was SOLD. Then, curiousity sets in as I showed her anime, and she started buying TONS of the various shows and videogames that these songs were an OST to, accompanied by my sadistic laughter in the background. Ah, but a happy ending this is not, my friends. For you see, my sister has the skills to charm a Trekkie OUT of their Kirk worshiping, and it goes the same with this newfound obsession for all things anime. She went from passing the word to forming anime fanclub and all the way to starting an anime OST cover band. AND THEY WERE A SUCCESS, TOO! So yes, instead of just corrupting just my sister, I have corrupted our entire community thanks in no small part to her superior social engineering skills. And when she discovered me by accident browsing Topless Robot, EVERYBODY that she knows now is on the wait for Fanfiction Friday every single week. I'VE CREATED A MONSTER!! PLEASE!! KILL ME NOW!!!

• I don't believe you can lure or change anyone into a nerd, all you have to do is activate their latent nerd genetics. My wife was a cheerio in High School, smoking hot as hell, and she still decided to go for a guy with a shelf full of toys. The secret was discovering that inner nerd, and I did that with a series of movie watching and event experiences, including foreign films (yes, it has subtitles and giant robots, but trust me, it's classy), a trip to the Nintendo Museum, and various small stops at the local comic book store to pick up "Graphic Novels." I achieved Nerd Victory when she started reading Y: The Last Man, and later picked up Watchmen.

• I was sick of watching late night TV by myself and made my mum a nerd. I bought her a Johnathan Frakes postcard, where he's giving a dazzling smile, and borrowed Imzadi from a friend and left them on her bedside table. Soon after I had a Star Trek buddy.

• My sister is eight years younger than me. In May 1999, I had just graduated high school and she'd just finished fourth grade. At the time, I was coming to terms with being open with my nerdiness. At my high school we had a plethora of smart kids but very few full-on geeky types. That changed with the release of Phantom Menace when people my age were suddenly much more comfortable with their own nerdy habits. However, my ten-year-old sister was more into those awful tween shows on NBC Saturday Mornings. The ones that tried desperately to be the next Saved By The Bell. Ugh. I was fairly unenthusiastic about taking my sister to see Phantom Menace. Sure, it was an excuse to go see it again, but she didn't have much interest in it outside of seeing Jar Jar. Again, ugh. Eventually I did decide to take her to it and she seemed like she enjoyed it okay, but it was still just another movie. And then Obi-Wan jumped out of that pit, flipped over Darth Maul, and viciously swung his lightsaber. I felt this little ten-year-old hand grab my arm and say in the most excited tone I had ever heard, "Did he just get cut in half?!?" I laughed and nodded and I could tell that she really was my sister. A few days later, she bought a Qui-Gon lightsaber (the Obi-Wan one wasn't available yet) and her Coke Bears (of which she has amassed a mighty collection) developed an unhealthy obsession with Padawan Kenobi. As my toy collection grew, she started kidnapping my Star Wars figures and making videos of them with her Simpsons figures. One of my favorite memories regarding this turn was a week or two before Christmas in '99, when KB Toys was having a sale on their lightsabers and they finally had an Obi-Wan one in stock. I excitedly bought it as her Christmas present and when I was checking out the clerk reminded me, "Y'know, we also have the Darth Maul one for sale." And I answered, "Nah, I just need this one. Obi-Wan's my sister's favorite." And the clerk said, "Oh, okay." And then paused and looked up in surprise- "Sister?" She grew up loving Jurassic Park and Red Dwarf with me, but it was that first prequel that really cemented in my mind that my sister was a nerd just like her brothers. And what a cool sister she is.

• I was such a nerd I was sent to an expensive private school because public education could not contain me. When I was in junior high, I radiated Star Trek from my very being like an energy field. My poor hapless buddy became a girl older than me who'd be raised by progressive hippie types who eschewed popular culture and media influence. Long haired, soft spoken, a lover of nature and ridiculously smart, she hadn't owned a television or heard of the Three Stooges. Well, that wouldn't do! Starting on TNG episodes that I would smuggle to school for her to watch on the A/V system at lunch, taking her with me to the comic shop, touring Star Trek conventions in area, pairing up for making costumes and sharing my collection of delicious Pocket Book novels, she soon became a harder nerd than I. She shaved off half her eyebrows for better Vulcan makeup. We competed to see who could see Star Trek VI more times in the theater. Not only did she hunt down Leonard Nimoy's original works of poetry, not only did she sew her own original movie jacket, but she bought her own television and VCR AND Nintendo around the 10th grade to keep in her room for Trekkie purposes. That's right, I beat hippie counter-culture with Star Trek to bring the Boob Tube into my best friend's house. She had never had one and might have never owned one before me and Mr. Spock. I adore her, she's still an amazing friend and now studies manatees for the government. I like to take credit for her success, now and then...

• My 3 year old daughter appears to be a nerd, but since she's young she might grow out of it. The first hint we had was when Jadzia was 2, she watched Transformers: Universe for the first time and threw a massive tantrum insisting that it wasn't really Transformers. Another hint was when she figured out the keyboard shortcuts. I also had to password my computer because Jadzia was accessing her favourite clips on Youtube. The last piece of evidence that she is a nerd is Jadzia's behaviour when using her computer. She was given one for her 3rd birthday and she quickly learnt how to start the computer and login. She figured out a 5 years+ game within the day. Sometimes the computer crashes or won't load properly. Jadzia then proceeds to yell, try shortcuts, mashs the keys in frustration, sighs, hops off her chair and restarts her computer. Yeah, I think we turned her into a nerd. (Now before anyone starts on about her name, she does have a normal middle name in case she hates her first name. She also has a nickname, Jazzy, as most people can't pronounce Jadzia.)

• My little sister also saw the same training as your brother but since that story is already told (she's getting Army of Darkness as her Christmas gift this year), I'll go with this story. I don't know if this counts but my proudest music nerd moment was when my boyfriend, dressed in a Van Halen t-shirt I got for him, came running up to me, waving his ipod and screeching, "OH MY GOD SAMMY HAGAR IS SO UNDERRATED." For the record, much as I love Roth, "Why Can't This Be Love," with Hagar on vocals is the best Van Halen song ever.

• Anime isnt for nerds or geeks, its for girls and the guys Ive known who liked it alot gave geeks a bad name

• I'd been trying to get my best mate into nerd gear for years but most of it never stuck; he dug The Ultimates, fell in love with Shaun of the Dead on repeat and saw Pitch Black four times at the movies, but the rest I couldn't seem to get him fully in to. I work from home and he drops in on his way home, normally on a Mon or Tues. He slowly started to come round on Weds more, but I knew I'd finally broken him the day he showed up at lunch, having run to check if I'd picked up and read Kick-Ass #2 because he'd been dreaming about getting his hands on that issue. And it only took twelve years.

• oh my god...well...this happened just recently. I actually have succeeded in making a nerd. Well, at least planting the seed and watching it sprout a bit. Here's the story...today I went over to my friends house to study for exams. I am a big anime nerd, I have some interest in other nerd things (Class A high school nerd, ranked number 3 yo!), but anime is really my forte. Another friend of mine, is really into Dragonball Z, but that's about it. I go over there and we're studying and stuff...when the dragonball Z friend, Lorenzo, starts going on youtube to show us dragonball z, this then leads to me showing them amv's and eventually...Death Note. My other friend, Joseph, who hasn't seen anime before in his life, starts asking about it. I decided to show them both the first episode of Death Note. Joseph gets really excited and wants to see more. And more. And more. He marothoned it. After watching the entire thing, he called me at 4 in the morning and exclaimed "You are a godess!! Thank You so much for showing me about this!!!" Now he's reading Death Note and is into more obscure anime titles... His first anime crush was, and always will be Light Yagami.

• I guess the moment I knew my girlfriend and her family had been well and truly converted to nerddom was when we started greeting each other with the 'Go Team Venture!' salute without even needing to discuss it. A slow process over the past 3 years, but totally worth it to get them all obsessing over this site, and all the wonderful geeky stuff we love. Plus, seeing her 5 year old nephew dressed as Batman for his superhero birthday party, where he had not just a Batman cake, but a Bruce Wayne cake too, quite simply cannot be beat.

• Usually whenever I make or attempt to make Nerds, I follow this recipe. -Glucose-fructose -Corn syrup -Artificial flavourings -Sugar cane -Caffeine -Artificial colourings Now, mind you, this isn't no brand name Willy Wonka Nerd candy, just your run of the mill sour candy. Mix, roll into balls and chill. Use the caffeine to quench your own thirst. If needed, add starch, usually of the potato variety such as chips, to quell hunger to aid chef throughout process. This can be a sensitive project, one must tred carefully. Once complete relax and enjoy and don't forget to share!

• I wouldn't say I've converted him into a nerd, but over the Thanksgiving weekend, I not only got my dad to replace his crap old TV with a 42" Widescreen LCD, I also got him into watching The Venture Bros. and showed him how to record it with his TiVo. *sniff* They grow up so fast!

• Of course. I am you. Did you get a little chill down your spine just then?

• Weird, my post was right before yours and my name is RachelB too... had to share. :)

• Sibling rivalry will exponentially increase any person's budding nerdome. My sister and I are just a year apart in age and have been engaged in a deadly game of cat and also-cat since sentience. When she picked Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for her boyfriend in 1st grade, I picked Donotello AND the yellow Power Ranger from the 1st incarnation of the show. She countered with becoming a Star Wars fan; I saw her Star Wars and raised her an X-Files and Star Trek: TNG. She read ElfQuest comics, I read the Sandman, and then we swapped, reading each other's comics and reaching an uneasy alliance. There was peace for many years, and we enjoyed many an Anne Rice vampire novel and Queen album together. Skirmishes broke out again when I discovered the Rayearth and Hellsing animes, only to erupt into a full-scale war when I became the only white member of a Japanese taiko group, driving her to learning mixed-martial arts in order to be in a Star Wars fanfic. I countered by stealing her story of being in a Star Wars fanfic and passing it off as my own in the last Topless Robot contest (When did you know you were a nerd?), where it earned me an honorable mention on the site and her lasting hatred. I'm pretty sure "Weep the tears of damnation!" was thrown around before she hung up on me. And now, with my ticket from the last New York Anime Festival on my wall and a flock of fresh origami phoenixes on my desk, I wait for her next move. I fear she may be considering medical school.

• There were several warning signs. But everytime one of them would rear it's ugly head I would go into denial and think I was just being "different". I mean really... I ignored the first time I went to a comic shop and spent $100 (I was in 6th grade), I glossed over the time I bought out a whole movie theater for the re-release of Star Wars (for all my friends - and yes we filled the theater), I even blocked out the times I went to Star Trek conventions... oh no, it was the moment I changed my major in college to COMIC BOOKS that I realized there was no hope. LOL. Oh yes, you are a true nerd, geek, whatever... when you tell people you went to school for comic book and have a degree on your wall to prove it.

• Huh. I just realized that my entries for two TR contests in a row have been about how girls, X-Men, and my nerdiness have intertwined.

• Unless you're cherrypicking the emotionally vulnerable like a twisted cult recruiter, the best way to make a nerd is to expose a person to high quality nerd media. Take my girlfriend for example. We hooked-up through non-nerdy shared interests some seven years ago. As a product of 1990s hipness, she was already reading some comics. She dug "Optic Nerve," "Eightball," and other books for self-consciously indie types. Of course she would lightly tease me for reading "superhero crap" and getting her started on my love of AD&D and Star Trek was just asking for trouble. They say love makes a person blind, but sometimes it can provide insight. I knew there was a raging nerd inside my girlfriend (other than myself) and it was my job to free it. So I brought out the heavy artillery. I handed her my trade of "Watchmen" after about six months of dating and informed her that there would be a quiz on the material. She humored me and read a superhero book. Unsurprisingly, the "quiz" was just me opening up the floor for her to gush about what a great read it was. "But Baltimoron," you're whining, "that's cheating. 'Watchmen' isn't a real superhero comic." You might be right, but in this case it served to get a copy of my follow-up recommendation--Chris Claremont's "Dark Phoenix Saga"--past her defenses. That's what got her hooked on superhero books. Claremont's ability to make mutant teens, demigods from space, and galactic empires the stuff of believable storytelling ensured that she didn't become one of those superhero comics readers who only likes titles that "deconstruct" their subject matter. She was done for after that. Now she's a fan of "Firefly," wears Batman t-shirts, watches anime with me, and goes to horror conventions (that's very much her nerdy interest; I can take or leave horror stuff). In just a few years she went from late-90s/early-2000's indie rocking post-hardcore kid to well-rounded fangirl.

• When my son's mother refused to consider names like Malcom Reynold, Optimus and Lando my plans to ensure the nerd gene would pass on felt somewhat roadblocked. It wasn't until our most current Halloween had come that I realized how much my nerd-sperm had overwhelmed her helpless, frigid egg: My son is three years old, and I had taken him to a Trick or Treat event dressed as Batman at our local Farmer's Market for a practice run before Candypalooza 2009. We were taking a breather on the sidewalk, eating some sammiches- a task he felt required that he remove his cowl. A kid dressed as Spiderman walked by and frantically alerted his mom to the fact that there was a kid dressed like Batman eating a pulled pork on the sidewalk and my son looked up with disdain to correct him, saying "I'm not Batman, I'm just Bruce Wayne." As if that wasn't enough, once we had recowled and resumed our Trick or Treateries, I had to physically repress him from shit kicking the tar out of some unsuspecting kid dressed like the Joker.

• I was never able to nerdify my twin brother but turning my younger brother into a nerd was a sucess. The first nerdy thing I shared with him (more like forced on him but whatever)was the Dragonlance series of books. He then read all twenty+ of them. When he told me that he played DnD at his friend's house I laughed maniacally. I don't even play DnD so he could be considered nerdier than me. But I had to try harder, make the conversion more complete. So I then casually watched anime while he was in the room and left my manga around the house turning him into a lover of those as well. We would both eagerly wait around at the computer for the newest Death Note episodes. Then all on his own he turned into a band geek! So I had to do something to turn him back to the kind of nerd I was. So I introduced him to final fantasy soundtracks, ocremix (what's nerdier than listening to videogame music? Remixes of videogame music) and the glory that is Eminence Orchestra. I caught him keyboarding Prelude once(which is a big deal considering he's never played a final fantasy) so I thought my work was done. Then he became a choir/vocal kid so back I came to corrupt that with nerdiness too. I got him to listen to all the nerdy songs I have that involved singing: j-pop, the lord of the rings soundtrack, you name it, but nothing worked until he overheard Baba-Yetu (the theme to Civ IV) and it is now the most played song on his i-pod. He's also watched Dr. Horrible more times than I have. The moral of this story is that I'm a horrible person who can't rest until I've added nerdiness into everything my younger brother does.

• When I visit my midwestern relatives, I often just -happen- to be watching Labyrinth when my little cousins come over.

• When I convinced my athlete friend that Topless Robot wasn't a weird robot porn site

• *sniff* Some of these nerd love stories are killing me, man.... *sniff* These entries are deep.

• Simple my friend very simple, 1 part Star Trek {1 ep per week} 2 Parts Star Wars Trilogy 3 Parts Transformers {i.e. all three movies, 1 G1 and 2 movieverse} 4 Dark horse comics 5 Hours of funny nerd related videos on Youtube 6 Hot Pockets 7 Cups of coffee any questions?

• <i>Specifically, what would you give someone in order to lead them down the dark road of nerdery?</i> I think about a dozen wedgies and repeatedly calling them a nerd should do the trick.

• Folks, I'd like to share with you a tale. No, not the tale of how I got a hot party girl to dive heavily into comic books (because it's kind of boring and not the same without photos - I assure you she is hot). This is the tale of how making a nerd actually resulted in divorce...mine. It all started back in 2003. I was a newlywed (1 year) who was just getting back into comic books and toy collecting. My wife, who was more than willing to share my enjoyment of things, took up some light comic reading mostly to appease me and follow my train of thought when I went on one of my many Batman rants. What really piqued her interest was my love of the classic 80's animated series Robotech. Having it finally out on DVD allowed me to watch it without commercials and appreciate the 85 episodes over and over. She really seemed to like the thematic elements and the complex storyline. She helped me collect all the DVDs, got me the extended remastered editions, purchased newer action figures, collected all the wildstorm comics...she went all out. This was just the beginning. Soon she was downloading other anime like Samurai Champloo (I think that's the name), Ghost in the Shell and InuYasha, which really deepened her obsession. I was supportive of all this, of course, not just because she liked it but because it allowed my geekiness to go unchecked. About a year after I had helped her start the anime obsession, my ex went back to school. She had to take a language and chose Japanese, given her love of their cartoons. She excelled in the course and as a result was invited to do a cultural exchange in the land of the rising sun. Expensive as it was, I knew it'd be an amazing opportunity. Off she went for 2 months while I held down the fort here in North America. When she came back, arms loaded with a plethora of InuYasha, Macross, and Ghost in the Shell merchandise, the first thing she said to me wasn't "I've missed you so much." or "I love you.", but "I want to go back". Needless to say, the next year wasn't really filled with joy and happiness, as my ex spent the entire time trying to work out how to get back to Japan, at the unfortunate expense of our marriage. She managed to arrainge another trip to Japan, this time for a year. A month before she left, we sat down and discussed how we were going in different directions and should probably end the relationship. Soon she was back in Japan and we were separated. That was 3 years ago. Now, of course there were other reasons why we parted ways (which I won't go into here - sorry gossip hounds), but there were definitely days just a few months after the split where I wondered...how would things have gone if I'd never introduced her to Rick Hunter and Roy Fokker. P.S. I am much happier now than I was with the ex. The new girlfriend appreciates and supports the geek lifestyle, but has her own interests (which I also share). In the end, the ex got a new husband and a baby, and I got an x-box, a nice TV and a better girlfriend. That's a win in my column I think.

• I'm actually still in this process with my wife. It's been an ongoing thing since I have met her. She's not quite to the point of complete nerddom but the seeds are planted.....and no, that is not my way of saying I've impregnated her with our nerd child. (but that day will come!) But my basic strategy has been quite simple, slowly, but steadily introduce her to Nerdy things and subtly point out non-nerd aspects that she can relate to or enjoy. For example, when I met my wife she had never even seen a Star Wars movie. I finally convinced her to start watching it because Harrison Ford was in it. I think because of that and the element of friendship between the protagonists she actually started to like the original trilogy and after that the prequels. Now, while I wouldn't currently consider my wife a complete nerd, she thoroughly enjoys not just Star Wars, but Star Trek (the original series and subsequent movies with the original cast), Terminator, Aliens, Marvel super hero movies, and last but certainly not least, Battlestar Galactica. Another important element to my strategy has just been doing what I want and waiting for it to wear down on her to point where she has to either start enjoying said franchises or go insane. To be honest that's what this all boils down to.

• I don't have any extravagant nerd tale, so my vote goes to you my friend.

• My kids were geeked from before they were born. I have twin girls so my wife and I each got to name one. I named mine Harlee Quinn (the wife didn't want the traditional spelling and she vetoed naming the other one "Ivy", dammit) but the other one knows she was supposed to be named Ivy. They have the Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy Barbie dolls (unopened of course) and have a love for all things Batman and any other Superheroes. Teen Titans was a staple in my house (They had ALL of the TT figures that came out and Harlee dressed as Raven one year). They also were the only 3 year old girls I knew that would put on their Disney Princess dresses and sit and watch the entire Star Wars trilogy. The best moment though? In preschool they asked Harlee what she wanted to be when she grew up and she said, straight faced, "a sidekick". Made daddy so proud *sniff*

• My little brother is a closet-nerd. My parents and I are all geeks (you should see our decked out-treked out Christmas tree). This means he knows the geek language. So he'll drop a great reference every now and then but still wont claim his true nerd roots. An example: His friend was having trouble getting out of a parking spot. He says, in his best Yoda voice, "aww cannot get your ship out".

• I understand that. I introduced a friend to Dollhouse and my parents to BSG and both were asking me tons of questions. Its good that they were interested but I kept on thinking "shut up shut up shut up". I suppose it would work better if you had already seen the episode. That way you wont be obsessed with trying to catch everything.

• I made my younger sister a nerd by taking her to a midnight showing of The Dark Knight. After getting hit on by guys dressed like Two-Face and the Joker and getting more attention for our Supports of Harvey Dent costumes while standing in line, she ended up seeing the movie about 20 times in the theatre and Imax. She also wanted to borrow every single Batman graphic novel I had. And we've been closer ever since. THANKS, CHRISTOPHER NOLAN :D

• I started my little sister on comic books when she was old enough to read - the usual crap to lure her in; PowerPuff Girls, Teen Titans, etc. Then she started reading my books and to my surprise last year, for Halloween, she wanted to be Hit Girl (from Kick Ass) or the Female (from The Boys). It totally made my day.

• My sister has always been aware of the nerd world (with a gamer dad, a Trekkie mom, and an otaku sister how could you not?) But never a true nerd. She was always the more social out of us kids. I had theories about the milk man. Anyway a year ago she was really interested in this guy who was a hard core DnD fan and asked for my help. I helped her build a rogue and taught her how to play so she could join this guys group.(no newbs aloud in this elitist group) Well, the guy is long gone but now she plays in my campaign with a kick-ass rogue! Now I just need to get her to go the cons with me.

• make them read the screen play of the lord of the rings, while playing movie cd in the background

• *sniff* That's beautiful.... NERD LOVE FTW! And that epitaph kicks so much ass.

• My best friend was the least nerdy person you could meet until a while ago: He barely even knew who Mario was. He played rugby - and well, too! He was into the army, he loved guns (but not exactly in an obsessive nerdy way), his grandparents fought in wars and he could kick all your asses. He did kickboxing. He never really touched a comic book, or even a book that wasn't about the Vietnam War. Then one day I dragged him into geeky cult shop Forbidden Planet. He wandered around unenthusiastically then noticed a book section and went to browse through some WWII stuff. Someone had accidentally put a Medal of Honour guide or something in there, so he casually picked it up and flicked through it. His interest rose and he brought it over and showed it to me. I told him it was a video game on the PlayStation, and that he could buy it and borrow my console if he wanted. He did. That interest in Medal of Honour became an interest in War Games in general. Then, an interest in Halo, Gears of War etc. Then, video game comics and action figures. Then comics and action figures in general. He now plays more Assassin's Creed 2 than anyone I know, and has a beautiful collection of Marvel Legends figures - and he owes it all to my PlayStation! He could still kick your asses, though.

• My friend's and I had been playing D&D for about 3 months when one of their neighbors, I'll call him Derick to protect his identity, came over to hang out. Derick and the others had grown up on the same block, and I'd met them because Jerry, one of the guys in the group, had a grandmother thatlived next door to me. Derick didn't take part in our D&D sessions because he was raised a Jehovah's witness, and as a result was taught that RPGs, especially D&D were tools of the Devil used to lead souls astray. Normally when he saw we were playing D&D he would stomp off in a huff, and leave us alone. Today was different. Se sat and watched us, and would make comments during the session. After his comment of "you realize you are all going to hell for this, right?" I told him that the players were in fact getting ready to head off to kill the source of all evil for the setting (a homebrew setting based largely off of the BECMI boxed sets) and that I didn't appreciate him inviting himself over and being disruptive to the game. Some of us were trying to have fun, and if he wanted to stay, he could make himself useful, grab a some blank sheets of paper and write a villain monologue for me, and I held out a couple pages of loose leaf paper and a pencil. He quietly took them and left the room, and we continued the game. An hour later he quietly came back in. I glared at him and asked in a rough voice what he wanted. He asked for more paper. I shrugged and handed him the rest of the pad. And he left. 2 hours later we called for a break and went to see what he was doing. He was sitting at the desk writing. I asked what he was writing, and he said, "your speech. gimme an hour." I said ok, and left him alone. We ordered pizza, started playing SNES, and waited for him to finish. An hour and a half later, he tapped me on the shoulder and said he was done. We turned off the Nintendo and went back to the table. Only this time he sat behind the others watching. At the point I'd called a break, the party had successfully fought their way through hell, and had made their way to the ruler of the realm of evil. When play started back up, they opened the doors, and I read what Derick had written, starting with the description of the ruler of evil. The next 20 minutes were a thing of what I can only call beauty. Derick had used his knowledge of our friends to know exactly which buttons to press and just how hard to press them. The players were all shaken, and as one decided to turn around and try to fight their way back OUT of hell then continue to be in the presence of this entity. Derick joined the group after that, when we went off to college, he formed his own group, and still runs games at the local conventions every now and again. Jerry still refuses to play in any game Derick runs. (as an aside, Jerry is dyslexic, and after 6 months of playing D&D asked where I got so many of my ideas, and if there were any books like D&D. I suggested the Dragonlance series, and within 3 months he had gone from reading at a 5th grade level to college level. (this was while he was a high school freshman))

• I'd been a nerd for years, but never found a girlfriend who came close to being one, much less understood what a nerd was. However, I got along rather well with one girl from the college I was attending. She didn't read sf (certainly not comics), didn't watch many genre films and couldn't quite understand why I'd play D&D on some weekends. But she put up with it, and with my explaining the finer points of stuff (including why Buckeroo Banzai was the best Doc Savage film ever made). One Friday night, I convinced her to come to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture show. About 40 minutes into it, I felt her shoulders tense and I knew I'd never be having another date with her. After the film, she was quiet on the way back to her apartment. As I was walking her to the door, she stopped, looked at me and said "would you think I'm sick if I said I wanted to dress up like Dr. Frank N. Furter?" "No, I promise, I won't." She and I split later, but she spent years playing the good Doctor at midnight showings. Who knew?

• Okay, my sis came to live with my family while her husband was overseas in Korea for almost 2 years, in the Army of course. And my nephew was like 5 or 6 and I of course like 14 or 15. So, I was like Dr. Frankenstein, I was going to make a nerd monster! I bought him superhero and Star Wars toys and made him watch anything that had vaguely anything to do with fandom! And if was all backed up by subtle threats and punishments. If he rebelled, I would collect all the toys and put them in my room and lock the door. And he was banned from my room and other nerd cruelty until he complied back to nerdom. And of course, as an evil uncle, occassionally, he would turn to me and ask, "Hey, Unca Carl, why do I like Star Wars and Star Trek?" And I would wrap a coat hanger in a towel and beat him until he cried out his undying love for all things wonderful in the fandom world. Yes, cruel, yes, I was a dick. But he's a huge nerd and is part of the next generation I helped bring about. And most of this story could be true...

• Have your 6 year old (now 7) bro watch Red Dwarf, Manos, Firefly, and Blackadder with the family, who all like these things. Yes, we are like a sort of nerd breeding test group. My father got me, as well as my brothers, into all sorts of music, as well as (these are in my case) coding, literature(Neal Stephenson being the most triumphant example, but Coupland is also mentionable), and comics. My mom is also a sort of nerd, bot not to my dad's extent. We were raised on MST3K, Doctor Who, and Blackadder. I was read LOTR as a child. It seems that that's the best way to make a nerd. Get 'em when they're young. I also got my (other, now 11)brother interested in manga, this site, and TV Tropes.

• When I was a freshman in high school, my friend Hannah came to visit me, she was a military brat and had recently moved out of state. Among our night of nail painting and gossip, I casually pulled out my Firefly DVDs. Curious, Hannah agreed to watch an episode with me, and several hours late we had watched over half of the episodes. This may not sound very impressive, but the nerdy reached farther than my Mal-Reynolds-loving-15-year-old self could have imagined. Upon returning to her family Hannah insisted on renting Serenity and watched it with her family, and from then on they were hooked. So that is the story of my tiny nerdy victory, I can now say with pride that I converted and entire family, 3 or 4 states, into Browncoats.

• My "made nerd" was my best friend Joe. In 1994, I got him into Final Fantasy II & III for the SNES, then Secret of Mana & Chrono Trigger. He bought a PlayStation just for FF7. In 1996, I got him into anime by lending him Ninja Scroll and Ghost in the Shell -pretty soon, he's plunking $200 on the Ranma 1/2 season 2 VHS box set! Joe is such a hardcore anime fan, he once drove 2 COUNTIES for the last part of "Fushugi Yugi". You want to know how much of a nerd I ended up making my friend Joe into? WE WENT TO SEE "POKEMON:THE MOVIE" AND "DIGIMON: THE MOVIE", THEN TRADED WITH KIDS IN LOBBY TO GET ALL THE EXCLUSIVE PROMO CARDS!

• Oh I forgot to mention she's grateful to have a nerdy older brother like me, because I gave her the right amount of nerdiness to make her cool. Too bad the guy she's probably going to marry isn't nerdy at all.

• I'm surprised, something like mine wasn't mentioned before. I expected someone to say that they turned their little sister into a nerd. I turned my little brother and SISTER into nerds of awesome caliber. Turning someone into a nerd is difficult, but turning a girl to nerdom and making them kick ass is nearly impossible. I got my sister hooked into video games (fighting and RPGs), manga, anime, and battlestar galactica. It started with Street Fighter II and her wanting to play Chun Li when she was 11. Today she can pick up any street fighter game and kick ass using Chun Li, even if she never played the game before. She can continuously win against guys who memorize 100hit combos with only simple, non-special moves. It's eerie and awesome simultaneously. She loves playing Bioware and Squar/Enix RPGs. I convinced her to play and beat Final Fantasy 6 by telling her you can play as "a magical pixy bear". As to anime and manga, her favorite series are Battle Angel/Gunmm, Berserk, and Claymore. She even keeps a wallscroll of Gally/Alita on her apartment wall. The funny thing is that she was never a tomboy, she still did the regular girly stuff like going to No Doubt concerts, the mall, and hanging with friends named after fruits (cherry, apple, ect). Her nerd cred was legitimate the day she dragged her non-nerd boyfriend (he's a bodybuilding accountant) to the San Diego comic con and forced him to dress as Ogre from revenge of the nerds. (I never took my sister with me to Comic Con, I would just show her the awesome swag I got and brag about all the awesome artists I met.)

• I know I won't win with this, but hey, why not: It is impossible for me to lure anybody into nerdom because I have no patience for noobs. When they're new with whatever it is they're gonna be asking too many questions and fucking too much shit up, and I'll end up yelling and they'll qq. Fuck noobs.

• Yeah, I kind of think you're born a nerd. My friend's little sister wanted to be an icthyologist. When she was 4. She could pronounce it and everything.

• I am diligently crafting my 6 year old daughter into a nerd. It takes time, as my wife is a complete non-nerd and has tried to counter all of my nerd influences on our duaghter, but I am winning. It started from the get go, with a constant stream of science fiction and fantasy quotes at her. I would sing a slow and quiet version of the Cantina Band song as her lullaby. She also liked to sit on my lap when I played Warcraft III. When she was two, I was watching a Godzilla movie. She plopped down on the floor with her sippy cup to watch it. When my wife objected I pointed out that it was good for her to know the good and bad that comes with a radioactive monster leaving near you. When she was three she saw Darth Vader and got scared, so I introduced her to Thumb Wars. She also took a liking to the DC cartoons on Cartoon Network that I encouraged her to watch. I also introduced her to Homestarrunner.com which she adores to this day. When she was four I taught her that when she sees a zombie she needs to hit it in the head with a weapon (though I held off on letting her see a zombie movie until this year when the original Night of the Living Dead was aired over and over). When she was five I let her watch my old Ren & Stimpy videos. Her favorite is Space Madness. This year I knew I won when she asked to paint an Ork while I was painting my Ork army for Warhammer 40k. She still has the annoying things she likes that her friends are into and her mom pushes but she is nerding out more and more...*sniff* she makes me so proud.

• You do what my parents did. You name your children Tycho Jupiter J., Rigel Booker Maxwell J., and Zephyr Zenith Newton J. There is no way in the seven hells my siblings or I ever had a chance to be anything but nerds. And no, I won't tell you my real name.

• Batgirl was a whore. A whoooooooooooooore, I say!

• Ok... I've made nerds out of a few of my friends... mostly by way of getting them to sit down and watch an anime that clicked with them that they just go home and look for more of it online... -nods- from there it just grows... and grows... soon they branch off from anime into other things as well.. Just a little seed... one episode of an anime and with a little time and soon you will have grown a full blown nerd in your friend.... -nods- P.S. How to kill a nerd.. take whatever the seed was built from and then... read outloud so they can't escape... a FFF based on the anime or show of the initial seed and watch it wither and die in their heart. They will start playing sports and even enjoy sunlight again in a desperate escape from the once fond memories fully corrupted by skull rape anal key hole locking and the Pokemon story...

• When I was in maybe fourth or fifth grade, I was diehard into two things: Animorphs and Nintendo games. This was before I knew I was a nerd, but I was already on the road to being "that guy." I talked my friends' ears off about this stuff, whether or not they shared my enthusiasm. One day I was holding forth about N64 games to my friend, when she blurted out, "Girls don't care about video games, Sam!" I contested that gender had nothing to do with it. Next time this friend came over to my house, I put an N64 controller in front of her. Now, I may have exaggerated it in my memory, but I think she played Super Mario 64 for FOUR HOURS without talking to me because she was so engrossed, and then her parents picked her up. I fell out of touch with her over the course of middle and high school, but I reconnected with her on facebook in the last couple years and she's apparently a crazy otaku now. I like to think I provided the spark. Jut put a videogame(/comic/movie/whatever) in front of somebody and let the experience speak for itself.

• I first realized that I was a nerd when a band girl looked at her friend, rolled her eyes, and said "what a nerd" when I asked her out.

• Well my wife was a high school cheerleader, sorority girl, very girly girl, loves pink and everything that is sterotypically girly. Her favorite movie is now Star Trek, was psyced when I got the Blue Ray of the Original Movies, understands why I like Kirk over Picard. Had no probelm waiting in line with me to get a wii. Will play video games with no complaints and at one point in time found no problems making the costumes for my guy on City of Heroes. Then there is my son at the ripe age of a year and a half, he has star trek phaser, a lightsaber (the small one that comes in the two packs) a few superhero toys, 3 build a bears dressed as Batman, a clone trooper, and a monkey jedi. And the best thing he has done, at best buy a few weeks ago the wife grabbed a veggie tales DVD, gave it to my son, he looked at it, shook his head put it in a basket and grabbed the young avengers DVD. I was so proud I had to tell friends about that

• I wish I could say that I am confessing, but it is completely intentional; I am training my children to be nerds. When my oldest son was two he started playing with my Playstation controller. I would turn on Kingdom Hearts, go to the Colosseum. I entered a tournament and let Goofy and Donald take care of the opponents while my son would mash buttons and occasionally attack.: He was playing Spyro the Dragon by three. When walking in the parking lot, my children and I hold hands and look for cars. I tried to explain that by holding hands so they could be seen. Being too short, holding hands created a bigger group so that the cars could see them better. I then told them that making a bigger group is called 'Banding.' In a game called Magic, there were soldiers who would band together to create a bigger group when fighting. Most recently, I listened to/watched the 'Skywalking' Video and 'Re: Your brains' enough that my, now three-year-old, would sing 'Skywalking....' and 'All we want to do is eat your brains,' randomly. My kids make me so proud.

• You are born a nerd. BUT and this is a big but. What KIND of nerd depends on what you're exposed to. I had a friend in 7th grade, who was a big Star Wars and Star Trek geek. Read the novels and all that nonsense. He's naever heard of manga and anime before me. I brought in the first volume of Ranma 1/2 and was reading it, James (his name if I remember right) asked what it was. OH its a really cool japanese comic book I said. Since I'd just finished reading the manga I offered to let him borrow it. He took it home and JUST ATE IT UP. I lent him the other volumes I had and he ate them up too. Soon he started buying his own, and than it was other mangas...and more animes. And suddenly he owns the complete Ranma series, and more and more anime. I had created a sort of nerd/otaku hybrid ....I think he's 26 now....and he's never gotten laid....and I had something to do with it.

• I've managed to convert three of my four siblings into nerds. I will refer to them as M, E, and A. I introduced E into gaming with Halo and the rest was easy. I slowly introduced him to more games, each one nerdier than the last. I believe I sealed it with him once I got him to watch FF7: Advent Children. M was already somewhat of a nerd. I just helped her down the rest of the way. She always watched me and E play games. Recently, she started to actually play them. Instead of Halo, I got her with Assassin's Creed. I sealed the once again with Advent Children. She's hooked on every nerdy thing I've gotten her on now. A may be my favorite conversion. It was basically the same as the previous two, but what makes it my favorite is that she's eight. I taught her how to play FF and L4D, got her into all of my nerd movies, and I knew my job was done when she enjoyed Advent Children. My three nerd conversions have all been changes into game nerds. I also learned that Advent Children is very nerdy movie in my experience.

• Thanks to yours truly, my little brother's first word was "triceratops." It might have had something to do with the fact that it was the toy I could most easily poke him with.

• I got my wife into fantasy by way of movies and short books after we got married. She resisted at first and thought it was all way too nerdy for her. But when I was away for some long-term training she heard about WoW and thought it might be fun to play together since it had fantasy aspects. She became more of a WoW player than me and even became the guild GM!

• It took me 19 years to turn my younger half- brother into a somewhat of a nerd. (He's still in the denial phase.) As a child he was gifted in sports, but since I was pretty much stuck as his baby sitter. (Yeah! like my already dead social life was affected by that.) I tried to teach him the ways of 80s cartoons, anime (before everyone here was Dragonball Z is teh awesome!1! I had my younger Bro on various anime), Videogames, praticulary JRPGS, but nothing.He's now on college studiying Graphic design, cosplaying, and hardcore gamer.

• I've managed to morph my brother (10 years my junior). Two master strokes have been: 1. Giving him all my Star Wars toys (I'm 32 and had an insane amount of toys left), which, I know, kinda seems like a mistake for a super nerd, but the key is he had old-school Star Wars toys while the new ones were coming out (he had those too, spoiled brat)... 2. And the thing I'm most proud of because it's still a passion of both of ours is turning him into an MST3K fan. It started with "Mitchell," and the rest is sweet, sweaty, beer-stained history. December 16th will be our Christmas this year!

• Somehow my young daughter (2 years old at the time) found out about Dora the Explorer and began bugging my wife and I /incessantly/ to watch it. After several weeks of watching that show, that apallingly bad show, I was about ready to put my foot through the TV. In desperation, I put on one of the Star Wars movies instead. Now my daughter is four and has probably seen each of the six movies at least 40 times. She was Princess Leia for Halloween (and still occasionally wears the outfit around the house), has terrorized our cat with her light saber, and has large chunks of dialogue memorized. I hate to admit it, but I'm now even sick of Star Wars. I'm having to ask my own 4-year-old daughter to tone down her nerddom. In my mind, I somehow picture her confronting me about my nerddom, saying, "The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner. Now *I* am the master."

• First off, I am a single father of twin daughters. There mother isn't around much so it is pretty much just us. Now for the damage I have been inflicting on them for years: At the age of 5 (they are now 10) I began to make my twin daughters watch Star Wars. I then began making them watch comic book hero cartoons. I would make them do math problems at dinner and "experiments" after. They are now indoctrinated in the DCAU and I am moving them onto the live action flicks. Also, recently I took them to a comic book shop where I got them their first action figures (Batwoman and Black Canary) and comics. At this very moment they are watching Batman Begins. One of my daughters really likes Superman and the other likes Spiderman, unfortunately for them, I am a Batman fan so they are going to be immersed in Batman until they are just like me. I am not worried about ruining their social lives because they are very social and quite girly, this is simply a means for us all to have atleast one thing to geek out together on.

• Oh, where to begin... over the years I've turned several innocent young minds into hopeless nerds. First, there was the six year old next door. His mother had asked me to keep an eye on him after school a couple of days a week and I agreed to help. Now, they didn't have a tv, so I actually had to interact with the kid. Within a month, he was arguing with other kids at school about how Jonah Hex was cooler than Spiderman, and that the Question was the best detective ever. Second, I've corrupted my little brother's best friend, though admittedly that was more of a family project. The poor boy's gone from being a rugby playing "cool kid" to a guy who forces his team mates to go see Rifftrax Live and hangs around our house playing "Munchkin". Finally, I'm in the middle of fully nerdifying a thirteen year old boy whom I've basicly adopted as another litle brother. I've gotten him hooked on MST3K, he's obsessed with Left 4 Dead, and he's even joined my gaming group. It's only a matter of time before he's an irredeemable nerd. Bwahahahaha.

• I made my son play the final fantasy games in order before he was able to play any of the new ones. I successfully game him some ridiculously deep game history and insight into current games, but also made him a huge video game nerd. DOUBLE WIN!

• I LOST MY NERDINITY TO A MAN WHEN I WAS 321 FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

• A so-called "friend" of mine introduced me to the world of Marvel comics, which, after 3 decades of avoidence, I decided were "cool". I was then lead a merry dance into the world of picking awesome films apart for a tiny discrepency, questioning the things I loved the most and buying shit-loads of G.I Joes. (even though I never owned any as a child.) I'm now 32 and can't watch Star Wars with my kids without moaning about something.

• Over exposure always works. No matter how old or how cool. I had two college roommates that would not be considered nerds. One was a hipster the other a jock. They were both smart but nerds they were not. My other roommate and I got hooked on DS9 junior year. It was when Spike was showing DS9 at lunch time so we used to schedule our day around it. I watched the serious probably two times all the way though. They both got hooked. Making references and everything. So just pull a Ludovico technique and you can make them a nerd easy.

• When I was in university, I converted my then-girlfriend (now-wife) into an alpha-nerd: a Dungeons and Dragons-playing RPG enthusiast. It was quite simple: I was DMing a game and simply invited her to the first session of our new campaign just to see what it was all about. When she got there, everyone was making characters, so I suggested she make a character too, just so she would know how it works. Once she had a character made, I suggested that she try playing that first session, just so she would know what's happening if she ever stopped by to watch. She joined the group for that entire campaign, from level one to twenty, and has been playing DnD ever since. I'm so proud...

• When making a person into a nerd, there is one principle I think should come above the rest: DO NOT OVERDO IT. In the case of video games, it is best to explain SOME details (primarily the core details like gameplay mechanics) of the game, then show the target the actual game and let them explore on their own. After some time (and offerings of advice on certain areas from you, if applicable), slowly add in juicy details to convince the target that this is awesome. NEVER force-feed anything during this process or it will backfire horrendously. Eventually, you will have rasied your own nerd ally to fight against legions of [insert evil of choice here].

• How did I make a nerd? I bought my niece and nephew ( twins! ) nerd-toys - video games, anime, manga, the works - since they were born. My brother has yet to forgive me for the fact that his jr likes to watch Gundam and Dragonball Z more than the cartoon network.

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