Episode 46: You're Not Cringe Anymore

   People change. And people change their interests. I've picked up interests and never let go of them, most notably superheroes and president. I've picked up interests and eventually dropped them permanently, and I've picked up interests, dropped them, and picked them back up later. 

   It's an adaptation thing. As you grow up and age, what you're interested in changes. Unless the interest is something core to your character, like my interests in superheroes and presidents, you'll probably lose interest and find interest in something else later.

    I've recently picked up two new interests: anime and Fortnite. You may be thinking, "so what? Those are both very popular things. You're not special for enjoying them", and you're right. Liking anime and Fortnite doesn't make you interesting when many people like those things. It's like telling someone you like chocolate. So what? Tons of people like chocolate.

    It's my past relationships with these two things that make my interests in them stand out.

Anime

   Before now, I had only seen one anime in full (One-Punch Man), unless you count the Marvel animes, in which case I've seen the Iron Man one and the Wolverine one, and had no intention of ever watching another one. I went through a period a while ago where I tried both My Hero Academia and Attack on Titan and couldn't get into either. 

    Now, I'm in the fourth season of My Hero Academia and am binging the crap out of it. And I am going to watch Attack on Titan after it. I love it. My opinion of anime has sharply changed for the better.

   I held off on watching anime for so long because a lot of the internet tells you watching anime is cringey. So many places make fun of people for liking anime. I used to take part in it. But, to be honest, I kind of get the point. Some people go way too far into their obsession and just get gross with it. But there's no problem with merely liking anime. Animes are based on Japanese comics, so it's really no different than watching shows like Arrow and Daredevil. Many of them are very good shows so there's nothing wrong with simply enjoying them.

Fortnite

   Fortnite has been one of the world's biggest video games for years. For most of that time, I saw Fortnite as a cringey game for kids. Most fans I saw were kids who were very weird. I had some friends who played it but that wasn't enough to convince me that it wasn't cringe.

   Then, enter guys night. For a long time now, I've been spending a few hours seasonally on Monday nights with some church friends and some friends of church friends. They have all become my friends. We eat pizza, and play Fortnite and Jackbox, and sometimes other games. For a long time, I just watched them play Fortnite. I tried once and died almost immediately.

   Later on, I decided to download Fortnite on my Switch. There must have been some kind of in-game event going on at the time, because I thrown into some story mode I didn't want to be in. I didn't wanna go through it in order to get to the normal gameplay, so I gave up and deleted Fortnite off of my Switch.

   A few weeks ago, I decided to give Fortnite another shot. My sister lets me play on her PS4, so I got Fortnite on it. I decided I was tired of merely watching and wanted to practice so I could actually join in on the Fortnite portion of guys night. 

   And, I quite enjoyed it. I was actually pretty good at it. I got two wins in my first ever few hours of gameplay. Now, I play a lot of Fortnite at home and I always have a turn at guys night.

In Conclusion

  I guess I'm using anime and Fortnite to make some kind of allusion to adaptation. I was giving things a shot that I previously had a negative opinion of. And, I ended up quite liking both. 

   It's like a "don't judge a book by its cover" or a "don't knock it until you've tried it" situation. I gave things a shot and didn't regret it.

   Anyway...

SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!

GO BEYOND! PLUS ULTRA!!!!