What is old is new again

I went to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie a few days ago because I had the Scene points to get a free D-Box ticket and popcorn to boot. I also have a soft spot for TMNT no matter how terrible the subject matter.

Donatello is my favourite. Always a soft spot for an intelligent man.

I headed over to the theatre after work and saw an earlier presentation and there were loads of kids in the audience. I was also surprised to see so many little girls.

The only time I ever felt lonely as a child was when I didn't have friends who were into the same things I was. Being a nerdy Native little girl in the middle of nowhere meant I read a lot, played a lot of video games, and watched a lot of TV. And I fell in love with a lot of things: Power Rangers, TMNT, Super Mario, and Legend of Zelda.

When I moved to the city, I became friends with a lot of nerds and spent a lot of time online meeting more. I was surprised to see how possessive other nerds were about the things they loved. The only thing I ever really felt possessive over was Hawksley Workman and it was only because I wanted him to stay weird and awesome and just for me! I couldn't imagine being possessive of something like Power Rangers or TMNT so it's always strange to see 30-year-old dudes on Twitter complaining about kids being into things they digged when they were kids.

I was talking to my sister's boyfriend about it (As he is a huge Transformers fan) and I asked him what he thought about nerds being possessive of things like Transformers, TMNT, and the like. He said that it tends to be wanting to see your favourite thing grow with you.

"Is the big ugly one shooting laser beams into the crib!?

In some ways I think that's true. I like when my favourite properties grow and create newer and stronger stories. I love how the Super Mario games went from the simple "Your princess is in another castle" to the absolutely heartbreaking story that made up most of Super Mario Galaxy.  I like how Majora's Mask makes more sense to me now as an adult than it did when I first played it at the age of 12. I also like how the Batman films have grown with me. Batman 89 being the film of my childhood and Dark Knight being the film of my adulthood.

But I like when properties create new stories but have shout outs to the old fans. I liked how the first Transformers brought back the majority of the voices for characters that 80s kids grew up with. I loved the cute little shout outs to the original games when I played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

Bowser was so precious in this

I still don't understand hating new fans though. It usually seems related to media that is usually targeted to young men and boys. "Girls aren't into that sort of thing", etc. However, I think it's cool as hell to see little girls getting into something that was the domain of men. Yeah, love Barbies but don't feel like you can't like something because you're a girl.  I am not completely innocent though as I don't like to share. I once saw a guy I disliked dressed as the Terrance Stamp version of General Zod and I wanted to beat him up and take his lunch money.

But I could never hate on a kid being into something I love. My friend Devon's son was asking me how to play Luigi's Mansion when we both got the game for Christmas last year. I was happy to help him figure out how to use that vacuum. I got into a fun argument with a kid during the midnight showing of the first Hobbit when we were saying who had waited the longest for the movie. (Him: WELL YOU'RE OLDER THAN ME). I also loved seeing so many little girls checking out the new Turtles movie.

Little kids being into the things I love means they're always going to be around. I'll be 80 taking a grandchild to see another reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They'll always be teens to me.