[A tired looking meeting room with low ceilings and glaring fluorescent light. Sounds of people shifting in place as a man in late-middle age reluctantly stands up and clears his throat.]
“My name is Len Vlahos, and I’m a Wil Wheaton fan boy.”
“Fan late-middle-aged-man.” chides someone from the circle of chairs.
[A young woman in a Start Trek Voyager T-shirt tentatively raises her hand.]
“This is Captain Janeway Anonymous. Wesley Crusher Anonymous is down the hall.”
Seriously though, I am a fan.
As much as I love Star Trek The Next Generation — “The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1,” the cliff hanger at the end of season 3, is some of the best TV ever produced — my Wil Wheaton fandom didn’t start with his portrayal of Ensign Crusher.
Nor was I among the early acolytes of wilwheaton.net. I read it now, but it was only a recent discovery.
It wasn’t even Wil’s absolutely hilarious (and very meta) recurring self-portrayal on The Big Bang Theory that won me over. (Though if I’m being honest, that didn’t hurt).
No, I came to Wil Wheaton fandom through his narration of audiobooks.
It started with Ernie Cline’s Ready Player One. I love this novel. No, I mean I *really* *love* this novel. As someone who spent his high school years (early 1980s) playing Asteroids, Tempest, Galaga, and every other console in the Nathan’s video arcade on Central Avenue in Yonkers, Wade Watts and his story spoke to me. After reading RPO, I decided I needed to experience it again, so I listened to the audiobook, read by Wil Wheaton.
Wil did such a good job bringing the characters and story to life, I started to seek out other books he narrated. Each one of them — Armada (Ernie Cline), Information Doesn’t Want to be Free and Homeland (Cory Doctorow), Masters of Doom (David Kushner), Red Shirts (John Scalzi) — was better than the one that preceded it. Having an accomplished actor narrate an audiobook is so much better than having an author narrate an audiobook. (It’s why I haven’t narrated any of my own books. That, and no one has ever asked me.)
From there, it was a short and obvious step to Wil’s own collections of essays — Dancing Barefoot, Just a Geek, and Happiest Days of Our Lives. These stories are a wonderful recollection of Wil’s life as a step-dad, a geek, and as a certain (and oft-reviled) Star Fleet Ensign.
I became such a fan late-middle-aged-man that I even wrote Wil into Hard Wired. I had noticed that he was a character or otherwise referenced in many of the books he narrated, so I had a vain hope that if I wrote him into my story, my publisher could convince Wil (read that as pay him) to give voice to my work. I’m pretty sure (read that as very sure) my publisher never actually asked. It would have been a longshot, but damn it would’ve been cool. (See if you can find the reference. It’s actually a secret, Easter-Eggy homage to Ready Player One.)
Anyway, in a few of Wil’s essays, he refers to an episode of TNG called “The Game.” The plot revolves around Wesley and fellow ensign Robin (played by a young Ashley Judd) decoding a video game that’s creating psychotropic responses in the rest of the crew. Each person who plays the game becomes hopelessly addicted and falls under the mind control of some random evil alien. Wesley and Robin to the rescue!
I was blown away at how prescient the script (written by Susan Sackett, Fred Bronson, and Brannon Braga) actually was. The “game” in the show is a perfect stand-in for social media. The brain-washed crew members spend hour after hour playing the game, unwittingly activating the pleasure centers of their brains, and sacrificing their individuality to become part of the hive mind. The game, like social media, is simultaneously compelling, terrifying, and grotesque.
If you’re like me, you probably look at screens all day for school or work. Your eyes probably hurt at the end of the day. If you don’t need glasses now, you will soon. (I wonder if the corporate tsars at Lens Crafters are behind social media. What a cool story that would be). Your hands are likely atrophying into gnarled claws. Your neck hurts and your spine is now misaligned. And yet, you’re probably in front of a screen — television, laptop, tablet, or phone — most evenings, too. Like, right now.
And all for what? Another meme? Another group of haters who just gotta hate? Another chance to hear someone echo someone else’s opinion, that was stolen from something their “friend” had seen on Reddit?
More than once I’ve come home from work to find my WSO (wonderful significant other), her parents (who have been staying with us), and both my kids, all in the same room, all staring at screens, all with just a hint of drool in the corners of their mouths.
That’s the world we’re living in. COVID and Zoom (gack!) has only made it worse. It’s only a matter of time before some sentient AI figures this out and we’re all toast.
But it’s not too late.
Fight the temptation of the screen. Go outside and play catch with your kids. Go inside and drag your lame screen-obsessed-parents outside with you. Read an ink on paper book. Or do like Wesley did; find Ashley Judd and kiss her. (This website is not suggesting anyone actually find Ashley Judd and actually kiss her.) Just turn off your screen and save yourself while you still can.
Oh, and check out wilwheaton.net. It’s really good.