Episode 0: Introducing Nerdificent

In this introductory episode 0, Ify and Dani go over some of the topics they plan on speaking about such as Comic Conventions, Virtual Reality, anime, Twitch, Patreon, different types of tech, video games, comic books, and more. They then get into their origins of when and how they got into nerd culture and then discuss why it's important to them and why they've decided to do this podcast. Please be sure to subscribe to catch episode one dropping on Tuesday, April 3rd. Also follow Nerdificent on Twitter/Instagram at @Nerdificent and check out the website www.nerdificent.com. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to episode zero of Netificent. I'm your
host Danny Fernandez, and I'm your host Ippy Waddy. Ways,
sorry I was aptly. I was looking at the crillin
It Twitter to see if anyone got excited about that
thing we're gonna do. But yeah, if you if, if
you're here from crilling and I want to say welcome back, uh,

(00:38):
and welcome for a whole new ride. This is gonna
be very different from krill. When me and Danny originally
stepped in the podcast game, we're doing a show called
crilling It where we would watch an episode of dragon
ball Z, bring on a friend and talk about it.
And it was very time consuming because it's hard to
get a guest to both come over and then sit

(00:58):
through twenty minutes of a show then talk for about
an hour, which is why we often I think we've
developed our following from that because we would often stray
off course, as you do when you're talking about an
episode where sometimes nothing happens, uh perfect dragon ball Z.
That was a lot of it. So if you and
I would talk about a lot of things that we

(01:19):
had similar interest in as far as being nerds and
hosts in this space, us and we talk about things
like VR or Comic Con and realize that we had
a lot of our ven diagram is really similar. Oh
yeah it was. It was pretty crazy too because then
when we stepped over to the Twitch platform did drag
I was gonna say Dragon Ball super, but a krilling

(01:40):
it super. It was cool because there were so many
people who were like, I don't really watch this show,
but I listened for like the insight into nerd culture
that you guys dip into, and then we got we
just didn't have the time and the resource too to continue.
And then our good friends how stuff work was like, yeah,

(02:01):
how about we give you time and resource. Yeah. I
think that they liked our chemistry and how open we are.
I feel like you and I are both really open
about Okay, calm down. Um. I feel like you and
I are really open about stuff. Because if we're talking
about the Venn diagram of nerd world, there's also other
things in there. I would say, you know, wrestling and porn,

(02:24):
and well, I would say nerd world porn. I think
porn is in the Venn diagram of everything, but um, no,
I and well, to be honest, I mean porn. I
do feel like drives a lot of the tech between
robots and VR, but we'll get into that in the podcast. Um.
But yeah, I feel like we had good chemistry and

(02:47):
are pretty open, and I think sometimes I don't know,
we being nerds, we were shamed a lot. I feel
like we were, or at least I was. I was
bullied for liking anime. Nobody at my middle school like
Dragon ball Z. Everyone had moved on. You were supposed
to be cool and watching the Hills then or something
so um or I'm sorry, lagoon, what is it was

(03:08):
all the same thing rich kids. Um. Yeah, And so
I was kind of teased for liking it. And I'm
actually glad that I that it never truly left me
because it's something that I'm so passionate about now that
I get to make money off of it. Also, it's
so super cool now now it's in you know, you
see well now that Michael B. Jordan's is openly into it. Yeah. No,

(03:33):
it was so funny because it was just such a
perfect introspect into just nerd culture. Just him being like,
you know, I like, uh well he was like he
was like Narto and Z and people are like, oh,
you like those Enemies, and he replied to it was like,
I was just trying to make it. Uh. I was
just trying to make it easy for some people to read.

(03:54):
And I was like, that's how you know he's really
into it when that triggers someone like whenever, because that
is a very like big thing an anime where I
was like, oh, you like the regular ones, And I
stay in my ground and say yeah, because it's what
drives the stuff that you think is so cool and subversive.
I totally agree, I I and we can talk about

(04:15):
this probably on the thing like as far as anime snobs, y'all,
a lot of these big, these bigger shows the creator like,
so let's just take a curatory Ama who created dragon
Ball in that entire franchise, he influenced a lot of
the current creators and artists. He has influenced a lot
of the people that grew up watching him that make
the anime that you like now. So that is a

(04:39):
that is also my gripe if this is why we're
doing this together. So, but we're doing it too to
also make it accessible. One of the things, Uh, that
was real rough for me when I started, Like I've
always been into like nerd stuff. But I remember back
in the day, it just wasn't very organized. I would
go to thrifty. You remember thrifty with my dad? Uh,

(05:00):
take me to thrifty and there'd be like comic books
on the stand. It was like blood Shadows. Back in
Valiant's first run, they had like blood Shot and Spawned,
and I remember I grabbed both of those and I
opened it and immediately knew that my dad didn't know
what he handed me because Spawn was very violent, had
lots of boobs. But that was pretty much the extent
of my comic book collecting was those two comics. Because

(05:21):
Nigerian dad's don't often let you dip into your hobbies
too much. So but I always had a passion for computers,
computer games. The PlayStation and the PS two have taken
from me and my brother because we played it too much.
That's that's pretty much where like my core nerdum lines,
and then outside of it is anime, and you know,

(05:41):
I never it was that was. I was that kid
in high school when everyone was hyped off a Harry
Potter was like, oh, you guys like Harry Potter. Sorry,
I'm too busy watching that though. Every weekend time to
read some silly book I'm learning. Well, actually, I like
it was so funny because it was very weird um

(06:02):
bully thing in my school because it wasn't they no
one targeted me. It was I just hung out with
the weird kids and so like that group was bullied.
But like I would always pop around because like I'd
hang out with the black kids and go and rose
sessions and I would I would decimate these guys. So
that's the only thing that kept my nerd crap because
I remember, um, zip zapps were thing, and if you

(06:24):
don't know what zip zapps were, they were radio shacks
sold these tiny RC cars that would charge on the
remote and then you can you can customize and make
them faster. And I was like racing them, and all
these like black kids were like, what are you doing?
You you're racing cars like and I was like, yeah, man,
it's fun. Y'all should try it. Sometimes my my introduction,

(06:47):
I would say, well, I don't know exactly where I started,
but I was definitely a tomboy um growing up with
with brothers and my older brother got an N sixty
four and I thought that was the coolest thing ever.
Of course, my parents got me a Barbie dollhouse that
I didn't want to play with. But um, you know
things have changed now, things have changed. But I would

(07:09):
steal oh, I do remember that Barbie. I would steal
my brother's Batman because he was jacked. I think it
was like the George Clooney Batman too. I would steal
his rubber Batman and he would replace Ken and also
his g I Joe would disappear at times as well.
I was exploring, um, but yeah, his n sixty four.
I loved it. I love Super Mario sixty four. I

(07:29):
love Tour Rock, Um, Dinosaur Hunter, Diddy Kong Racing. I
mean I still own that. I still think that Mario
Kart is supreme and your boy got the switch and
the Mario Kart. Whoever wants to see me hit your
boy up for that friend code. But yeah, no, it
is funny, this like weird line of the flip of
how fun because I remember when around that same time,

(07:50):
the same dudes who were trying to roast me for
zip z apps. I would play Yugio in the in
the cafeteria every morning. And then one of the guys
his name was Drew I'll never forget him because he
also he had like long hair that would be in
a ponytail. Total ladies man. But he and that's when
I was like this nerds stuff, ain't that dorg because
he would come and play and get served up. And

(08:11):
then one time were in the road session and he
looks to me, He's like this dude over here, he
plays moonlighted. Moonlighted. You know, for those who didn't see
which you need to go go go woke yourself and
go see moonlight. But you know, after um, after oh man,
but after Black's first romantic experience, the person who experienced

(08:36):
it with him turned his back on him, and and
and and and punched him because he wanted to fit
in and he so that is like the most accurate
term for that. I was moonlighted. Uh, But I was like,
I was like, dude, you play it too. He was like, uh,
but yeah, no it was. But now it's like very synonymous,

(08:56):
especially within the black community. Like a lot of the
black Twitter tames use like dragon ball z and anime
and even some of these like Instagram x Vine Star
dudes are using anime as jokes and it just goes
to show you that it's always been there in the community. Finally,
I feel like everyone's connected. Dots who It's like, oh yeah,

(09:18):
this is cool too, dude. Dragon ball z is huge
in the Latino community. Aside from the fact that DBZ
had like one of the best, the Spanish dub of
DBZ is is still considered one of the best dubs ever.
I recommended to especially if you try to pick up
Spanish like go and watch it. I used to watch
it on Telemundo because they would get one. It was uncensored,

(09:38):
which my parents didn't find out. That's another thing about
anime is the uh they don't realize, like your parents
think you're just watching a cartoon. It's like, no animal
is kind of anime? Is adult? A lot of it? Um,
But yeah, I remember did you used to rush home
every afternoon like to watch Tunami. I feel like that
my life. Tonami was my life in an adult. Swim

(10:00):
had their anime run and that's when I had That's
when I had my VHS tape and I recorded the
whole season of which Hunter Robin on it. I don't
know where that VHS tape is. I lost it felt
real bad about it. Someone's going to find it and
like some I don't know, is there any video stores
that are still love Yeah, you know, especially in Austin

(10:21):
in Portland, you know, they're trying to keep that thing
that like yeah retro um. But yeah, I feel like
a lot of our experiences kind of overlap, and so
with Nerdificent, what we wanted to do is kind of
this like deep dive into the history of a lot
of these things, like the history of VR or the
history of causeplay. Where it's going because people can now

(10:43):
do it professionally, Like we have friends that that is
their full time job is being a cause player, and
then our personal experiences being nerds and now being hosts. Yeah.
Also it's very cool to make it easy for people
to dive into certain things are learning. I'd love for
someone who's curious about costplay to uh, hop on, listen

(11:05):
here still let you talk about it, give and lay
it down and you're like, oh, that is that is easy.
Let me try that all. Because when I when I
was in college for a short bit before I left,
I wanted to get back into comics and I remember
walking to a comic book shop and being like, so
where should I start to the comic book guy, he's like,
you know, just grab anything, and it's like that, yeah,

(11:27):
that doesn't which, by the way, bad customer service. You
could have made me buy a hundred comics to like
get filled in on the history of stuff. So that
was just a missed opportunity. But that's that's how some
people approached and nerd um. They think there's just so much,
especially if you look at a lot of stuff that
has like like animals that have like three different rereleases,

(11:48):
three different versions. You look at comic books, you never
know where to start. Here's a pro tip. Wait, look
for ask for the last crossover event, and start there.
That's the easiest way to start reading a comic book, uh,
because usually the crossover event. Almost recently last time I
was reading it, I've stepped away from capes a bit.

(12:08):
But most most times, crossover events kind of reset the
universe and you can kind of start from there and
you know, the last big thing that happened that's probably
going to be referenced throughout issues. And I feel like
as far as people getting into anime, a lot of
the times I'll recommend movies, you know, we'll recommend that
to our friends because and people like you know, they
have to start from the first episode ever, and it's like, no,

(12:29):
these are my adult friends who like barely have time listen,
they're watching every single thing on Netflix. And for me
to be like, hey, try out this anime that has
like two episodes, uh, Instead, I can just be like,
watch this movie of it. See if you like it,
you know, if you're into it, if you're into the
theme and tone of it, and and then we'll go
from there. Yeah. Or you can watch Tang and Top
and Gore and Lyon, which is one of the best

(12:50):
animals and it's only about I think about forty episodes total,
so you can find a lot of short run animals too.
And also, if you are one of those people who
don't have time or the money to collect multiple comics,
get trade paperbacks, which are a collection of comic books.
And don't tell my local comic shop I told you this,
but they're very cheap on Amazon selling them out, and look,

(13:11):
I'm trying to get them the deals, trying to get
them the deals. But there's nothing that, nothing, ever will
beat the experience of walking into your local comic book shop,
picking out a comic, chatting with somebody maybe buying some
Funko pops or I think we're thinking of the same place, yea,
all of them. Yeah, but yes, but you know, we

(13:36):
wanted to give you a few fun facts that we
dip into throughout the episodes, like, uh, for example, Danny
had a real cool one about cosplay being coined. Oh yeah,
so the term cause play was actually coined by Nobu
Yuki Takahashi of the Japanese studio Studio Hard while he
was attending the Los Angeles Science Fiction World Con. He

(13:58):
was impressed by the hall in the costume fans and
reported on both in Japanese science fiction magazines. Did you
know that, I bet I almost feel Yeah, And cosplay
is literally literally just the terms costume and play a
lot of people, I think, like if you were explaining
it to your mom or aunt or dad or uncle,

(14:20):
I wanted to make sure included everyone in there. Um
they would be like, I don't get It's just like
dressing up. It's just like Halloween. But cosplay isn't just
dress up. Aside from the fact that a lot of
these that all of these cause players are are normally
making the suits themselves. It takes them hours. They have learned.
We did interview Stella Stella Chew and she has you know,

(14:42):
she she had to essentially teach herself how to work
with these crafts, how to work with these materials. Um.
But they also kind of they embody this character. It's
not just putting on a costume. It's the mannerisms and
trying to be as as realistic and to the source
as Paul possible. So there's an entire world. Um. And

(15:02):
we also talk about, you know, what is acceptable at cons.
There are kids at cons, and yet we're also you know,
IFFI and I are are very pro sex. Were pro
you know when I mean, I feel that's okay to
say pro secs want you to have all the same
love sex everyone. We want all our nerd friends to
be having as much sex as possible, whether it's with yourself,
with a robot, with a friend. Um. But no, we're

(15:25):
very I feel we're very pro pro women pro secs
and we don't want to shame women ever. But we
did have a conversation about, okay, but if there's little
kids here, what should be allowed because some of these
cause play outfits aren't aren't they're not? Also, you said,
con which if you don't know is short for convention,

(15:46):
and what's a convention? It's a comic book convention. But
did you know the first ever recorded, quote unquote official
comic book convention took place in nineteen sixty four in
New York City and it was known as the New
York Comic Con. It was held at July sixty four
at the Workmen's Circle Building. Fun fact. Yeah, and it
was actually done by a sixteen year old Bernie bub Nous,

(16:09):
Bernie bub Nous and ron fradkin Um and they actually
had a hundred attendees, So they did. They did the
first recorded official comic book convention. But the one that
we know that's the most popular that when most people
say comic con, they're referring to San Diego Comic Con
and that got started in the nineteen seventies and actually
has a really interesting They may have lied to get

(16:30):
some of the speakers there. I think they said that
it was a nonprofit and we cover that in that
episode of how they had to run with that for
a little bit. So, yeah, those are the type of
things we'll be talking about, as well as our our
experiences at comic con um our experiences with sex robots.
Why yeah, yeah, you might have more experience in that

(16:52):
than I did. You have not yet been blessed with
the opportunity. But also yeah, VR. So another another cool
fun thing that we covered as a Google cardboard, which
actually the New York Times just distributed one point six
million Google Cardboard VR. So if you don't know what
that is, it's a mobile headset essentially that you would

(17:14):
put your phone into and it would act as a
VR headset. So they distributed one point six million of
those to their readers, making it the most widely distributed
VR platform to date. It only costs ten dollars as
opposed to an actual VR system which is about five Yeah,
I'm meant to say five hondo and hundred at the

(17:35):
same time, so I said, and I just wanted people
to when they're like, what did if he just say so? Yeah.
So so we'll cover that as far as like the
future of it, like what's the future of VR? We
know that they're using it in UM medical school to
help with medical students. It's also used as therapy for
calming UM. It's used there's a documentary that came out

(17:57):
where they use it. So you could have a three
hundred and sixty degree view of a war zone. Um
so so yeah, so we're gonna be covering a lot
of as well as porn. Of course you're like, yeah,
what are you going to say that I wasn't, But yeah,
as well as porn and how it's changing the porn industry.
So we will be talking about, you know, the future

(18:17):
of a lot of this technology and a lot of
these nerd topics. Yeah, but what do you think about
the future of nerdificent what do you think? What do
you think coming for us? I see a lot of listeners.
I see a lot of guests, cool guests, Yeah, cool guests,
live shows, south by live shows, open conversations, open debatable

(18:38):
conversations about things that might be taboo in the nerd
world that a lot of people are afraid to talk about.
Wide open. Yeah, that's that's what I see for us,
and and just fun and you know, we're we're learning
as well, so we're not trying to the one issue
that I had, especially being a woman in the nerd world,
as I feel there's a lot of gate keeping and

(18:59):
that's why we want to make the podcast for everyone.
So if you're new, that's great. If you already know
about this stuff, but you want to learn the future
of it and our experiences that you probably relate to
as well. You know, we're excited for you to be
listening because I just I just there's too much hate
in the world. I can't handle any more gate keeping. Yeah,
So here's the thing. If those three cool facts we

(19:20):
laid out for you, you didn't know and that was exciting,
you should definitely listen. If you didn't know, but our
point of view really sparked your inches, you should listen.
If you knew everything and you knew our point of view,
you're lying, you don't know. Get out of here, Get
out of here. So our first episode officially drops April three.
Make sure you catch that, and hopefully you're already subscribing.
And if while you're here, why don't you give us

(19:41):
a five star review? Tell us how much you enjoy
the cast, and make sure you follow us on Twitter,
Instagram and on Facebook at nardificent and go to our
website nardificent dot com. Where can people find you? Danny,
I'm at Miss Danny Fernandez. It's m S. So you
don't know whether I'm married or not. I'm not. I'm divorced,
m S Danny d A n I Fernandez f E

(20:02):
r n A n d e zy because I couldn't
get Danny Fernandez. It's a magician or something. Well, and
I'm if you I f y n w A d
I w E on Twitter and Instagram, so make sure
you catch me those places. This has been nerdificent with
Danny and EFFI subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or

(20:23):
wherever you get your podcasts.