Welcome to the Chaos

You have stumbled upon the new blog (i.e. random babblings) of a quirky single mom. A shoot-from-the-hip, anti-pink (yet almost gaggingly perky), non-traditional, can cuss like a sailor but loves insanely and has the save the world syndrome gal who is bracing for a future as a Crazy Cat Lady though she secretly hopes like hell it doesn't come true. Enjoy your stay and feel free to say hi- I don't bite. Well, unless we're dating and you are into that type of thing or you contain peanut butter. >;-)

About Me

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Quirky single mom of two monkeys. I used to beat up the kids that picked on the "special students" during recess. Now I work with those with chronic mental illness. I speak quite a few languages, enjoy coed naked underwater basket weaving, have an addiction to Sushi and humor is my defense mechanism. Arrogant people make my right eye twitch. I'm ambidextrously brained, I will knit for tattoos, I am the friend that everyone comes to for advice and bail money. I pride myself on keeping my eyes, ears, heart and mind open. Making me laugh goes a long way with me, I think the brain is the sexiest organ and I'm the kinda gal you can take anywhere and I'll have a good time. Other than that, I'm just me.

Followers

Damn the Man! Save the Empire!

For this last week and a half or so I have been pretty sick. After finally getting antibiotics for it, I ended up breaking out in hives from head to toe from them. My hives had hives. Soooo not attractive. Soooo not comfortable. I had hit the brick wall of burnt out.

Until last night.

I’m still wiped and still dealing with health issues, but it’s time to pick up the #truthbat again. This time, surprisingly, for the cafe. For everyone that believes in it.

You see, I have a weekly conference call every Tuesday night for the UberDork Cafe. I look forward to them for many reasons. What I learned last night floored me. Saddened me. When the shock of it all wore off, it downright pissed me off.

I’ve always proudly embraced the titles geek, nerd, dork. One of the many amazing lessons that I have learned on this incredible journey of UberDork Cafe is that us gnorks still tend to hide who we are. Stay in our lil corners of the online world and don’t tend to venture beyond that. Part of the whole goal of the cafe has been to give us a place to go to. To branch out from those corners. To give our future gnorks a place to go to meet others and to actually be able to comfortably be themselves in a place within the community, the real life community. To teach them and us that we don’t need to hide who we are. There is no shame in being geeks, nerds, dorks.

Last night I realized I might be wrong.

It might not be a fluke that there is nothing really like the UberDork Cafe out there. The fact that we tend to hide may not really be our fault. It seems others are more comfortable when we are contained to online. We may come out if we must, but we shall not refer to ourselves as dorks, or geeks or nerds. It makes others uncomfortable it seems.

Last night I was informed that major corporate sponsors of the first auction completely backed out. Why? Well, during initial contact the full name UberDork Cafe was used. From that point on it was shortened to UDC or “the cafe.” Then they got the press kit yesterday. These major corporations then stated that I would need to change the name of the cafe for them to follow through with sponsoring. Yup. They don’t like “dork.” And yeah, don’t try to replace it with nerd or geek either. Those simply won’t do as well. One of these major corporations makes a great deal of money off of us gnorks as well.

My response? (Ok, well the edited version, I won’t lie, there was A LOT of cussing on my behalf initially.)

Dear Giant Corporate People,

Shame on you. Shame on you for so very many reasons. For thinking you could just buy a name. For thinking you have that sort of power over people still. For thinking that us dorks, us nerds, us geeks are that weak that we would hide who we are, change who we are to suit your comfort. For being more than willing to take our money as long as we remain safely tucked away from view and deny who we are. For thinking that you somehow own us. For thinking that in this day and age discrimination is ok, as long as it has a price tag on it. For thinking that I am the type of person that is going to just roll over, change my entire character and teach my children that it is acceptable to allow a company, or even a person, to force you to change your name, your character, or who you are for them.

Allow me to enlighten you. Dork, nerd, geek… in your feeble minds may be words that show weakness or less than desirable characteristics. I hate to break this to you, but the term “corporate” invokes far worse feelings amongst a vastly wider population of people. People that span all age levels, races, income brackets, you name it. Do you know why that is? Because of things like this. Because you still live under the antiquated notion that bigger is always better. That money will buy you anything, anyone. I hate to break it to you, but it really doesn’t. In fact, it won’t even buy you one lil ole dork.

I’m not for sale. My children’s dream is not for sale. My friends, my family, the people that support this dream, that support the UberDork Cafe are not for sale.

And we certainly aren’t going anywhere. If anything, you’ve just made us a bit louder. A bit more present.

Thanks so much for reinforcing the need for the UberDork Cafe. Your shameful behavior has made my mission that much stronger.

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,
Natali
Proudly known as UberDork Girlie

5 comments:

Sarah said...

GAH!!!! So frustrating! It's like when my family laughs and tells me not to be mean when I refer to Simon and I as "geeks." IT IS NOT A DIRTY WORD!!! :(

Sewicked said...

I've been 'outing' myself as a geek and a nerd for years. Heck, I've even used the various flavors; gaming, word, history, clothes, thread; to identify myself. How sad that they don't realize that geeks are now loud & proud. Maybe they missed that whole series of "Revenge of the Nerds" movies.

UberDorkGirlie said...

Sari you are right! It's NOT a dirty word! And Sewicked thank you so much! I encourage everyone that reads this to leave a comment/message here for the lovely corporate sponsors that think we are for sale! :)

NakedHobo said...

This has my blood boiling. I want to bust some heads. I want to kick down doors and take names. I want to line some corporate buttheads up against the wall.

But, most of all, I want to say "Fuck you." Natali is bigger than that. The dork/nerd/geek community is bigger than that. And we all deserve better. UberDORKCafe will help us prove how much better we can be. Give 'em hell Nat!

Amy said...

Oh that is so frustrating. And it is unbelievably rude that it is the type of company which dorks like us spend money with.

I'm glad you gave 'em hell. We'll show them in the end (or now), but it still is unacceptable that they did this. :/

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