Thanksgiving Come Early: May the Force Be With Katie
icon by katie_can_draw
Yesterday evening, in the midst of trying to grade students' prospecti and lesson plan and write my own paper proposal, I came across this story about Katie and her Star Wars water bottle. Of course I wrote a comment of encouragement for Katie here; I think I was the nine-hundred-somethingeth comment, and this morning there were over two thousand. I defy you, even now, to go to Twitter and put in #MayTheForceBeWithKatie and not get a huge grin on your face. As the night wore on and I watched this happen, I wrote an entry about what this story and the response to it means to me, but I forced myself not to post it until I was done with all the stuff I had due today. Here it is now:
I don’t know how to describe how elated I am right now, and I can’t blame it all on sleeplessness, caffeine intake, stress, and the approaching break. I am practically giddy because Star Wars, its fandom, and the internet are reaching out to one little girl who got picked on at school for being herself.
Katie’s story is a simple story, even though it says a lot about our society’s conceptions of gender roles and bullying. That’s part of what makes what is happening now so awesome. We’ve all lived Katie’s story, all of us geek girls and boys, nerdfighters for life. We’ve all gotten bullied for who we are, who we can’t help being, and it’s hurt. There have been incidents for each of us that we won’t ever forget. We are Katie. This story hits us where we live because we all know how Katie felt about those stupid boys and what they said about her water bottle.
When I was in second grade, the boy I liked turned to me and asked, “Why do you dress like that?” I’ve been subjected to endless rounds of, “Don’t you ever talk?” In sixth grade art class, I got, “What are you, some kind of geek?” I’ve been told to my face that I had no friends in elementary school and people talked about me behind my back because of my glasses and general awkwardness. I didn’t know how to respond to it then. It just hurt. I just wanted to be like everybody else. My mom tried to be supportive, but not being a geek herself (I’m the first in my family, apparently), she wasn’t sure how to respond or how to tell me to respond. I’ve been Katie. It’s shaped who I am today.
And I guess it’s because I see myself in Katie, albeit a much cooler version of myself, that nothing seems to matter more right now than the fact that this story has gone viral. That geek girls everywhere have dogpiled on this. That the Star Wars fandom has given Katie what amounts to a group hug. And, let’s be honest, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-my fandom was founded in line, we are legion and we are awesome. There has not been a single nook of Star Wars fandom which has let this thing go by. Scrolling through the comments page on the blog entries about this, I’ve run across names I recognize, people who are big in the fandom. And that’s not even counting the actual famous and influential people. Katie is going to wake up tomorrow to messages from Bonnie Burton, Katie Lucas, Catherine Taber, Ashley Eckstein, Tom Kane, and on and on… She’s going to get some awesome swag from Lucasfilm and Her Universe for sure. Every time I hear about another great response, every time I see a new confirmation of something that is being done for Katie, I squee with delight. Real, honest, genuine delight for this girl. And I love that she’s always going to have this. I love that whenever she feels lonely or picked on, she’s going to have a scrapbook of comments from people telling her she is not alone. I love that she is always going to look at Star Wars fans as the people who gave her this amazing support system.
I love that Katie is a hero. Just for being herself. I mean, isn’t that every seven-year-old girl’s dream? To be told by thousands of people that there’s something special about you, that you’ve been special all along just because you’re you? That is the most amazing gift.
And in a way, it’s a late-coming gift to all of us. That support system we wish we’d had during those tough times, we’re seeing it come together now. We know it’s right there. We know we’re part of it. That’s Katie’s gift back to us.
This is the same feeling I got when people planted thousands of trees for Hank Green’s 30th birthday. Maybe even better. Isn’t it wonderful to think that this little girl is being rewarded for her strength, and in the process is giving strength to other people, other young girls like her? This is what the internet is for. This is the best of what it can do. This is why I love that things like the 501st and the Harry Potter Alliance exist, and I happily support the things they do, and I will never make fun of them for doing it in the name of fandom. When geeks and nerds are able to connect, we make the world better, a little bit at a time. I would never, ever want to be anything else.
Thank you, thank you everyone and everything for this. In a world where young adults come to my office saying things like, “We were wondering if you could raise our grade because these mistakes would have been really easy to fix,” thank you for reminding me that there is still cause for hope and gratitude and wonder and faith.