The Big Bang Theory Changed My Life
This is the most embarrassing story I've never told anyone, even my wife. I hope to change that by first posting it here and building up the courage to tell her and perhaps, eventually, everyone else.
In 2007–2008, I was a poor kid in a third-world country who hated school despite getting good grades and had attempted suicide twice. You know my living conditions were bad when I tell you that my first suicide attempt was when I was 6! I was always depressed. I hated my life, and I didn't even know what I wanted. I knew eventually I was going to take my life, and in the meantime, I spent all the spare time I had, and I had plenty, watching TV shows on an old, clunky laptop with the slowest internet you can imagine. One of those shows was The Big Bang Theory. This show had the most profound effect on me, unlike any other show.
I recently got diagnosed with autism, but I think I was always like that. I was always a little nerdy. I loved the handful of comic books, games, and novels I could find growing up, and for the first time ever, I saw what an adult nerd in the Western world could live like! This show gets a lot of criticism for mocking nerds, but for me at the time, this was a window into a world that looked exactly like heaven. "Imagine being a scientist, spending all your time researching, reading, writing, going to conferences, and then, in your spare time, going to movies, going to a comic book store, and spending time with your like-minded friends!" I said to myself. I rewatched that show more times than I can count.
It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Somewhere, I must have told myself, "I want to be like them," so I started studying hard, and reading, and reading. I read everything and anything. Part of me wanted to be seen like the characters from the show, and the other part wanted to live their lives. I didn't have a glamorous goal. I just wanted to be like them. Be seen like them.
And it worked! Well, I didn't start working at Caltech (yet?), and nobody thinks I'm a world-class genius, but when I became an adult, I got a scholarship and moved abroad. Eventually, I became a scientist and a researcher. Now, my life doesn't look so different from the lives of the characters from the show, whom I so idealized 20 years ago. I work at a respected university. I spend all my working hours reading, writing, experimenting, and "doing science," and I spend all the rest on my nerdy hobbies, many of which became prevalent because of the show! I even have my own group of lovable nerdy friends with whom I play TTRPGs (I'm the GM), board games, go to restaurants, etc. And I have a scientist wife who, unlike the women in the show, is also very nerdy in terms of hobbies.
It's hard to measure precisely how much influence this show had on my life, but it definitely had an influence.