“Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost”
–J.R.R. Tolkien
It’s my opinion that the 2010s will go down as one of the most transformative decades in American history. Politics, culture, and society at every level all changed dramatically and fundamentally. One of the most glaring changes was the fall of the American Monoculture and the simultaneous rise of independent creators using the internet to eradicate the barriers between them and their audience.
Amazon’s KDP allowed independent authors to publish print-on-demand to a worldwide audience. Kickstarter allowed aspiring comic book creators to fund their books and cultivate a paying audience. And YouTube gave rise to an entire industry of video-based users, critics, vloggers, and hopefuls all looking to entertain or inform their viewers.
Enter Gary Buechler aka Nerdrotic. A high-school dropout turned federal prisoner turned comic shop owner turned YouTuber who turned pop culture conversations into a cultural channel that, as of this publication, has garnered 1.28 million subscribers on YouTube and 178k on Rumble. His channel hosts one of the largest weekly livestreams every Friday with Friday Night Tights with other cultural commentators like Geeks + Gamers, Az from Heelvsbabyface, Critical Drinker, and others.
But this success didn’t come overnight. And getting to that point was a road fraught with personal pitfalls and road bumps. Gary’s talked a lot about his life across his livestreams over the years, but recently put those stories and life experiences into a hybrid memoir titled (quite appropriately) Waiting for Nerdrotic: From Prison to YouTube.
I first found Gary Beuchler aka Nerdrotic sometime in late 2018 in a circumventive manner with my oldest son. Since my son was more interested in watching youtube than actual tv, I tried to find channels we could mutually watch. At the time, one such channel was Just A Robot, who happened to mention other channels he watched–one such channel being Nerdrotic. The name struck me as funny, so I found it, subscribed, and started listening to his videos and streams. Having been a long-time listener of talk radio, Gary had a voice that was easy to listen to and a great way of conversing about the exact kinds of pop culture I was interested in.
This was also the exact same time I was becoming disillusioned with pop culture that became more political and activist in nature–a fact Gary was much keener about spotting and pointing out. It made his channel a place where Gary would often espouse mirroring opinions and ideas. The mutual disdain of the direction of modern Hollywood being a top topic that often arose. Nerdrotic’s channel became a beacon for those of us discontent with Hollywood, the comic industry, and the flagrant verbal diarrhea of vapid celebrities. I even made it onto a couple of his videos and streams.
Naturally, when it was announced last year that his memoir would be published via Rippasend (the publishing arm of Rippaverse for other creator’s works), I was one of the first to pre-order. Normally I’m not one for non-fiction autobiographies, but I do make an exception depending on the person. Mick Foely and Chris Jericho both have phenomenal autobiographies and I recommend those.
Waiting for Nerdrotic: From Prison to Youtube is a tongue-in-cheek reference to what happens when Gary schedules a livestream and doesn’t start the stream away. Youtube flashes a notification “Waiting on Nerdrotic”, something he became a little well-known for amongst his regular viewers along with other lines like “I used to own a comic shop” and “As you know, I got kicked out of three high schools.” These stories in particular form many of the notable moments in his hybrid-memoir.
The cover of the book is 100% Gary–quite literally. The faux-comic book cover design gives it a good personal touch that helps the cover stand out and sets the tone for Gary’s love of the medium. But what follows in the book is far more than one man’s lifelong obsession with comic books and superheroes, but a harrowing tale–at times cautionary–of his many trials and travails dealing with personal addiction and where falling into those addictions would ultimately lead him.
Now, if you’ve ever seen Gary struggle to read his superchats, it should come as no surprise that the book was not written by him. Legacy Launch Pad Publishing did a fantastic job in turning Gary’s stories into a compelling rollercoaster story of his ups-and-downs. A lot of downs, as it turns out. Like a lot of Gen X, Gary had a problem with authority that landed him in a multitude of problems over the years, clashing with teachers, family, anyone who might take up a position in telling him what to do. Only Gary tells himself what to do, and that attitude is what led him at multiple times during his life to believe he was in control of things when he very much was not.
If you are someone who has struggled with addiction, this book is for you. So much of the text is dedicated to the process of addiction recovery, the truth of addiction’s harsh realities, and not glamorizing what it ultimately will bring people to. I myself have not had to face these kinds of personal demons. It was made clear to me as a kid that our family was almost genetically predisposed to getting easily addicted, so I never touched a drop of alcohol, cigarette, or joint in my life. I might have been one of the only kids to come out of the 80s who did actually Just Say No. Gary’s past bouts of battling addiction are laid out in detail across the book’s pages, a stark naked look at how those battles led to parts of his life spiraling out of control like Porkins on the Death Star and Gary’s denial during their heights prolonging the inevitable crash.
Reality checks Gary at several points: first in his arrest and imprisonment in Folsom Prison in California. Inside prison, he learned the foundations of fighting addiction that would help him stay sober longer once he got out. The determination and a new family with his current wife Melissa worked together to help keep him on the straight and narrow until he opened his comic shop in San Francisco, which ran well for a decade until multiple relapses led to it being sold off. (The second reality check)
This part of the book was especially hard to read because this was a point in his life where (by his own admission) Gary’s ego was feeding the self-delusion that his addiction habits were to keep him working hard to help keep his family fed. Any hard-working blue-collar man understands this sentiment and often tells themselves they would do anything to provide, though usually hard drugs aren’t part of the equation. Near the end of the book, it details what would be any man’s lowest of lows: being kicked out of the house by his wife and into a Sober House, told to stay there and either come back sober or don’t come back. (Third reality check)
From this point, thankfully, things have been a better turn for Gary as the book ends shortly after the creation and success of his YouTube channel.
I’ve worked around and been friends with people who have let their addictions rule their lives to such an extent that it’s often like watching a train derailment. You can’t do anything to stop it, and the cars keep crashing, but the train doesn’t stop. I’ve sadly seen enough people hit rock bottom and never fight to get back that it can seem like an insurmountable battle. Fortunately, Gary is someone who fought through his demons and came out the other side more victorious than most. As he would say, he is still an addict and still in recovery, because once you’re in recovery you’re always in it. I’m thankful he managed to survive enough downfalls that would have been the end of a lot of people.
The book often comes punctuated with a few pages of graphic novel-esque drawings to show where Gary was at certain points in life, adding to the comic book fan aesthetic the book has. Gary’s voice is easy to hear in the words put down on paper, thankfully not in a way that annoyed me like Shad Brook’s Shadow of the Conqueror (I liked that book, but couldn’t stop hearing Shad’s voice while reading). Much of the book’s events were ones I’d already heard Gary mention either in passing or in some detail in his livestreams over the years, so there isn’t much I wasn’t aware of, but for those who haven’t, it will be an amazing story of survival through hardcore addiction.
Waiting for Nerdrotic: From Prison to YouTube is a daring look into the life of a man who fought like hell to overcome the darkest places of his personal life to crawl back into a place of light. Because there are things in this world worth fighting for. As Theodin once declared:
Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
spear shall be shaken, shield shall be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now, ride! Ride for ruin and the world’s ending!
Forth Eorlingas!
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John A. Douglas is an independently published author and the author of the Age of Adventures fantasy series including its two starter books: The Black Crown and The Lionheart: Icon of Justice
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With his voice, I would love an audiobook version.
I like Gary, I hope the book does well for him.