Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir

What is This Book About? This is an annotated memoir of Wil Wheaton’s original memoir, printed in 2004, titled Just a Geek. Wheaton takes the reader on a journey, starting in the early 2000s. He then describes his old career as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek The Next Generation, his acting career outside of Star Trek in the 90s and early 2000s, and his writing career that started with his now popular blog. The reader will get insights into what it’s like being a struggling actor in Hollywood, what it’s like to be a Comicon celebrity, and what it was like to be raised by exploitative parents. The original memoir, Just a Geek, originally used Wil Wheaton’s blog posts as a base for the memoir, giving footnotes when necessary. In this show more newer annotated version, Wil Wheaton comments heavily on some of his amateurish, ignorant, and just plain silly blog posts he wrote in the early 2000s.

My Review: So, I’ve seen Wil Wheaton perform on big hit shows like Star Trek The Next Generation and The Big Bang Theory, but he always seemed to be in the role of the the “supporting character.” Obviously, his memoir is going to cast Wil Wheaton as the lead, but I never realized how truly funny he could be, or just how riveting he is as a storyteller. To be clear, I “read” the audio version of this book, so I got to listen to Wil Wheaton perform a great deal of his life’s story. The majority of his memoir was centered around his life post-Trek. That is, when Wheaton was struggling to make ends meet as a “has-been” actor, not that he is a "has-been." Sure, his very first acting gig was with an Oscar-nominated movie, Stand by Me, and his TV role was with the second, and groundbreaking, iteration of Star Trek, but afterwards, his career seemed to hit a wall. He would audition for movies with a variety of production companies, both big and small, but it was a rare thing for the former child star to land any sort of acting role, despite having a wife and stepchildren to support.

I enjoyed the insider look at Hollywood and how non-celebrity actors have to fight tooth and nail for a chance to land a movie role. I also found a great deal of his personal life stories interesting; a majority of them were actually at the end, outside of the original Just a Geek volume. What I do wish the book touched on a bit more was his abusive relationship with Wheaton’s father. There was generally some mention throughout the book, but it was a little difficult to grasp the gravity of the situation until he started to talk about filming The Curse. Even then, The Curse mentioned his mother more than the father, who didn't seem to be around during filming. But maybe the situation is just too painful to write about or publicize, and I respect that.

By the way, to watch The Curse is to watch two children get abused in real life. The horror movie might be a work of fiction, but the Wheaton children were literally tortured physically and psychologically for the production.

Despite some of the horrifying revelations depicted late in this memoir, the book was, in general, a feast of hilarity and emotions, wrapped around the older footnotes of a mature, albeit witty Wil Wheaton. I definitely recommend reading this book if you are a fan of Star Trek, The Big Bang Theory, gaming, computers, acting careers, or really anything geeky. This book is for you!

Three Words that Describe this Book: hilarious, heart warming, fascinating

Give This A Try if You Like… You’re Never Weird on the Internet, The Big Bang Theory (tv series), Star Trek The Next Generation

Rating: 5/5 show less

I don't enjoy memoirs generally, so why the hell so I keep picking them up?

Well, this is an interesting concept, annotating one's published memoir. Brave enough to tell the world embarrassing incidents from your life, but I am particularly impressed by the courage it takes to stand up in front of the world and say you were wrong. Or sexist, or whatever. Because if we're good people we are trying to learn and improve and at least make different errors.

But to point out this thing you wrote 20 years ago that makes you cringe now, to acknowledge the cringing you experience, damn, that'shardcore. Where I, to take an example at random, read my former writing on anything other than books and then shred it, burn the shreds, and wash my eyes show more with bleach at the horror of it all, Wheaton instead offers complete apologies to the world at large. Not those fake "I'm sorry if you were offended" apologies that refuse to acknowledge the insult, let alone offer any sort of recompense or improvement plan; these are full-on
and extensive examinations of fault and harm and humble plans. Good on you, Wheaton! You come across as a truly decent person.

I still don't like memoirs, though.

Library copy show less

All I can say is that it was an absolute privilege to read this book; to be given a glimpse inside Wil's head. This is an annotated and expanded edition of his original book (*Just a Geek*), and it is so refreshing to see someone, celebrity or otherwise, take ownership of the horrible things they said or wrote, to apologize for them, and to strive to be better. Finally, I believe this book is a triumph in the goal to destigmatize mental illness (and he says it *is* an illness, because illnesses are not our fault) and promote ways to lead your best possible life, despite battling these inner demons every day. (He also adds trigger warnings where appropriate.) He doesn't sugar coat it. It's real and it hurts and parts of it were tough to show more read because I wanted to reach through the pages and tell him it was going to be okay. But it was *honest* and *real*.

Despite not knowing him personally, having read this book, I am so proud of the man he's become. He's been through so much - he *continues* to battle his brain every day - and yet he says he's happy and living the life he wants. I really hope that whoever ends up reading this finds it as inspiring as I did. show less

The concept behind it alone is intriguing–not writing a second memoir, but going back to something written eighteen years ago–after three different presidents, upheavals in the cultural zeitgeist, advancements in LGBTQ rights, regressions in women’s rights, Twitter. After nearly two decades, going back to the first thing you published (autobiographical no less) and giving notes is unique.

Just the fact that it’s an examination of old words gives a chance to see how one’s mentality changes with a little maturity and shift in perspective. What I’m saying is don’t just dismiss this as a capitalistic opportunity to re-release an already written work without much overhead. In the introduction, Wheaton says that he wrote this to show more demo how he’s grown and changed as a person and a writer.

The problem is that he makes all new flubs.

The footnotes come in three categories: “My parents were assholes”, “I’m sorry for making a sexist/ableist/racist joke here”, and riffs on the material. They tend to go on too long, making a six-hour book into a ten-hour book. He has no compunction about pointing out the mistakes he’s made in the past. But at a certain point, it starts to get grating, uber-liberalistic, apologistic, and so “woke culture” that it makes even a progressive like me wince. Another thing, he keeps saying his parents were abusive and gaslighted him in his youth, but never gives evidence as to what they did. It’s like an essay with no evidence in the middle. I’m sure he’s telling the truth, but he just tells us, doesn’t show us.

Like I said, it’s not like “Oh, this book was the greatest, I’m just going to re-release it with extra material”. It’s more like “look what I’ve learned about writing now”. But I’d rather see that in a new book, not a revised and expanded memoir. Nonetheless, it’s no small task revisiting old work and seeing how cringe it is. show less

I really appreciate getting Wil's insights into himself from 20 years ago, sometimes it felt a little like seeing into his therapy sessions, but for anything that you relate to, it's really cool* to see how he dealt with it before healing, and how he deals with things now, after doing the work.
A little bit seems like patting himself on the back, but you know, it's really hard to recognize your own trauma, and the bad coping mechanisms you had, and then changing them!

On another note, as a Star Trek fan, and media production nerd, I really enjoyed all the stories about the cast, production teams, and other behind-the-scenes stuff.

I'm glad I didn't read his original memoir, I think I might have judged some of his views at that point and show more not necessarily recognized the hurt he hadn't healed yet.

*cool is appropriate, though apparently there were a lot of discussions with the editors about over usage of "cool." show less

Back in 2004, Wil Wheaton published an edited collection of some of his blog posts with additional linking material to turn it into a coherent narrative under the title Just a Geek. Last year, Just a Geek was republished with extra blog posts, but more importantly, footnotes. These footnotes clarify some stuff from the original book, apologize for bad writing or insensitive jokes, and expand on stuff he didn't say back then, about how his father emotionally abused him and how his mother deprived him of a childhood in her drive to turn him into a child star. I found it a bit of a mixed bag: the "comedy" footnotes were generally not funny and soon got wearying, the ones apologizing for misogynist early 2000s Internet discourse were show more necessary at first but not at the one hundredth iteration.

I found myself wishing that the material about his parents had been worked in as extra essays, not footnotes; what's frustrating is that the most important one (about the abuse he and his sister went through on the set of the film The Curse) doesn't appear until very late in the book, but it provides important context for a lot of what you've been reading. Aside from this, the best material in the book was generally the original contents of Just a Geek: I liked the discussion of his cameo in Star Trek Nemesis a lot, as well as his interactions with his TNG castmates, which were very sweet. There's a good "found family" vibe to it. show less

This is a fascinating look at an interesting person, and I really appreciate the fact that Wheaton has grown and addresses that growth in the annotations. However, it's a lot to take in all at once. I need to pause for a bit.

Also, while I do honestly appreciate the growth, I think Wheaton didn't need to apologize quite as much as he did for some of the things he said before that he realizes are wrong now. I'm not saying don't apologize! But, as an example, after the first long-ish apology for objectifying women, the next time that happens the apology doesn't need to be as long. An "I did this again and I'm still sorry" would have been fine. (Part of the reason I need to pause this audiobook is because of how long it is. Trimming some of show more the apologies would have made it a more manageable length.) show less