Comic-Con: 'Geek Mecca'

San Diego Comic-Con is the beloved (or at least formerly beloved) annual meet-up for comic book nerds and fanboys of all stripes. The forty-year-running festival is fun, and San Diego is a nice place to spend a weekend. It's a four-day get together for people who want to buy stuff, people who want to sell stuff, and people who want to wear Chewbacca masks.

It's also a fantastic opportunity, apparently, for media members to haul out religious comparisons to poke gentle fun of the geek attendees. "Every year," writes Kevin Kelly of G4, "people prepare for the summer pilgrimage to San Diego so they can revel in their inner nerddom with tons of fellow fans. There's nothing," he explains, "like finding someone who understands exactly why you geek out on Tom Baker, and eschew every other actor to play the Doctor." He calls the festival "a mecca for the world of geeks, dorks, nerds, fanboys, fangirls, and people who just love dressing up in costumes." CNN.com's Henry Hanks went with "the holy four-day weekend for geek culture." Film Journal's Ethan Alter was satisfied with "geek mecca." Esquire.com, though, ditched the cliche  and simply described it as an "annual hoarding of nerds."