(WTVR) – Actor Wil Wheaton was asked a direct and personal question during an appearance at Denver Comic Con last June.
“When you were a kid, were you called a nerd and how did you deal with it?” a child asked Wheaton.
Wheaton’s powerful response was recorded and is now trending as a viral video.
“When I was a little boy I was called a nerd all the time because I did not like sports, I loved to read, I liked math and science and I thought school was really cool and it hurt, a lot,” Wheaton said. “It’s never okay when a person makes fun of you for something you did not choose.”
Wheaton told the girl she should not apologize for liking certain things.
“Don’t let a person make you feel bad because you love something they decided was only for nerds,” he advised.
He said when someone is hurtful, it is usually due to an issue that person has going on in their lives and you should pity them.
“It has nothing to do with you. It’s about them feeling bad about themselves. They feel sad. They don’t get positive attention from their parents. They don’t feel as smart as you,” he told the girl. “Maybe one of their parents is really pushing them to be a cheerleader or a baseball player or an engineer or something that they just don’t want to do. So they take that out on you because they can’t go out and be mean to the person who’s actually hurting them.”
Wheaton ended his answer with a bright outlook for the future.
“It absolutely gets better as you get older,” he said as the crowd applauded his response.
