Ben Thompson Brings Badassery to BU Bookstore

The man with the nervous laugh stood at the head of the signing room, dressed in sand-colored cargo pants with a charcoal button-down shirt draped over his lanky frame. Just over a dozen fans lounged on the violet folded chairs set up for the book reading,  and as the PowerPoint presentation began, it was easy to forget exactly who this minor Internet celebrity is. But make no mistake; Ben Thompson is really an ultra-hardcore seriously-awesome badass.

Thompson is the creator of “Badass of the Week,” a website devoted to chronicling the skull-crushingly ridiculous exploits of the greatest badasses in pop culture, history, and legend. A Florida State University history and political science graduate, Thompson brought his face-cleavingly epic prose to the Boston University Barnes and Noble bookstore on Tuesday night for the first leg of a speaking tour for his latest book, “Badass: Birth of a Legend.”

Ben Thompson (right) and book illustrator Steve Belledin sign books at the BU Bookstore. | Photo by Paul Squire

Thompson read a excerpt from his book about the hammer-wiedling, giant-slaying Norse god/badass Thor, accompanied by what a fan called “one badass PowerPoint.” Badass it was; the slides matched Thompson’s over-the-top geek humor word for word. As he read, the slides flashed lolcats, Chuck Norris jokes and a picture of lobsters fighting with knives attached to their claws. Each signing was its own inside joke.

“May all your strikes be crits,” read a note to a devotee.

“Destroy all who oppose you,” said another.

“Badass of the Week” started as a special weekly series created during downtime at work for Thompson’s personal blog. Thompson, a self-professed “[Dungeons and Dragons], Magic card nerd” who created the series while working at the College of Arts and Sciences’ Classics Department, was inspired by the legends of ass-kicking heroes of the past.

“I took these stories at complete face value,” Thompson said.

The weekly series recounted the ass-kicking tales of the greatest heroes of all time. Thompson’s over-the-top comedy was a hit and “Badass” quickly grew into its own site.

“The next thing I knew, the tags for ‘badass of the week’ were getting four times the hits as the rest of the blog,” Thompson said. Today, “Badass of the Week” draws in over 2.5 million hits a month, with a variety of entries ranging from Darth Vader to the honey badger to the entire continent of Australia. He hasn’t missed a week yet.

“Humanity has been telling the same stories for 400 years,” Thompson said. “I mean, B.A. Baracus is our Hercules.”

One of Thompson’s most popular articles was a recent post about Hideaki Akaiwa, a Japanese man who couldn’t find his wife after the devastating tsunami of March 11 leveled his town. Instead of fetching help, Akaiwa put on scuba gear and dove into the waves to find his wife. He would eventually save his wife and mother, and still dove into the wreckage to save more victims.

For Thompson, there are no shortage of badasses to choose from for his second book in the “Badass” series.

“It was more trying to find a good mix,” Thompson said. “There is a [badass] threshold, but so many people pass it.”

With talks for a third book heating up, it looks like there is no stopping Thompson’s reign of mind-blowing badassitude. Thompson plans to write screenplays and would like to pilot a TV series based on his website. Until then, Thompson will be posting a new tales of awesomeness to his website every week. When he’s not wrestling bears to the death, slaying ninja pirates with his bare hands, or destroying orcs with his mind, that is.

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