Life with an unusual hip

Imagine that you are in the hospital in a quarter body cast. You just got out of surgery on your hip due to a bone disease that will make it difficult to move around. What do you do to pass time? It becomes difficult to move around even after you are out of the cast. Eddie Wilson ’19 was diagnosed with Perthes disease, a bone disease that affects the hip, and he will have to get a hip replacement when he is around 30. When his father, Ted Wilson, was asked if he ever felt like Wilson’s bone disease limited his abilities to do certain things he said, “Yes, to some extent, he’s not going to be a star football player.” In this situation, most might watch TV or play video games. For Wilson, he makes Vocaloid songs and collects Super Nintendo games.

Due to Wilson’s hip, he turns to playing video games instead of doing things like playing sports like other teens. He was introduced to the N64 by his parents and the SNES by AVGN (angry video game nerd) and has been obsessed with it ever since.

When he is not playing his SNES, he is making Vocaloid songs, which is a software that enables the user to “sing” by typing in lyrics and melody. He said at one point, one of his songs had over 1,000 views. It can take him weeks or months to make one song. “Making the MIDI chart can take about one to two days if I don’t stop and just don’t do anything else, and that’s basically the notes of the song.”

Wilson says that making Vocaloid songs is interesting because it allows for non-singers to create music. “Even if you don’t have a good voice or are not a good singer you can still make songs,” Wilson said.

His other hobby is collecting Super Nintendo games. He hopes to get Earthbound or Chrono Trigger, but those cost money. In order to get money, he got a job. He was inspired to collect SNES games by watching people like The Angry Video Game Nerd and does it to preserve physical media. He says it’s important to preserve these things because you may never be able to see them again.

Wilson’s opinion on newer Nintendo consoles is positive. He believes that systems like the Xbox and PlayStation will fall out and become obsolete, but Nintendo will stay because of the little bubble it’s in.

All of these things are what Wilson is interested in and spends his free time doing. Although Wilson’s hip makes it so he can’t-do many things he said that “It’s more of my friends that influence the way I act than my hip.”