Okay, so there's been a lot of talk around the net recently about "fake" geek girls. The closest I can find for an inciting incident is this Facebook post from comics artist Tony Harris complaining about cosplayers. These rather disgusting comments have prompted much discussion here on the nerdy side of the internet ranging from the sarcastic to the academic. Now I consider myself an observer of our culture, so I'm going to offer my own thoughts on this whole idea of the "fake" geek girls.
Buckle in folks, this is going to be a long one...
First of all I'm not qualified to comment on the gender side of this whole thing. I'm a guy, it's outside my expertise to comment on women's experience. But I still have an opinion to share.
So let's start with the basic idea of "fake" geek girls. The idea is basically moderately attractive women who feign interest in nerdy activities or properties to gain the attention of "actual" nerdy guys. THIS. IS. PREPOSTEROUS. I'm not denying that there are women who will lie like this to attract male attention. But the thing is, those kinds of women aren't going after nerds. They'll go after popular wealthy good-looking guys. And on the whole, that's not us. It's hard for us nerds to keep in mind, spending so much time seeped in our subcultures, but even though our cultural clout has risen in recent years to the public at large we're still these guys...
Seriously. We don't attract massive female interest. Even the most attention-starved or gold-digging member of the female gender is not to going to dress up like Emma Frost, go to a comic convention and fake an interest in Battlestar Galactica to get male attention. They'll go to a country club, put on a tight polo and fake an interest in global finance. Which brings me back to what sparked this whole conversation, cosplayers.
Cosplayers are nerds, generally. Dressing up in an elaborate costume and going to a convention is basically one of the nerdiest things a person can do. Go ask your parents, or your non-nerd friends. They'll agree with me here. Now, I'm not a cosplayer myself but if from what I've heard, most cosplayers do choose their costumes because they have a love or appreciation for the character. Or at least for the design of the character's costume. If there is some kind of arbitrary test of nerdiness (which there shouldn't be) I think all the time and energy these people put into their costumes passes it.
And even if they don't know the character they're cosplaying, or haven't read their appearances, so what? Clearly something about the character or the costume appealed to them. Isn't that enough? And even though I'm not a cosplayer, I can see the appeal. It's not about attracting attention from the opposite sex. It's a bigger version of dress-up. You get to put on a fun costume and go show off. You get to make fun lip synch music videos. You get to have fun. Although if any cosplayers want to correct me, feel free.
But okay, let's put this aside. Let's say "fake" nerd girls are actually a thing. May I ask, where exactly does the threat come from? Where is the threat in girls pretending to like nerdy stuff? How does that affect us at all? Yeah, it's mildly annoying to hear someone who has no idea what they're talking about talking about something you're very passionate about. But that's not exclusive to nerdery. Go to any art museum and you'll hear pretentious posers talking out their ass about art. Is about defending our geeky sacred cows from what we see as defilement? Guys, we aren't defenders of some holy scripture keeping the filthy heathens out. These are movies, comics, and video games we're talking about. You don't need to act like an evangelical every time someone makes a mistake about stuff we love. So where is the threat?
Really, I'm just coming to simple point here. Leave nerdy girls alone. Don't feel the need to judge their nerdiness just because they're women. You wouldn't do that to a guy. Don't get angry and judgemental when you see nerd girls, be happy. That means our community is widening, more people are getting into it. And that's a good thing. It means new perspectives, new insights into material we love. Basically, don't be an asshole to women. It just makes you look like a tool.
No comments:
Post a Comment