While I would agree that the best general description for a couple of the people I’ve described is “jerk”, not everyone’s going to use that term. You think “fake geek” is nonsense, obviously the people who use it do not. It’s a far more othering “us vs them” term - jerk just means “you’re bad and you should feel bad”, fake geek means “you’re bad and I am not like you”. So the fact that people use it over jerk is not surprising in the least to me.
Also, like others have said there are geeks of every flavor and cosplayers can be considered a type of geek. There’s also a difference between making even a slightly salient point against a topic and a person taking photos of cosplayers and then writing captions talking about how idiotic they are for trying to dress up as stupid shows nobody cares about. The second example is practically a personal insult.
I think it might be another of those things where someone thinks “Oh, sexism is bad, so for something to count as sexism it has to be something really horrible.” That crops up all the time in racism discussions.
I disagree: the people using it think it’s nonsense, too.
Wait, no: you’re right, obviously they don’t. Why is this something worth saying, again?
Sure. But it’s an othering term that:
Isn’t solely used against jerkish people; and
Is almost entirely used against women.
You’ve seemed to defend it on grounds that ignore both points.
I totally agree that cosplayers are geeks. Someone who writes captions about how someone dresses up as stupid shows nobody cares about? Probably also a geek, if they recognize the shows. A terrible, terrible human being if that’s how they get their jollies, but geekish nonetheless. Note how I criticize them without making it about their geekishness, because their geekishness IS NOT THE POINT.
I think this is it. I believe that part of the ethos of being a geek is being somewhat ostracized for it. Then it becomes a sort of badge of authenticity–“I’m such a geek that I put up being bullied in high school for it”.
When women, especially attractive women, profess to be a geek I think some geeks can’t believe that they actually suffered for their geekiness and thus question their authenticity.
This is not remotely my ethos of geekitude. Sure, I got a bit of teasing in school for being geeky. Boo hoo! Compare my bad experiences for being geeky to the bad experiences faced by, oh, say, nearly every girl I knew in high school based on her gender, or every African American kid I knew based on race, or every poor kid based on class discrimination, or every gay kid–I mean, Jesus Christ, geeks, get a grip on yourselves. You’re not special snowflakes who uniquely experienced harassment.
Yeah! Just try being a dyspraxic black girl with dorky tendencies. It was hell, I tell you.
Somehow the majority of adults are able to move beyond adolescence. Or at least they try to. Viewing the world through the same pair of dirty spectacles you had in high school is a guaranteed way of crippling yourself throughout adulthood.
And why can’t they imagine that the attractive women didn’t suffer for their geekiness? Don’t they remember the cute girl who was in their Advanced English class and did Drama and wore a lot of black and was ostracized by the cheerleading set. Or the short girl from Calc who was “too smart” and “not athletic” and disliked by everyone for being a know it all. The art nerd?
Were they so full of their own sufferings in high school that they completely missed that it was more than a simple beauty contest - it was a political power game where - depending on your high school and clique - wealth, athletic ability and who you were willing to suck up to mattered more than attractiveness?
Something I find ironic about some (not all) geeks is this: You know how some of these guys will whine about alpha jock type behavior? They do it themselves all the damn time. From being virtual dictators as guild leaders in MMOs to accusing women of being “fake geeks”, they are so insecure about their self worth they have to enforce some system to maintain their “Alpha Geek” behavior. A lot of the behaviors are so parallel to “Alpha Jocks” it’s less about Geek/Jock" and more about obnoxiously establishing dominance in their social behavior. Stuff like:
-Bragging about stuff they don’t know/care about. This serves to try to devalue those things in a group.
-Enforcing who is a “real” blank and who is a “fake” blank to make themselves look more competent in comparison.
-Defining themselves by their interests/consumption of media
I was being facetious* hence the “…or something” at the end of the sentence (and the Anchorman reference, which apparently no-one noticed). The “pink sparkly things” reference was intended to be humorous hyperbole in a similar vein, to indicate these are not beliefs I personally hold.
Personally, I want more women to play “real” computer games and to be involved in them. As a heterosexual male I’m the target audience of most computer games but I’d like as many people as possible to enjoy them too. It’s not a zero-sum thing; more women liking games isn’t going to mean an end to games like DeathPuncher IV: The Punchening or Gunfire, Explosions and Car Chases II: High-Octane Magnum or Megalomaniacal Global Domination. **
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but a female friend of mine pointed out an interesting corrollary to this thread topic, too - apparently there’s a similar thing in feminism where it’s assumed no guy can possibly be a feminist and any that claim to be are really only doing it as part of some plot to get laid. So it seems interesting (to me, at least) you’ve got two influential self-identifying groups accusing its minority sex members of being “fakers” for various reasons which, in each individual case, may or may not have any basis in reality.
*Not about the shrinking number of places for guys to do exclusively Guy Stuff, I believe that’s a real concern but one best suited for another thread.
** These are not real games, in case you hadn’t already worked that out.
That’s more of a common viewpoint of MRA-types than actual feminists, though I have seen it from uber-radical feminists it’s pretty rare. What is more common in feminism* is all sorts of ridiculous “if you don’t agree with me on this incredibly specific point you’re not really a feminist and may, in fact, be a misogynist” bullshit. It happens to women, but the “closet misogynist” thing is definitely directed more towards men. (The version levied towards women is an obfuscated version of “brainwashed by the patriarchy” as if no woman who disagrees with them could have rationally come to a different conclusion). There are also a ton of ways certain circles have built or adopted to shut men down. “Mansplaining”, while it has its uses, I’ve certainly seen things I’d characterize as “mansplaining”, is often used by loudmouths to mean “your are a man who disagrees with me ergo I will disregard you.” Again, it happens to women too, but when it happens it tends to be more subtle and a bit rarer, IME.
Mostly internet feminism, because what good is internet activism if you can’t act like a 2 year old while doing it?
Before this gets shuttled off to another thread (or not), can I ask one more question? What counts as “exclusively Guy Stuff”? Does a geeky con count as “guy stuff”? I mean, seriously, if a guy wants to get together with his guy buddies and play a manly game of My Little Pony: The RPG, what’s stopping him? Just don’t invite any girls! But does (or can, or should) this extend into the public arena?
I guess I just don’t understand how geeky pastimes like RPGs, wargames, sci-fi fandom, etc. could ever be construed as “exclusively Guy Stuff.”
Only speaking for my own observations but the cute drama girl was still plenty popular among the drama students. The cute goth girl still got plenty of attention and smoked cigarettes behind the bleachers and called the sci-fi nerds weirdo losers. The pretty girl who was into art still had it much better than the pimply dweeb who drew wizards and dragons in his notebook. Maybe they all had their personal trials and lamented how the cheerleaders didn’t talk to them or how Rich Preppy Guy didn’t notice them but there’s not many situations in high school where being an attractive female wasn’t a benefit over being unattractive.
I can see that I worded my first sentence poorly. My belief is that those who accuse attractive women as not being real geeks are the ones who feel that harassment is a rite of passage or a badge of authenticity. I personally don’t care what someone’s background is.
I’m going to agree with Jophiel that attractive girls (and likewise, athletic boys) don’t suffer for their geekiness in HS as much as the unattractive/nonathletic boys. But then girls (attractive or not) have to deal with a whole different problem that boy geeks generally don’t have: sexual harassment. So in the end the “we suffered more than you” argument is pointless all around.