Those are hipster glasses, not geek glasses. Getcher labels right, dammit! 
Are you referring to the article that was linked by Spice Weasel*? Because if you are, this girl is probably the worst representative of “geek culture” ever. She spends the entire article bashing video games, science fiction, fantasy, comic books, and comic book movies, and then follows it up with… “But I love The Avengers because of all the hot guys! And the Hunger Games trilogy is great because it’s about revolution!” She then concludes by talking about how much she loves The Carrie Diaries.
And?
If you’re going to complain about being a geek, but hating nearly every part of “geek culture,” you at least have to tell your readers what actually makes you a geek. You can reject parts of geek culture and still call yourself a geek (I have no use for 99% of anime, for example), but you can’t reject all of it and still call yourself a geek. And you definitely can’t piss on fans of “geek culture” as misogynists and then get all excited over the “hot boys” in The Avengers as the only reason to watch it.
I’ve seen it said that the geek/hipster dichotomy is largely separated by earnestness. Hipsters ironically and cynically like obscure things because they’re bad. Geeks earnestly and enthusiastically love things that, while not always super obscure, often not horrifically mainstream – to the point of practically turning them into a religion. This does lead to some similar outcomes (griping about something becoming popular), but leads to a large difference in tenor in the subcultures.
And I think geeks are largely characterized by this earnestness more than obscurity. Star Wars and Star Trek are huge, most people are familiar with them and like them okay. It’s not particularly geeky on its own to like Star Wars, it’s geeky to have a 3000 dollar Star Wars figure collection and spend half your time on Star Wars boards complaining about the Death Star exploding over Endor because you care so much and spending hours dressing up as Princess Leia or Darth Vader.
** Left Hand of Dorkness **, I agree with you, and would also add I’ve seen quite a bit of racism in geek groups too. I guess everybody assumed that people that were part of some outgroup (say, a young man into the ‘wrong’ kind of movies/hobbies/games/etc) would be the most open minded when it comes to people that are different. But I’ve found geeks to not only be surprisingly bigoted at times, but incredibly unapologetic about their attitude. I can’t help but wonder if their contempt for getting rejected makes them want to have some little White Boys Club where they get to dictate who is/is not a geek.
I wouldn’t be surprised if someone that got called a ‘fag’ for being seen as unmasculine might harbor some internalized homophobia. Maybe they’re not aware of it. But lately the internet has really showed me the ugly side of geekdom- fetishization of asian cultures, obsession with underage girls, sexism/bigotry, and this embarassing sense of self-righteousness about the whole thing.
The 5 Geek Social Fallacies sheds some light into some of this. It seems like geeks tend to be less willing to call out their peers on unacceptable behavior. I’ve been to some sci fi conventions and in flyers/notes in the lobby they had to remind guests to try to keep up personal hygene :eek: . Who the hell needs to be reminded this?! Some geeks apparently. Are all geeks fat slobs? Of course not, but it seems like the majority aren’t willing to call out their slob/racist/pedo buddy out on his bullshit, because when you have a group whose comradere is often founded on all being misfits, you don’t want to be the ‘bad guy’ that rejects someone else.
So its really ironic when some geeks end up being incredibly sexist/racist. In fact I really only saw the breadth of it recently.
By my definition, a person is a geek if:
They have an inwardly-motivated, interest in a subject or activity that is either outside the mainstream, or if their devotion to a mainstream subject is itself significantly greater than usual.
This definition contains two important parts:
-
The knowledge must be significantly outside the mainstream.
That is, you can be a “sports geek” or an “18th century German poets” geek (for example), but they will have different thresholds since sports permeate our culture, while 18th century German poetry does not. You might know, say, half a dozen different 18th century German poets, a bit about their lives, be able to recite several of their poems, and know the general themes and styles that were popular at the time among that group. That might be all it takes to be a geek of that type. To be a “sports geek”, you couldn’t get away with just knowing half a dozen teams, some of the players on those teams, and a few of their famous games. You would be a genuine sports fan, no doubt, but since so many other people have a similar (or greater) level of knowledge, it takes more than that to be a sports geek. -
The interest must be inwardly-motivated.
Consider two individuals, Abby and Brian. Both work in IT, and are equally talented and experienced at their jobs. They each have an unusually deep knowledge of computer technology. Brian went into IT because, of all the careers he thought he’d be good at, it paid the best. Abby grew up tinkering with computers. She taught herself how to make webpages and do some coding. She went into IT because she loves computers and technology. In this example, Brian is not a computer geek; Abby is. Neither of them is “better”, but they are different.
I think Jragon got it exactly right by saying that this is also what differentiates between geeks and hipsters. Hipsters are externally motivated. If something becomes popular enough, a total hipster will stop doing it. A total geek will keep doing it. (I use “total” because, as with most things, there is a spectrum, and people can be more than one thing at a time.)
I see an element of this in some “PC v. console” debates, where people who just play the latest iteration of Madden or Call of Duty are viewed as “not real” gamers.
The people who exclusively play Madden and Call of Duty are derided for not being (capital G) “Gamers” (AKA “Hardcore Gamers”) and instead referred to as “Dudebros.” It has nothing to do with PC versus console. PC and console (capital G) Gamers hate them pretty equally.
ETA: I, of course, don’t give a shit what kind of gamer you are. Just so we’re clear.
Status is a competition. What counts as points in the competition depends on the context. In the “geek” context, knowledge about these “geek topics” confers status. In a different context, something else, maybe physical attractiveness, or athleticism, or knowledge of current events, or facility with a put-down confers status. When feeling status challenged in one of those other contexts, a person has an impetus to make a status challenge based on the context they feel strongest in that is relevant.
It isn’t necessary to like Star Wars, anime, Tolkien, Halo, World of Warcraft, or any other particular piece of geeky cultural stuff to win the status points; what is needed in the geek cultural context is to have a convincing geeky reason for how you feel about the subject matter. The author of the article discussed here did a pretty poor job of attempting to assert her geek status in this manner. The complaints are mostly calling her on that.
Well, I had added to my previous post and then lost it in the expiration of the edit window. I need to learn to type faster.
I was going to say that in a different context, a person would lose status points for buttoning the bottom button of their suit jacket, or in yet another, for giving a weak reason for not only not having a favorite Linux distro, but never having bothered to install it, as the Windows ME their computer came with was good enough.
The individuals who (in many cases in a very poorly phrased manner, that also exposes their own prejudices and flaws) complain about “fake geek” anyone but especially women, are making a reflexive status defense in their own context against one that seems to be coming from an outside context. That outside context is a stronger cultural context that is threatening - that of youth and attractiveness, which is very high status in a context that itself has a lot of control over other cultural contexts that exist for status. All other things equal, someone younger and better looking in our culture has a higher status in the vast majority of contexts. So when such a person tries to also assert status in a context where part of the rules claim that such things don’t matter, they get extra blow back when they do so poorly than a weaker opponent would.
“Let’s Play” videos are very popular where you essentially just watch someone play the game and maybe comment on it as they go along. Often the commentary is as riveting as “Ok, now we’re gonna go over here… kill this guy… ok, so behind this desk there’s a switch. Ok, so we opened the secret door and…”
I don’t get it but a lot of people obviously like them. My wife’s friend’s husband watches them which I found a little amusing. Not so much directly about him but at least I could defend my game playing to her as “Hey, at least I’m actually playing it and not watching a video of it being played!”
I think you hit on another sore point. A stereotypical geek is in poor physical shape, wastes a lot of his life playing video and tabletop games or consuming science fiction, and is generally not high status in our society. Yet that geek/nerd might have encyclopedic knowledge of comic or sci-fi trivia, or be able to program computers as easy as breathing. He has something to feel good about.
A young, slim, and beautiful women gets high status for doing little more than breathing. So if she can also do the geek/nerd things just as well, it feels unfair. Why does she get to have both? This isn’t fair.
Most Youtube LPs are crap. Well, “Youtube LP” is a bit of a misnomer since even almost all video LPs have moved there due to the catastrophic implosion of other sites, but the point stands. Look at the Something Awful LP Archive for better examples. Good LPs generally aim to talk about a game at a deeper level than what’s shown on the screen, as well as be entertaining. Many great ones show off bugs, secrets, and things like that as well as just generally making jokes. Even more will explain the mechanics behind a difficult game, or do challenge runs.
They also to do, y’know, editing. And a very small few drift into machinima, or construct narratives around the game (more common with games like Oregon Trail, but also done with Sonic 2 Special Edition.
I mean, you’re not going to get college literature analysis, but the good ones talk about mechanics and critique the game and poke fun at the story. They generally consist of very little “I’m going to do this” (except in strategy games, where some of that is inevitable since you need to explain your strategy).
There is a subgenre called “longplay” which are unedited recordings of full playthroughs of games that exist for archival purposes rather than entertainment, but that’s not quite the same thing.
I love to tell my 7 year old, in my crotchettiest old man voice, to “get off that computer and play your video games in real life, like we had to back in the old days”.
This thread is interesting. I’ve always considered myself, and as far as I know been regarded as, nerdy/geeky. I’m socially awkward (more so the past), introverted, strongly interested in very specific things, pedantic, and spent my childhood/adolescence in dorky glasses with my nose in a book. However as an adult I enjoy clothes and I’m not unattractive.
However the things I ‘geek out’ over are things like tropical fishkeeping, human nutrition and physiology, dog training, sociology, and trees. I don’t play videogames, read many novels, and I don’t like science fiction or any Japanese animation except for Miyazaki. Cosplay and LARP are in the running for activities that sound like the least fun I could possibly have. I wonder how these self-identified ‘geek girls’ would classify me.
ETA: I am female.
I guess I’m so out of the loop that I didn’t really know the “thing” that is nerd/geek culture. So I’ve learned some stuff. That’s always good.
It is toxic and dangerous and scary. Good advice: if anyone wants to fight over who gets to be a geek or not, they are not anyone you ever want to have any sort of conversation with ever. “Geeks” are more willing to attack the writers of games for being women then they are for being racist or sexist. And yes, they have outright attacked people involved in MAKING games before just because they were women - and thus obviously not real geeks.
My very short take on this:
Geeks and nerds call themselves geeks and nerds as a defense mechanism – it’s a way of identifying people who are “safe” when you’re socially awkward and have odd obsessions/interests.
The “fake geek” thing is sometimes a legitimate complaint. Because it’s become somewhat hip, there’s a lot of folks who don’t really have that experience wearing the badge. It’s not that people can’t choose labels, but it takes away the USE of the word that some people rely on. Similar anger comes up in different alternative sexuality communities as well – people get aggressively defensive of “their” words because they rely on those words to define their safe space. It doesn’t make them right. Nobody owns the words, but some folks rely on them more and I can understand why there’s a lot of anger when words are “appropriated” or definitions loosened.
The gender element makes it worse, with many geeky folks having ingrained sexist attitudes and bad habits when expressing themselves more generally.
And then, on top of this all, I think there’s also just a huge current of general sexism, misogyny, and generalized Internet rage that gets brought to bear. A lot of the yelling I see about this stuff seems to be people who aren’t “really” invested on either side.
You know, this problem of invading a group as a “faker” is not unique to pretty women pretending to be nerds or geeks.
What happens when a white kid who grew up in the suburbs tries to use gangster speak among people who actually lived in the hood?
“Clipping coupons at Target…I be straight up gangster!”
And she does this because…women who look like supermodels must resort to trickery in order to attract attention from men? Because gamer guys are so desirable that a beautiful woman who doesn’t even really like video games must be desperate for their approval?
So? Does that mean a boy geek can’t date her? Because back in the day there were pretty girls who in retrospect were probably (in some cases, were actually) interested in me but who I blew off because I thought they just wanted to make fun of nerdy ol’ me, and I’d hate young geeks to miss out on possibilities because they think like I did, and like you are suggesting. Being a “fake geek” for the sake of style requires some unnecessary effort if all you want to be stylish–attractive women are still attractive whether they “try” or not–and I’ve learned to accept that it might be a real attempt to reach out for friendship and connection. Don’t be like Aesop’s fox and write off grapes as sour because they seem to be out of reach.