Uh, I thought that was basically the point of all hipster jokes: “Look at that guy, with those heavy glasses he doesn’t even need!” and so on.
2 Likes
If your heart is into it, and you’re making an effort to improve your skills and make new things, no matter how small and trivial, I don’t see why you shouldn’t call yourself a Maker.
We have too many barriers in this world as it is, let’s not build new ones… especially not around our own hobbies.
4 Likes
I read Brown’s piece and disagree with it. It’s bizarre to equate dismembering someone with disagreement. She seems to be saying some people can call themselves geeks and other can’t. I have a problem with that. The video is about something else, blatant sexism in the greater geek community against people who are women, using some imagined rubric of geekiness to declare who is and who is not in the temple. Brown’s piece was more about using lack of intelligence or passions or the presence of popularity to disqualify others from being a geek. I agree, it’s not inherently misogynist, but I don’t see the benefit of encouraging others to disparage or exclude others. It seems to me to be mean. She’s decrying people she doesn’t personally know and saying they’re not really geeky. I think you’d have to know someone pretty closely to say they don’t have some secret passion that strums the geek strings in their heart. Oswald’s point is different, he’s more talking about wanting to renew the culture as a whole to enrich the next generation of geeky creations, not calling people out for their geek cred or lack thereof. Yeah, a guy who’s really into Pokemon can be called a geek if he wants. I’ve been a geek slightly longer than Oswald, so I get to say. Focus more on what you’re doing and can do, decrying others for what they’re not doing/watching/reading is pointless, it’s their own damn business.
5 Likes
So, by your definition, anybody can be anything, just because.
Regardless, my general impression is that many people are conflating two different kinds of vitriol toward female “geeks”. There are “genuine” geek girls and women, who, as this video is trying to show, are sadly the targets of plain and simple sexism. I’d like to believe that we can all agree that this is unfortunate.
On the other hand, there is the more contentious issue of “fake” geeks. Now, I am definitely not trying to argue that every girl and woman who has ever been called a fake geek deserves to be. However there is no way you’re going to convince me that there are no posers in this world; and I see no reason to believe that some “fake” geeks are not, in fact, posers!
For example: people who wear a new hat for whoever the current sport’s champion is and claims its “their” team. Does anyone disagree with me that the heart of that issue is: a lack of loyalty, a certain amount of dishonesty and shallowness, and arguably, a certain lack of identity? It’s a certain kind of popularity contest mercenary-ness (sic).
Well, I really think it’s pointless and cruel to draw a line between who gets to call themselves a geek and who doesn’t… But if you insist…Most geeks of my acquaintance have very little knowledge or interest in sports or sports fandom behavior. I’m sorry hi-endian, you’ve been voted off the island.
1 Like
But does that even matter? Does it hurt your enjoyment if how they enjoy something is with less commitment and loyalty than you? Maybe they just aren’t the kind of person for an all consuming passion or fandom. Maybe I’ve only ever watched random Star Trek episodes. Maybe I’ve never seen Buffy. Maybe I only saw Firefly after it was off the network. Does that mean my enjoyment of them and enjoyment of geeky televsion is somehow less legitimate? Because honestly if the answer is yes, I call bullshit.
1 Like
I suspect that the paranoia stems from the fact that it is suddenly cool to belong to a group which has historically been defined by their status as socially awkward outcasts.
Throw in a few experiences of the popular kids pretending to be your friends for a joke, and a couple “booth babes” to sell product at the convention, and you end up with a bunch of guys who are suspicious when a pretty girl suddenly expresses a common interest. I would wager that someone who looks like Limor Fried gets the “fake” accusation less than someone who looks like Candy Keane- If you don’t look like you spent high school wearing headgear and getting stuffed into lockers, you need to prove you’re not just there to mess with them.
Yes, I get that that’s a very sexist idea, but as I said, the whole “pretty girls laugh at me” thing has gone hand in hand with geekdom for a very long time. Geeks being cool is a pretty recent phenomenon.
I’m not sure if a single thing you said actually addresses anything I said.
Nonetheless, maybe you have only ever watched a couple episodes of Star Trek. Do you go around pretending that you have? I’m going to guess not, but if you did, then uh yeah, maybe you’d be a poser.
Oh I see what you did there! Well, I hope you enjoy hanging out with your geek posers instead of me, since apparently you like them better!
I was commenting on the question in your post, which I think is pretty on topic. I take issue with the idea you seem to have that there are “pretend” fans running around out there making things terrible for everyone else. What do you do, quiz the hell out of people to make sure you only associate with “genuine” fans? I don’t get why it even matters in the first place. So what if people aren’t “loyal” to the team or come late into the fandom? I don’t get why anyone is so judgmental on whether other fans are somehow legitimate. I can’t recall ever meeting someone who was just pretending to like nerdy stuff in order to hang out with nerds.
And yeah, I’ve only ever watched random episodes of various Star Trek series. I don’t think it is pretending when I say I like the show even if I’m not up on every single part of it.
I’m a programmer and constantly hear my male colleagues talking about how “Pacific Rim” and “Star Trek” are guy things. And it’s like…hello…woman sci/fi geek computer programmer sitting right here.
1 Like
Once you start trying to debate what a valid test is, you’ve already failed it. In fact, that’s the only criteria… honestly enjoy something, and quit obsessing over your judgments of everyone else.
5 Likes
trigger warning: too adorable for viewing before 10:00am.
A friend had this written on the cover of his RPG notebook, some thirty years ago:
“If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If you’re a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!”
It spoke to me. This was in my teen years, we were in the Coffehouse, gaming. In high school, I would have felt like I was placing myself in physical danger if the thugs knew I liked a poem, but here was an adult displaying a poem about magic beans and welcoming the crowd. MY crowd. The D&D crowd was the first peer group that welcomed me and being an elf with those guys was just about the first time I felt human. By that meaning, I felt part of something, where my quirky weird sense of humor got laughs, not looks. So it meant a lot to me then that I was included, and when I hear now, in Bizarro future land where geeking is somehow somewhat cool, there’s somehow a religious test clause, and a problem with fake geek girls/posers and you have to be cool enough, uncool enough to be a REAL geek? I was a geek when it was legal to hunt us for sport. If the poem talks to you and you like it, you’re a member of the party. Or if you hate the poem (by Shel Silverstein), but want to be a geek, for whatever reason, welcome.
3 Likes
That’s…just stupid. Movies are for people. Although, I haven’t yet figured out who romantic comedies are made for. Certainly isn’t this scifi and kung fu lovin’ lady.
That really doesn’t sound too bad. Nobody is talking about things like engineering or law, where you need a certain level of training, just social groups. Don’t we want to let anybody be anything, just because it’s what they’d like?
1 Like
Sure, there may be ‘fake geeks’ or people who aren’t ‘geeky enough’ proclaiming themselves as geeks out there… heck, virtually anything you can think of, there’s probably SOME people who do it. I’m not convinced it’s a serious problem, either in terms of numbers, or in terms of seriousness.
I mean, if somebody expresses an interest in something I like, and it’s clear they’re not as experienced a fan as I am, or they only watched Star Trek and consider themselves a geek… the obvious choice seems to just enjoy what we have in common, and maybe subtly suggests other things they might enjoy based on what they like, or places to go to delve more deeply into the source material than they already have, if they’re so interested.
Geeks don’t usually sprout fully formed with an interest in all things geeky. Their interest in one thing leads them into an interest in other things, and before you know it, they’ve got a huge mass of geeky interests. And even if they don’t, that’s okay too, I don’t mind talking Doctor Who with somebody even if I know I’ll never be able to discuss Firefly, SF books, RPGs, or anything else I also like. Because I like Doctor Who, and if you do too, we can have fun together, whether you’re a “real” geek or not.
2 Likes
Wow, not only did you call me a giant racist, but one who goes about making taxonomical distinctions between the various “races” — and I’m the piece of work here?
I’m going to stop right there, since you either didn’t actually didn’t read what I wrote or you decided that arguing against a whole bunch of things I never said is the way to go — neither of which is conducive to an intellectual discussion… about anything. Thanks.
I like all kinds of movies, fantasy, sci fi, comedy, horror, action and rom com, so I guess they are made for people like me.
