Friday, November 8, 2013

Regarding "Fake Geek Girls"

You may or may not have heard about this whole "fake geek girls" thing, wherein women and girls who show up to sci-fi/gaming/fandom conventions and who play video games are often derided as being, well, fake. Because, you know, they clearly don't have any geek cred, because they're girls. And us manly nerd types have to staunchly defend our manly nerd space.

So. About that:

I went to see Thor 2 shortly after waking up this morning because my girlfriend decided we should just go, right now, first showing starts in like fifteen minutes and you already showered, right???

As we sat waiting for it to start in the theater, I listened to the conversation between three women sitting off to my right about cosplaying, their current roleplaying game plans, fanfic, Tolkein and various video games.

Currently, I am banished to my study because my I do not have the correct chromosomes to participate in the all-women game of Dungeon World underway in my living room. And one of the participants wrote a tie-in novel from a major fantasy MMORPG that is sitting on my desk.

So... yeah. Tooootally fake geek girls.

(Though to be fair, one of those women sitting near me during Thor 2 had a rrreeeaaalllyyy sketchy English accent. That part might've been fake.)

8 comments:

  1. being that as it may, how was thor 2?

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    1. I am quite insanely happy with it. Was it a "perfect" movie? No. We're talking fantasy-science here (science on a level at which it seems like magic, but deliberately so in the case of Thor). The film includes some opening backstory narration like the first did, and it's lovely to look at, but it's more than a little evocative of the opening narration to Fellowship of the Ring. And Anthony Hopkins really seems to be phoning this one in. But past that? It was WONDERFUL. Great character development, all the characters shine in their own ways, Idris Elba is freakin' awesome as Heimdall and Rene Russo's Frigga is equally great. The interplay between Thor & Loki is as solid and engaging as anyone might hope for. And the film had me laughing out loud many, many times along the way. As always stay through all the credits; they play out like the Avengers credits, where there's a little clip after the first artsy bit of cast credits, and then another one at the very end once the long wall of white-on-black text has gone by. It's worth the wait.

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  2. So yeah, I went to watch Thor 2 on thursday - it was pretty awesome, though a bit predictable at places. Tom Hiddleston as Loki was a major win in the movie, I'm starting to like that guy - both as an actor and as a person :D

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  3. Ok Elliot, first thing you're right in the fact that geek girls are getting the short end of the stick. However that may be because they keep hiding so damn well to get out of the line of fire of the barbie clones!

    Secondly, in the spirit of helpng this problem I'm going to need you to get those girls names, numbers, emails, or anything and send it to me so I can verify that they are in fact real. For science of course......

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  4. well on this topic i don't have a problem with "fake geek girls" what that typically boils down into is a case of your fandom isn't as good as my fandom therefore you must be a phony and even if they don't quite know what they like or if they will even like anything the're welcome to take a look around and see if anything appeals to them, that being said there are always people who don't come out for the convention they come out to go nerd watching and make snide comments about cosplayers to their other way too cool for school friends and then leave after they've had their fun to go get wasted at TGIfridays it's these asshats that can piss right off

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    1. Pretty much. Honestly, I don't care if someone goes to a con (or a movie, or a comic book store or whatever) as a casual observer or as a hardcore fan. If they're there, then they're generally supporting the activity somehow. Why would you want to drive them out?

      ...unless they're engaged in hurtful, racist/sexist/homophobic or otherwise bigoted harassment? Because fuck THOSE people, right?

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    2. there's people who go to have fun and people who go to make fun it's the latter category i don't care for.

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    3. Not so much "Fuck you." as "Please leave because your willful bullshit is ruining the fun I paid for." And for those who want to defend people's 'right' to have their 'fun' by ruining yours, there is something wrong in both your brains. Good thing, like fun, don't involve ruination. They are mutually exclusive concepts.

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