Fake Geek Girls, Where did it start?

[Iron Criterion]

It seems to me that it's some sort of punishment, which is being imposed on females by bitter, misogynists, simply because they're attractive females; a sort of "you wouldn't look twice at me, therefore I must socially destroy you" thing. I mean, we don't really see those same elitists treat fake geek guys like that.

 

[EeveeElectro]

-snip-

I think you may have slightly misunderstood what I was trying to say.
I'm not judging you or anyone I don't know. If a random girl wants to come out with "Hey boys, I'm a nerd" or to some effect then that's great. Who am I to judge? Just because she doesn't look nerdy doesn't mean she isn't the real deal.
Unless they show themselves up with something stupid like "I love Spack from Star Wars" then for all I know, they probably are a bit nerdy and that's fine.

What I'm trying to say is, the girls who picked on me at school (to the point of, like you said, I was ashamed to admit my hobbies, I still can be now sometimes) are now coming out and saying "I'm totes a nerd" when they're exactly the same as they used to be in school, just dressing a bit dorky. Some of them have grown up a bit and we made amends, we did leave school about 4 years ago.
I know these girls and what hobbies they have. They're my age (so early to mid twenties, not a child or a teenager) and really like to get on board with the whole "calling yourself a nerd because you dress like one" even though it has much more to do with what clothes you wear.

People like to experiment with fashion which is fine, but it just irks me that something they belittled me for in school is now something they're doing now to fit in. Just seems so two-faced.

 

[Entitled]

As for why the focus on fake geek GIRLS, i have no idea. I had no idea that it is apparently an epidemic according to the escapist. Probably because it is more sensationalist to give the subject a tinge of sexism to make sure it riles everyone up, just like the Halo4 censorship thing a little while back.

Well, the female-specific stereotype really does exist, but there is a reason for it. Just look at this picture:

Do you really think, that these are just three fake gamers who for some reason all happen to be girls? Do you think that the caption's writer is a sexist for implying such a connection?

Nothing is accidental in adverting, it's based entirely around stereotypes. Advertisers know that most hardcore gamer are men, so if they chose to portray gamers that way, that has a very specific purpose, that they are trying to use the "sex sells" trick on us. And so does Zooey Deschanel [http://www.cracked.com/article_19493_4-reasons-zooey-deschanel-can-stop-pretending-shes-dork.html], and every girl who sees that this is what counts as sexy nowadays and tries to imitate it.

Yes, anyone can be a fake nerd, or a real one, but "sexy girl pretending to be a nerd for sex appeal towards male nerds" is one very specific subcategory of them.

(Though that caption DOES sound kinda sexist for using the rather generic term "female gamers", af if this picture would represent any gamer who owns a vagina, but that's another issue.)

 

[Vuliev]

(not a direct response) Okay, let's say the kind of fake-geek-girls the escapist is talking about were the ones in question, or that they exist. Wouldn't what their doing be akin to a guy telling a woman in a bar that he's an architect/musician/insert title that stereotypically interests women, when he's really not?

Yeah, pretty much, and it's a shitty thing for both sides to do.

So, so wait: Let me get this straight... Being a Nerd or Geek means your in a special group that others can't join just because they want to? That they have to fallow certain criteria to join? ... That seems really shallow. That sounds like when a clique rejects a person because "They don't fallow Certain Criteria". When did being a Geek make you a part of a clique? Do 2 wrongs make a right? Should people really deny others just because "They wanna just use a title?" More importantly, haven't we all just wanted to use a title?

No, you've got the "criteria" (if you want to call it that) wrong. If they want the title, then they should devote themselves to one or more genres/topics/crafts/skills/etc. It's the devotion to something, not the knowledge thereof, that we want. We want them to have genuine, passionate interest in some aspect of our culture--we don't want them simply aping our culture for petty, superficial social status. Yes, there are those of us that will look down on genuine entrants to the culture--and they're wrong for doing it--but there are also those of us that are ecstatic to see those that once kept away from us now take true interest in the things we do.

 

[Verlander]

"Fake Geek Girls" don't exist. Simple as that - there aren't insecure pretty girls preying on nerdy men in conventions, and in the rare example where there might be, it'd pretty hypocritical for geek culture to take offense.

The thing is, where geekdom, nerddom, gaming and more used to be the realm or socially insecure boys (sad but true), all of the development and quality within these areas have helped explode them into the mainstream as a premium form of entertainment. So yes, girls (even pretty ones) are getting involved, and are damn welcome to in my opinion. The fact that encyclopedic knowledge and commitment to anything "geek" isn't a priority to some of these girls seems to be the biggest bugbear of all, but again it's a sexist one. I love drawing and reading comics, I am contributing to a computer games site, and I play boardgames. I also work in global human resourcing for the biggest professional services company in the world... not very geek. I'm also a sports fan, and enjoy activities with my family. Geek isn't my whole world, but because I'm a man, people don't even think to question it.

As for the adverts of Zooey Deschanel or the demotivational posters... you do realise that those are posed photos, right? As in, those are faces for hire, bought by marketing execs because they know that you, like all other men, are happiest when pandered to via the lowest common denominator. So are you angry at these girls, or at yourselves, for not being the intellectual post-human powerhouses of logical thought that you make yourselves out to be, but rather the same, hormone and genetically controlled animal that we all are? Must be disappointing, hence newest nerd rage.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Well, apparently some new wave of controversy broke out and now it's made the rounds on The Escapist.
Having read the articles, watched Jimquisition...

Yeah, I don't get it. I don't understand the controversy.
That people feign interest in something to get what they want? People....LIE??

No wai!

 

[Uhura]

I find the whole issue a bit confusing since there doesn't really seem to be any consensus on what type of people the 'fake geek girl' label even refers to. Booth babes? Actresses? Models? Regular teen girls?

Also, not sure how Zooey Deschanel is in any way relevant to this topic.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

Could someone please explain to me the "controversy" part of this controversy?

 

[Lt._nefarious]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarabrown/2012/03/26/dear-fake-geek-girls-please-go-away/
for me it started with this piece of shit excuse for an article ( yeah it?s by a girl ?. Not that it matters) .
what bothers me more is that it?s on Forbes a publication I sometimes pretend to respect . this is writing I?d expect from Gawker .

Wow, there's a second page to this?! Good God, I can't go on...

OT: Well... I don't know when this plague of fucking heinous bastards flooding the internet with there whinging about "fake nerd girls" started but all I know is that it needs to end. Seriously, these are the people that complain about not being taken seriously and now that a few pretty girls do[/b[ take us seriously half the internet throws a fucking hissy fit?

Sweet Mary mother of Jesus.......

 

[Entitled]

I find the whole issue a bit confusing since there doesn't really seem to be any consensus on what type of people the 'fake geek girl' label even refers to. Booth babes? Actresses? Models? Regular teen girls?

That's the point. There is no specific "outrage" in any direction, just a bunch of paralell discussions about sexual objectification, about shallow fashions, about subcultural poseurs, about elitism, and about related subjects.

Journalists are turning the most easily strawmannable one into an apparently common problem, "There are HOT WOMEN who dare to claim to be True Nerds like me!", a complaint that pretty much everyone would find disagreeable, while commenters are complaining about a variety of more reasonable arguments that are being caught cross-fire by demonizing everyone who ever played with the thought that someone else somewhere might pretend to be a nerd.

That just fuels the impression that there is an "outrage". Jim, Bob, & co. said something very evident "women are just as welcome to gaming as men", yet there are several pages of debate in the replies, hence the impression that a huge chunk of Escapist commenters wish to segregate women, and comments like "Yeah, women are people too, isn't that obvious? Why is this argument still going on?"

Also, not sure how Zooey Deschanel is in any way relevant to this topic.

She represents the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ideal, which is a related concept, a pandering wish-fulfillment fantasy for boorish introverted males about a quirky dorky out-of-the-box girl who is interested in them.

She isn't exactly trying to be "nerdy" in a traditional sense, but it's a good example of a mix between commercial exploitation of sexual pandering (as a scripted film character that tries to separate males from their money), and a woman's own attention-seeking personality (as the actress who upholds the MPDG persona for popularity).

 

[Uhura]

Journalists are turning the most easily strawmannable one into an apparently common problem, "There are HOT WOMEN who dare to claim to be True Nerds like me!", a complaint that pretty much everyone would find disagreeable, while commenters are complaining about a variety of more reasonable arguments that are being caught cross-fire by demonizing everyone who ever played with the thought that someone else somewhere might pretend to be a nerd.

Well I have to disagree. The 'hot-women-infiltrators' issue has been on the table well before the most recent fake-geek-girl outrage. It was an issue when Olivia Munn worked for G4, it was an issue when Felicia Day dared to do her thing, it was an issue when Aisha Tyler was Ubisoft's presenter at this year's E3. The 'hot women can't be geeks' sentiment has been also embraced by several forumites here on the Escapist (judging from the comments left in the numerous fake-geek-girl topics, including also the numerous complaints about the hot cosplay "attention whores"). So at least to me it seems that the "There are HOT WOMEN who dare to claim to be True Nerds like me!" thing isn't really a minor issue here.

Also, not sure how Zooey Deschanel is in any way relevant to this topic.

She isn't exactly trying to be "nerdy" in a traditional sense, but it's a good example of a mix between commercial exploitation of sexual pandering (as a scripted film character that tries to separate males from their money), and a woman's own attention-seeking personality (as the actress who upholds the MPDG persona for popularity).

None of us here actually knows Zooey Deschanel and what she is like IRL so you don't really know if she 'upholds the MPDG persona for popularity' or if that is just who she is. A bit pointless to speculate IMO.

 

[Phasmal]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tarabrown/2012/03/26/dear-fake-geek-girls-please-go-away/
for me it started with this piece of shit excuse for an article ( yeah it?s by a girl ?. Not that it matters) .
what bothers me more is that it?s on Forbes a publication I sometimes pretend to respect . this is writing I?d expect from Gawker .

Wow, there's a second page to this?! Good God, I can't go on...

OT: Well... I don't know when this plague of fucking heinous bastards flooding the internet with there whinging about "fake nerd girls" started but all I know is that it needs to end. Seriously, these are the people that complain about not being taken seriously and now that a few pretty girls do[/b[ take us seriously half the internet throws a fucking hissy fit?

Sweet Mary mother of Jesus.......

Yes, also this.
You know who I feel sorry for?
Female newbs.
Ladies who are curious about games/nerdy stuff.
I mean, I started into all this stuff before I even knew it was a `guy thing`. But I can't imagine what it must be like to take an interest in something new only for the existing fans to scream and then slam the metaphorical door in your face.

 

[Entitled]

None of us here actually knows Zooey Deschanel and what she is like IRL so you don't really know if she 'upholds the MPDG persona for popularity' or if that is just who she is. A bit pointless to speculate IMO.

It's not so much an issue of what she might do in her privacy, it's not even that she is too "hot" in the sense of having a pair of boobs and a symmetrical face, but that the very image that she already projects is disingenuously designed to play up the fetishistic appeal of her "adorkable"-ness, even while she obviously isn't. The Cracked article that I linked two of my posts ago sums it up well (and it's written by a woman!):

The point is that there's a specific formula to looking like you just walked out of a Mad Men audition and Zooey's found it. And unfortunately, If you don't follow the formula or a slight variation of it you just end up looking like you walked out of Mama's Family reunion party instead.

Now, I get that in the new show New Girl, Yay!-Zee is playing something those in the theatre like to call a 'character.' Like, I understand she's reading words that did not come into her brain at that moment and that I'm not watching Zooey Deschanel in her actual beautiful apartment with her actual beautiful roommates. I went to college. I get that. But I also understand that In Zooey's world, 'awkward' is singing at inappropriate times while being model-beautiful:

They even made up a new word for her brand of awkward: ADORKABLE. Between the big glasses and monkey faces the audience quickly catches on that this is a girl who will probably watch Star Wars with you but will also dribble a basketball right into your tv like some kind of toddler puppy dummy. The scenes that are supposed to translate as 'awkward' just strike me as 'self confident girl with a good sense of humor' from where I'm sitting."

Something similar is going on with some of the other commenters' problem as well, when they complain about "hot girls". (other than being sexists, which some of them undoubtedly are). It's not just about being born with a pretty face, but the overall self-confident attitude, and mainstream, model-like artificial beauty, combined with JUST enough markers of a subcultural identification to sign them as unique, without being ACTUALLY weird.

It's a bit like those nubile savage [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NubileSavage] characters that try to use the fetishistic appeal of "wild" and "exotic" women by wearing rags, but without showing the actual usual consequences of living in a prehitsoric environment.

Yeah, I mean, theoretically, it's possible that some women did look this attractive in ancient tribal communities, just like it's possible that a nerd surprisingly ends up with ridiculously good looks, and superb social skills. You would still first assume that the filmmakers exaggerated for the (male) audience's manipulation, wouldn't you?

 

[Uhura]

It's not so much an issue of what she might do in her privacy, it's not even that she is too "hot" in the sense of having a pair of boobs and a symmetrical face, but that the very image that she already projects is disingenuously designed to play up the fetishistic appeal of her "adorkable"-ness, even while she obviously isn't.

I don't see how this is in any way differs from the way agents mold and polish the images of the actors that they represent. Zooey is obviously good at doing the 'quirky girl' thing and playing that role comes naturally to her. How is it really a problem that the 'team' behind Zooey has decided to play up those attributes? How is it different from the way other actors play up their "all american girl"images or the "bad boy" images? It's not any more disingenuous really.

The Cracked article that I linked two of my posts ago sums it up well (and it's written by a woman!):

snip

Yeah, I mean, theoretically, it's possible that some women did look this attractive in ancient tribal communities, just like it's possible that a nerd surprisingly ends up with ridiculously good looks, and superb social skills. You would still first assume that the filmmakers exaggerated for the (male) audience's manipulation, wouldn't you?

I didn't find her arguments particularly convincing (also the term 'adorkable' wasn't coined by the show's writers).
But yeah, again I have trouble understanding your point here. Just because 'the team' behind Zooey has determined that the best way to market her is to play up her quirkier attributes doesn't mean that that image isn't an approximation of her actual personality. This marketing process also doesn't differ in any way from the way other actors are marketed. Furthermore, Zooey is massively popular among female audiences too so the marketing isn't done solely for the male audience.

I don't mean to sound obtuse, but I just don't see how singling out one actor (who is both an actual person and a Hollywood product) makes sense in this conversation.

 

[MorganL4]

I don't mean to sound obtuse, but I just don't see how singling out one actor (who is both an actual person and a Hollywood product) makes sense in this conversation.

I think the point they were making, is that Zoey is the image of the fake geek girl in the media ( she might actually be a geek, I don't know never met her) but people are basing the fact that she is conventionally attractive AND acts like a geek in her on screen personas to peg her as the symbol for the "fake geek girl".

 

[Uhura]

I think the point they were making, is that Zoey is the image of the fake geek girl in the media ( she might actually be a geek, I don't know never met her) but people are basing the fact that she is conventionally attractive AND acts like a geek in her on screen personas to peg her as the symbol for the "fake geek girl".

I still think she is a bit poor example of a fake-geek-girl in the sense that I don't think she has ever played a gamer character, or someone who is into comic books, or fantasy or sci-fi or board gaming or larping or anime etc. In the media her style is often referred to as 'geek chic' and the characters she plays are often a bit awkward/quirky but that's about it. I just think it's funny that a few years ago she was the 'prime example of an annoying hipster girl' and now she is the 'prime example of a fake-geek-girl' even though she hasn't to my knowledge pretended to have massively geeky hobbies nor played massively geeky roles.

As far as I can tell she enjoys wearing vintage clothing and likes to play slightly awkward characters. Oh the horror.

 

[molester jester]

The thing is i remember when that meme started floating about and i never remember it singling out girls, yes a girl was used for the image but i always thought the meme its self was just making fun of the fact geek suddenly became chic and the understandable anger that it aroused in people who has gotten shit for years due to supposed geeky behaviour

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

if gaming women were as respected as their male counterparts, but they're not. Instead, the meme has become something of a rallying cry for misogyny.

Even if they DO say they don't mind "fake" people, I think most people DO mind (just read anyone of MovieBob's articles on how annoying he finds people who clearly know less than he does try to tell him off). Personally, there's no doubt in my mind that truly fake girls are annoying.

But the truth is, it's not "fake girls". ANYONE who does something where the primary motivating factor is to get attention (read: adorkable girls, for example) are obnoxious. Whether it be people who like rap because they think it makes them sound cool, hipsters, or someone who comments on sports like they know what they're talking about when they clearly don't (NASCAR IS A SPORT BTW!). It's universal. Anyone who says otherwise is being misleading or blinded by popular sentiment.

gotta agree with this, and this is my only bone to ever pick with "fake geeks" really.

(I have a bit more personal issue with it as my ex-girlfriend was the embodiment of being an adorkable obnoxious twat, that shit ended real fast because of it.)

she'd do the typical "Gonna start playing WoW, while i'm in class! LOL I'm such a nerd Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't play games!"

and of course it would garner 60+ likes and endless fapping to the status..

(and yes I call out/hate posers everywhere, regardless of sex/age/etc.. If you are just using something to gain attention and don't have an actual interest in it, then any interest I had in you as a friend/person just went down the drain. Being a "newb" to something isn't a bad thing, but don't pretend like you know everything and be obnoxious about it.)

OT: No idea where it started, but I saw it in person as early as beginning of high school, around 8ish years ago, as that's when I met a shit ton of people and got a feel for social stuff better.