Jimquisition: Fake Nerd Girls

[wulf3n]

I'd agree with Jim if it was so simple that people get angry at a non-gamer girl wearing a mario shirt just because of that. I think it's a little more complex; nerds don't like that popular culture is co-opting our culture to be some kind of new fad, it feels disrespectfull.

True, but the problem isn't nerds getting angry at others stealing their identity, it's that they're targeting their aggression at the wrong people.

The so called "Fake nerd girl" that attends conventions and plays games just for the attention doesn't exist. No one who's "fake" would go to those lengths. While they may not have the same passion as others they're by no means fake.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Yes, and likely that is what many of the complainers already mean, when they comment that "Lol, that ad just pulled a Fake Nerd Girl", or "that actress is just played up for Fake Nerd Girl appeal".

But your video just covered the worst possible conclusions of why one might use the phrase, while associating them with everyone else as well. That the very idea is inherently stupid, and everyone should feel bad about themselves for considering to bring it up.

Shaming everyone who might use a phrase or discuss a trend, rather than the people who misuse it.

It's a horrible term regardless, that puts the focus of the blame on the women themselves. And the stuff I've seen hasn't been about this manipulation, it's attacked hard working people, and just women in general -- usually just *concepts* of them, with nobody singled out as an actual basis.

I honestly wonder if half the outrage has just been contrived from smoke.

Its definately a probability what with people who love drama and making for the sake of some misguided attempt at self importance. Id wager over half of this years controversies were started that way.

 

[LazyAza]

Another hit out of the park Jim. Games are no different to every other medium now, anyone can enjoy them in any capacity and theirs no reason appearance or other nonsense should factor in to their level of interest or understanding. Props for using Jessica Nigri in your footage, she's certainly a fine example of a very attractive lady who IS paid to help market games by dressing up (in outfits she makes herself no less) but she also seems to know her games and play a tonne.

Funny how the same people who come up with this fake nerd girl stuff would probably also be the first ones to start yelling about how not all gamers are fat, lazy shut ins should ever a claim be made but if they realized the irony there they might explode.

 

[CaptainChip]

No, you're not a nerd for reading a book (to say nothing of Harry Potter). No, you're not a nerd for playing a video game for 2 hours a week. No, your thick rimmed glasses, which you don't even need, and the pocket protector don't make you a nerd.

So, what does make someone an authentic nerd, and what makes that label so important?

Obsession.

Being a nerd isn't just liking some form of entertainment. It's loving it and clinging to it. In a sense, it's a lifestyle. Personally, I hate it when people (BOTH MALE AND FEMALE) say shit like "lol, i read a book, I'm such a nerd".

Anywho, here's a video that will explain why "fake nerds" aren't a good thing much better than I ever will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7A5OgfP4NA

 

[deathzero021]

I've actually met a few girls like this, so they do exist. they don't try too hard and they're usually teenage girls that know nothing about everything anyway. it's not that they choose gaming specifically to be such a poser of, they do it with everything because they're stupid teenage girls. it's what they do. it's like when they say that Green Day is their favorite band but they can only talk about are "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "21 Guns".

I doubt any adults do this anyway so i really don't see it being a problem. As for any men getting angry at this, well it's basically just your usual sexism in the nerd circle of sexually neglected men. Women entering gaming is (to them) a security breach in their safe zone. it just makes them feel uncomfortable because it's "been this way for so long".

F*** tradition.

 

[CaptainChip]

I would also like to point out that people who usually hate "fake geek girls" also hate guys who do the same thing. It's just that you don't see it from guys as much. It's really not a sexism issue as much as it's made to seem.

 

[Frontastic]

Anyone know what in the hell that game footage from the first half of the video was from? It was... I don't even know but I need to play it now.

 

[mrhateful]

-Snip Snip-

This is one of the most depressing posts I've read in a while. You don't want to let people join in on your hobby simply because they didn't have to deal with the hardships of your childhood? I honestly don't know how to properly respond to this other than grow up a little bit dude. People don't have to be beat up anymore or go through any sort of initiation just because they claim to like a certain thing.

Did you even read my post??? I specifically said at the beginning I like that more women are joining the gaming community all I said was I didn't like posers that made us look bad. Honestly I welcome others to join gaming and everywhere I go I talk about how great gaming is.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Wait... This is a thing? Really? I would think hot girls showing up at conventions would be a good thing whether their interest in the material was genuine or not. WTF Internet?

 

[Doclector]

Honestly, it does piss me off a bit. When I see some girl biting a controller (or worse, the time I saw a girl biting a goddamn gamestation reward card...in an official gamestation advert) in a "sexy" way, it's like...seriously? But I guess, if these people (and they do exist, although in nowhere near the majority that the internet would have you believe) want this attention, then it doesn't harm me much.

The only thing is, it does make me uncomfortable.

The only issue I can think off is these people is they do exist are likely to be the same kind of people who 10 years ago would have bullied someone for liking games so I can see the problem there.

This may actually be why. I've said it before, I'll say it again, I can't have been the only one who shat themselves a little when I started seeing the kind of people who would have bullied me in school appearing in gaming stores, "kind of people" of course referring to people who don't look like, well, nerds.

 

[mrhateful]

snip

Also, I like how your posts starts with you saying "women are getting into video games" like they weren't into them before recently. Clearly YOU didn't do any research on the matter.

Okay badly stated what I tried to say is I don't have anything against women gaming in general, just the ones that says their into gaming but really aren't, making us look like douches and idiots.

Also I have just as much against fake male gamers as female ones but the male ones aren't that rampant that its a problem.

 

[Grumpy Ginger]

Fake Nerd Girls

The latest flavor in the restaurant of controversy is the concept of the fake nerd girl -- women who pretend to like videogames and similar media, all for the express purpose of tricking honest, hard-working Americans.

Watch Video

What have they done? How have they hurt gamers and the industry? Wow dude, its like you aren't paying attention.

In just this year alone:

-iJustine
-Halo4 Sexism Bans
-"Appealing to a Wider Audience" [dilution of core game mechanics and genres to appeal to {women}] - ongoing
-Anita Sarkeesian
-Exiling Booth Babes from conventions [sexism or something]
-A certain female Bioware writer who when confronted by fans of a series, instead of admitting her mistake or recognizing the horrible writing, instead claims that fans are saying that she's a bad writer because she's a woman.
-The Tekken X something tv show where this girl gamer was so upset about the hazing that goes on in gaming all the time. On tv.

Shall I go on? Fake gamer girls are a plague on the industry and are nothing but attention seeking women who exist in the industry to do nothing more than be seen and make money off of being seen. I'm so tired of women dictating that everything they get involved with must conform with their ideals and standards instead of adapting to the environment. The only reason these women are able to exist in this medium at all is due to their gender and no one will call them on it. I'm tired of women making everything about their genitals. Its the first thing they do when entering a new arena, and its the last thing they do before it dies/stagnates.

Respond if I missed anything.

Because treating women like human beings and cracking down on sexist manchildren is somehow a bad thing. Also your definition of a fake gamer girl seems to be a women who doesn't take sexist crap. Seriously booth babes while admittedly not the most important thing still piss me off as I find it insulting to men that there's a presupposition we'll buy anything as long as there a skimpily dressed female in the vicinity. Appealing to a wider audience wow games are becoming more diverse and are no longer in strict genre walls and that's terrible. Name me one game that is specially designed for women and don't mention one for little girls as this discussion is evidently not about 7 year olds.

 

[Entitled]

I cant believe people actually believe such things as

"WHEN I WAS A NERD I WAS BEATEN UP! NOW WHEN THEY DO IT THEY GET LAUDED! THATS SO UNFAIR!"

Didnt you always fight for acceptance? To not let gaming define you totally but instead just to be a thing you LOVED like everything else people love?

Which makes as much sense as an elderly black man who fought for the right to vote saying:

"WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN VOTING I WAS BEATEN UP! NOW THEY DO IT AND ITS ENCOURAGED! THATS SO UNFAIR!"

Very faulty analogy. I didn't see anyone in this thread hating basic idea of gaming, or comics, or anything else, getting more socially accepted. I know that I don't hate that.

The analogy would be more fitting if the young black voters would be explicitly comparing themselves to the heroes of the Civil rights movement, abusing the fact that the significance of going to vote has changed, and they are not bravely fighting authority as the old man did.

The problem is not that young people are having a good life, but that they are belittling the memory of those who weren't as lucky as them.

Gaming is now a worldwide mainstream cultural phenomenon, with facebook games, iPhone apps, etc. That's good, I guess. Comic Book adaptations are being turned into blockbusters. That's pretty neutral to me, I don't care about comics anyways. Sci-fi shows are common, zombies are more mainstream than football, good for the artists, otherwise whatever.

I don't mind them loving their own, changed versions of these. But couldn't they enjoy them without ripping off the mannerisms and surface elements of that weird subculture of loners and freaks a few decades ago, who pursued "childish" hobbies, who obsessed over hated genres, whose entertainment often actually got BANNED, and who went the hard way to do the unusual, the freakish, the unacceptable?

 

[SnakeCL]

Wait... This is a thing? Really? I would think hot girls showing up at conventions would be a good thing whether their interest in the material was genuine or not. WTF Internet?

Well, its actually quite different when these girls show up at conventions, and then laugh at and mock the average congoer.

To put it simply, its more like the subculture where the "geek" has been subverted by the same individuals who used to beat them up in High School, or openly mock them, and no longer have a place in that group anymore. This is not just "girls" either. There are certainly many geeky women who are widely accepted among what could be construed as the more typical geek paradigm. Even these women are mocked by other women outside of that paradigm.

To put it simply, many people in this thread just don't know what the issue is or are misidentifying it, and Jim still has yet to make a salient point about pretty much anything.

Its not really much different from the bandwagon fan mentality in professional sports. The difference, is that if you have a replica of the fenway park scoreboard in your living room, you're seen as a diehard, and while maybe not accepted, you are at least respected. There's entire cultural outlets that cater to you. The cultural outlets that were previously just for the diehards of geek/nerd culture, are catering to a more casual group.

 

[Carlos Storm]

Been thinking a lot about what you've said, Jim, and the comments made on the video, because some people have made some fairly good points, trying to separate the argument you constructed for the exclusive purpose of tearing it down for show, from what I actually feel.

Ok I've tried typing this out about 4 times now, but just thinking about the definition of a "nerd", and what it means to me, reminded me of highschool, I had a friend who was a textbook nerd(looked like harry potter, played warhammer), we a shared a lot of 'nerdy' interests but I was never ridiculed for being a "nerd" while he was(he claimed this was because of my appearance).

It appears to be a misunderstanding of what a "Nerd" is:

For years "Nerd" was the title given to a social outcast, someone who was given nothing by their peers and turned instead to gaming or comics. Taking refuge in their parents basement while they roll D20's(sterotypical and pretty far from the truth for most cases nowadays, I'm aware). People were labeled Nerds and played videogames/read comics/anime because they were socially awkward, they were not nerds because they did those things, they did those things because they were nerds, that's a distinction many people don't seem to realize. When someone who clearly isn't a social outcast(looks as a metric for judging whether someone is a social outcast or not is scale that's worked since adolescence) claims to be a Nerd(a label forced on someone who's a social outcast) it's akin to a white kid pulling his pants halfway down his ass and saying "What's up my n******s?" he's pretending to be something he's not, looks utterly ridiculous, and clearly doesn't understand the culture he's claiming to be apart of.

Now I realize games and graphic novels have become more and more mainstream these days, and yes I welcome new fans to the medium, another sale of a good game by a good studio ensures they'll survive to make another. But people don't realize that playing the same games a nerd does, or reading the same manga, does not make you a nerd, just like swearing/yelling at people in the kitchen and cooking doesn't make me Gordon Ramsay. Gaming is becoming more accepted by popculture, and broadening to appeal to more than just the socially awkward, it has the right to as a medium, but like a dolphin caught in a tuna-net, the attentionseeking or ignorant might find themselves at a convention going on about what a gamer they are because they played the new halo, or how they're "such a nerd" because they play pokemon/watch Big Bang Theory.


Also, Gratz Megan and Jared!

 

[mrhateful]

I would also like to point out that people who usually hate "fake geek girls" also hate guys who do the same thing. It's just that you don't see it from guys as much. It's really not a sexism issue as much as it's made to seem.

^
Exactly, what makes you so mad about it, is that a person seeks attention in something you love.

I have a hard time giving a good example but try this one:
imagine you loved watching football and it was a really interesting match but instead of interviewing the players afterwards the media interviews a cheerleader because she took her bra off. Now imagine if the media then asked her, her opinion on how the game and represented her like she was one of the players. This is why fake gamer girls are such an affront to gaming in general.

 

[RoBi3.0]

Fake gamer girl tricked me into giving her attention then turned out to not like games after all.




----Doesn't matter had sex.

Lame people not able to close the deal really don't need to be mad at "fake nerd girls"