Jimquisition: Fake Nerd Girls

[kburns10]

To be fair, i think he probably meant that it was that if someones wearing X shirt, you could assume they actually like X, or even something vaguely similar to X. Though not really something to say as a pickup line is it?.. i mean if your already in a conversation, maybe say hey i like your shirt, not come up to a random stranger and say hey i like your shirt lol, hell I'd find it a bit odd if a chick came up to me and said that lol.

Haha agreed! You can't really blame "popular" people if you are socially awkward. I'm a nerd, but I'm not socially awkward. Nothing wrong with being it, just don't make excuses if you happen to come off as weird. That's life.

 

[PhiMed]

Clearly I haven't been paying enough attention to gaming media, because I don't really know what he's talking about.
I remember a comic (I think it was Critical Miss) on the same topic, and I didn't know what that was about, either.
It's like nerd journalists are having conversations with themselves about topics that they feel should be non-issues, thus transforming them into actual issues.

 

[axlryder]

Normally I kind of empathize with the the less popular crowd in these sort of situations, but no. When I heard this was a thing, my reaction was (and still is), just about identical to Jim's here. Grow the fuck up. Good god.

 

[2xDouble]

I wouldn't really call it an "outrage", I just hate being lied to. Surely women do as well, do they not?

Oh really? The common retort is that gamer guys 'hate being lied to'. I have to laugh! Nobody is 'lying' to you, any more than everybody lies to you every single day. You're being lied to constantly and consistently by everybody you've ever known. What's the threshold or context at which this becomes impossible to tolerate and thus raises one's ire?

Is it borrowing money from you, promising to take it back and never doing so? Assuring you that he didn't really bang the girl you've had a crush on since forever? Telling you that it was Tom who stole your rarest Pokemon card, when it was really he himself who took it? Oh no, the real lie is some girl who's possibly overstating how much she loves, enjoys or identifies with this particular sub culture which believe to be 'yours'.

By whose judgement? Yours? Pete over there? I think you'll find that one person's 'ubergeekdom' is another person's 'lame'. So who considers you fake right at this moment? Probably nobody, because you're not a 'hawt girl'.

Seriously, way more outrage than this topic deserves. Honestly, far more attention than this deserves.

In answer to your question: My judgement is the only one that matters to me. The same as yours is to you; that's a fact.

 

[Spearmaster]

Is this the same as all the girls Ive met that wear classic rock band t-shirts and when I ask them "so you like Led Zeppelin?" they reply with "Who?" or "ohh this is a band?"? Because that is annoying. I do love hearing the old "I play angry birds on my iphone, OMG I'm such a nerd now" it makes me laugh. People need to realize that every culture and sub culture has its influx of posers, a lot of people I knew in high school were trying to be urban gangstas or buying Honda civics and putting spoilers and bumblebee mufflers on them when the fast and the furious came out so don't be worried, ignore them and it will pass.

 

[punipunipyo]

wait... when did that happened? wait... NORMAL-HOT-LOOKING girlz, willing to put up the work, fake their way to get in OUR world? and you fools wants to give them hard time? WTF? our world is expanding, becoming the mainstream, and we are NOT jumping in joy? instead, we rather enjoy it in the dark corner? it's like THE KINGDOM comes today, and gaming is to be the number one hottest thing.. we are actually ditching heaven and embrace hell, so we can play our game, and enjoy it as exclusively in the dark? I donno... I kinda like to see gaming becoming a normal thing... it's officially art, and it's now Movie<Games right? that's why there are game title movies, Movies that FEEL like games, and few(even Disney) movies ABOUT GAMES... Why the hell are we NOT happy about this? We are f*&%ng taking over the world, and yo foos are saying that we DON'T want the world? WTF man!~

 

[Katya Topolkaraeva]

Here's how i see it. Modern nerds are somehow becoming attractive to women: possibly because they are often IT or programer guys and have higher earning potential (or something) and women are starting to find them attractive. And they, in tern find women who share their interests attractive thus women have decided that the whole geek girl with glasses and a controller in her hand and a cute character tee is a good way to go.
Men get annoyed because they are posers. (not a huge deal if someone is a poser, just kind of annoying). It's also annoying for people who were there at the start before it was cool and now suddenly it's becoming a cool pass time and everyone wants to jump on the band wagon. Like people who go on and on about how they love the band Muse (but only heard of them since they got popular). Is the annoyance justified? probably not, it's stupid, but it's also human nature.
Now, i am a gamer and i am a girl (a relatively attractive one). I have never once been scrutinized or questioned for this. EVER. i also don't advertize it in any way with my outfits. If the topic comes up i jump right in and it's clear i know enough to qualify.

 

[Yopaz]

I rarely agree this much with him. Seriously, why would anyone get upset over a person being so desperate for your attention that she pretends to like what you do just to get attention? It seems like a strange thing to get upset over, but I don't know.

You, like Jim, miss the point entirely. It's not girls wanting to fit in or being "desperate for your attention" it's girls out to manipulate nerds, either for their own ends, or being paid to do so by someone else (like in the case of booth babes and the like).

I wrote a more detailed answer (phrased to aim it directly at Jim) earlier, but I imagine it was too long for a lot of people, and also not what they'd want to hear.

I'm sure this happens to you all the time so it's a really big deal, but having never seen someone I can't see this being widespread.

Of course manipulation of anyone is a problem, but are those who pretend to like games any different than any other kind of manipulation? Why is it specific focus on those who pretend to like games rather than those who manipulate in any other way?

Now if you say they are no different, explain why you draw a line separating those. Why is it fake nerd girls rather than manipulative behaviour in full that gets you riled up?

Well, manipulative behavior riles most people when you get down to it. The whole "fake nerd girl" thing is simply a kind of manipulative behavior, which is why it gets such strong, negative responses. My problem is that it needs to be understood as a manipulative behavior in order to understand the reaction.

As far as I go, my direct experience has been seeing some pretty solid guilds ripped apart by this kind of thing, and otherwise viewing the damage in various internet communities. For the most part I don't deal with it myself since my internet persona is pretty bloody unapproachable and not especially well liked (even if not hated). You might of course also realize at this point there are reasons why I carry myself the way I do.

In the first post I wrote I went into more detail, but let's just say there was an issue with this kind of thing before it wound up on the radar of sites like The Escapist and commentators like Jim. The whole chan-inspired "Tits or GTFO" is pretty much in response to the "faux nerd girl", rather than just being a matter of general sexism. It basically coming down to the stereotype of some cute girl coming into fringe culture, flirting, and then showing her boobs for gifts (even if worked into subtly). The basic schtick basically being "you might as well just show me your tits now, and get the pretensions over with", or a sort of "I'm onto you". This is why when you see a cute-seeming girl being unusually friendly or acting geeky someone will toss one of the many versions of that copypasta her way.

I read your post before falling asleep so I might not remember it completely here, but it seemed like you indicated that any attractive person can't be a nerd. Now I'd say that is quite insulting and a really broad generalization. It seems like you think that being a nerd ism socially unaccepted and that by being attractive you're automatically accepted. Social skills has nothing to do with it. I might be wrong simply because of the state I am in now and the state I was when I read it though.

However I'm not sure if you are actually talking about girls who go around wearing geeky t-shirts without liking games or girls who play online games where they intentionally use the fact that they have a matching pair of chromosomes to manipulate guys. I am talking about the girls appearing as geeks and I am pretty sure that was what this video was about too. Now of course the kind of manipulation you talk about is bad, but that is something else entirely. Those aren't girls pretending to like games in order to get attention, those are girls pretending to like you in order to get something for free. Honestly I think you are the one who missed the point here.

 

[I.Muir]

This blew up quickly
I just wish this would stop being a big deal
Some gamer guys have problems with women
However these few are vastly outnumbered by a massive horde of white knights that will just as rabidly attack any criticisms directed towards these "gamer girls"
The whole thing becomes quickly unbearable to be around and I honestly just wish the gamer girl existence thing would stop being a big deal so people stop thinking they are special because of their gender and that others stop getting mad about it

The best example is that tropes vs women thing
She was unreasonably attacked by misogynists
Then her project was massively over funded and defended by white knights when why it needed funding at all was valid question
and all in all it would have made for a rather stupid documentary if it ever gets made that will continue to reinforce the opinion of rabid feminists or anti-men really and a bunch of beta males as they are so fondly referred to

 

[Strazdas]

snip

Its hard to explain why they are so offensive but I tried to give an example 2 posts up.

Yeah, none of which seemed to make sense to me. You acknowledge men can do the same thing, but only give examples about women. I'm not sure what you're hang up is, but it seems to go deeper than booth babes.

Oh I have nothing against booth babes lol, they are hired for a job to show off a product.

you mean, they are hired for a job, to show off boobs, so we wouldn't be able to see how bad the product is?

 

[Nathan Crawford]

I think it's about more than fake gamer girls, and this phrase is merely a piece of the fake "im such a nerd lol" puzzle.

I enjoyed Maddox's explanation here:

http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd

On the topic of fake gamers it's demeaning of the time someone has invested into their hobby (gaming) for someone else to then come along and claim they are just as much into this hobby as the first person, despite not investing anywhere near a similar effort.

Yes it is rude on gamers parts to assume that just because this person is female and/or attractive, they are not a real gamer, but it is possible the feelings behind such a statement stem from something such as societies changing definitions, and from more than a planned attempt to keep females away from games.

 

[Vault101]

I think it's about more than fake gamer girls, and this phrase is merely a piece of the fake "im such a nerd lol" puzzle.

I enjoyed Maddox's explanation here:

http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=youre_not_a_nerd

not sure I like his Idea of "being a nerd"

[spoiler/][quote/]The model above looks like she has the choice to have lots of sex. She's probably not a nerd. Not fair? Well neither is being born attractive. Let the nerds have something. Not everyone was born with good looks or enough power & wealth to compensate. Stay out of nerd territory unless you know what you're doing. Being a nerd is a byproduct of losing yourself in what you do, often at the expense of friends, family and hygiene. Until or unless you've paid your dues, you aren't welcome. Being a nerd isn't graceful or glorious. It's a life born out of obsessive dedication to a craft, discipline or collecting some stupid shit that only you care about. [/quote][/spoiler]
seems too cynical and angry...

 

[N-E]

The problem with posers is that actual nerds and geeks are still ostracized and treated like crap by "mainstream" society, so it is rather painful to watch people co-opt and dilute the positive identity they have created through being a pariah.

Go figure that people might be upset about that.

Gaming/anime/manga/scifi shows are becoming more popular among the wider culture, but the actual nerds and geeks that created the initial base for those things are not. That is why the typical stereotype is still a fat, basement dwelling, neckbeard or heroin skinny, glasses wearing, bucktoothed, egghead. That is why their is push back and "gate keeping". The pariah knows what they have helped create is accepted or enjoyed, they also know the poser has not accepted the actual nerds/geeks who have helped create it.

Then, as numerous people have pointed out, posers actually do take attention away from the real nerds and geeks. Nerds and geeks, who have worthwhile comments on the culture and it various mediums get passed over for someone who looks hot but contributes nothing worthy of discussion. Yeah, that can be rather irritating.

And make no mistake, male posers are attacked too. Usually a man who is found to be a poser is quickly rousted out if they try to speak for an area of geekdom they are pretending in.

Eh, it pisses me off.
Never seen a dude be accused of being fake.
So, only females can be fake?

EDIT: Oh and people likening this to 'weeding out the posers', why is it girls getting the weeding but for a male, one's nerdiness is seldom called into question?

Bull**** you've never seen a guy being accused of being a fake. Guys get called fakes all the time. Guys get called fakes more than girls/women/females. Ever heard the term "Bro" gamer? Or guys being called out on being CoD fratboys? The entirety of the CoD not being real gamers mentality is entirely aimed at males for liking their Total Heterosexual Kill Fest games. The entirety of the PC Gaming Master Race vs Dirty Console Peasants was almost entirely male centric when gender came into it as well, with male gamers being blamed for yet another watered down shooter/reskinned sports game.

It is common, insanely common, for Bro gamers to be dismissed as not real gamers. Just mentioning you like CoD or Halo in some gaming circles will instantly get you thrown out if you are a guy.

And in table top gaming simply liking the wrong RPG system can get you tossed out. Just revealing you are a Brony (Bronie? I always forget the spelling) can get you tossed out of some nerd circles for not being a true Scotsman.

The difference is no one cares when a guy gets called a fake/poser and chased off or isolated; at best disinterested parties call it penis waving, or just lump them into different sub-cultures within geekdom. Another difference is this curious social difference in that guys rarely make being a guy their declared defining trait in the realms of geekdom. They are gamers, nerds, or geeks first, and guys second, sometimes guys third or fourth depending on how specific their set of interests is, if they even think about being male/gender at all.

On top of disinterest in what guys actually face, guys get the double whammy of also being the sexist, misogynist pigs who alternatively only think of bewbs when they see an attractive women, then get accused of Idunnowhat, double reverse misogny, in threads like this for not instantly being accepting of attractive women in geekdom and instead being so audacious as to actually try to establish that it is not an attempted exploitation of the stereotype of nerds and geeks being little better than sex-starved teens.

Being called misogynist, being subject to a form of misandry, and marginalized creates backlack, go figure. Being exposed constantly to the same kind of attitude that made shirts that say "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them" acceptable, but "Girls are stupid, pull their hair" unacceptable creates a group suspicious of outsiders, go figure. It does not engender feelings of peace and acceptance among nerds and geeks.

Big surprise some guys who are part of a group of men who have largely been viewed as emasculated and ostracized by the larger portion of society might be a bit defensive of their space and therefore suspicious of outsiders trying to exploit them or insult their intelligence. And what guys have to go through in geekdom and mainstream society is largely ignored, or pushed to the side, and this in turn ignores why guys might be suspicious of girls coming into geekdom ?or part of a different sphere of geekdom? who are possibly only trying to humiliate, exploit, or marginalize them.

Even look at this debate, look at Jim's video, talking about the suspicion women face, as if no man/boy has ever had to deal with it. Anyone who has witnessed an Edition war knows that guys face the challenge of being authentic all the friggin time, inside geekdom as well as in mainstream society. It is not unique to women.

Even looking like the stereotypical nerd or geek male can still get your credentials double checked because you said you like 4th ed. and were not a fan of 3.5. If you are a gaming geek and dare walk into the realm of table top expect to be put through a ringer of tests to show you can RP or wargame properly, else you be labelled as That Guy.

The entirety of geekdom is built upon the testing of credentials and establishing a sub-culture within the culture. This actually makes sense when examining what a nerd or geek actually is, a person who is obsessively knowledgeable and conscientious about particular interests that are widely looked down upon or misunderstood by mainstream society.

Women are not the only ones who 'suffer' the woes of being accused of not being authentic, but, predictably, women are the only ones whose suffering we care about or bother to notice.

Will no one think of the Bro gamer?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

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?

It's not about what makes a nerd so much as what makes one not a nerd. The first is hard to define, the second is very, very easy.

So, what are these obvious things that disqualify one from nerd-hood?

It seems a lot of people in this thread are using overly narrow definitions. Nerds come in all shapes, sizes and types. Someone might be a nerd about physics, who has never read a comic book or played a video game. Some people are nerds about steam trains. Do you think that guy writing his PhD on 18th Century Russian Literature isn't a nerd?

Also, I reject the notion suggested by others that a nerd has to be a social outcast. There are plenty of nerds who have good social skills and are attractive. There are even nerds who are also athletes. Nerdiness is not something that should be judged by appearance. I work with a lot of Professors, and they are some of the nerdiest people you'll ever meet - but they can get as many women as they like, because they are witty conversationalists who can talk all night about any number of fascinating topics you may never have heard of.

I think the most important factor to being a nerd is a curious, inquisitive mind, followed by deep interests and knowledge thereof. But mainly the intellectual curiosity.

I guess what I'm saying is don't judge people based on first impressions, or whether their knowledge matches your particular nerd interests. That "fake nerd girl" that's dismissed because she's just a good-looking casual gamer might also be a brilliant computer programmer, or an archaeologist, or whatever. Most adults who are secure in their nerdy ways usually don't feel the need to constantly prove themselves, or go around waving their resume to prove how smart they are.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Who cares who is the one running the industry? Just cause Scrooge owns it is it suddenly something devoid of meaning?


As for the "fake nerd girl" thing, that's just a variety of the "fake being into x cause it's now cool to be into x" thing. Disdain towards them seems like disdain towards anyone who just now decided that this thing which they made fun of for all their life suddenly is cool and they wanna be part of it, despite how they've behaved towards it in the past.


It's not about having to "prove" yourself or anything silly than that but if people are not being genuine it is prudent to point it out. Of course this is a general thing and not limited to girls or gaming or w/e.

 

[Okulossos]

Oh Dear... yea, if you put it that way it does sound ridiculous, but that is not what it is all about.
It is NOT bout some girls claiming to enjoy geek-stuff, it is about some people, who laughed at you during you younger years for being a nerd who are now using what you helped to build up to place themselves into a now popular culture they have no right to be in. Let me put is differently:
Imagine you want to build a house and there is someone who constantly hinders you, kicks in you walls, does everything he/she can just to show you how bad and faulty it all is. Then, when you finally do finish the house, the same person comes by, walks right into you house and says "nice house, I'll take that room!"
That is what happened to nerd culture.
It is now "cool" because some people took years of punishment from "the cool guys". And now "the cool guys" take what we build up and we get CoD and Madden and millions of flamers and strange people who destroy the way we play online games. I don't play online anymore even though I used to play every second of my spare time back in School, because the environment has become so hostile. The community has grown to its demise because people are now part of it who don't care about the community, all they care for is being cool.

I don't care about some girl in a sexy outfit (well.. ok, I do, but for other reasons ), but I do care for what happened to the world I helped to build and I was called out for.

But the thing is: it can't be helped, that is the way things are evolving, and we have to live with it, so I guess in the end it's all ok. I am not sad or anything, because now they depend on my knowledge and this it gives me great business opportunities and the likes . I just want to say, that I do understand how some people feel and why they act like that.

For me personally, it is all over and done for. I don't care much anymore. The Internet now belongs to people who don't even understand what the Internet is or what the word means. We are looking at a generation that thinks their Internet comes from that small icon in the lower or upper light corner of their screen. We are now selling facebook machines for up to a couple of thousand dollars because the case looks so nice. People like Steve Jobs understood how to make money from this wave of ignorance and even though I don't like what he does and what he stands for, I have to give him credit for being such an amusing troll .

 

[lostlevel]

Hey leave Firefly out of this!

It does not need to be be sullied by this topic. This guy has a point:

When gamers wonder why we're not taken seriously? Why we're still held at a distance by the mainstream media?

Things like this.

I don't think it matters (some) video games are part of pop culture nowadays and therefore will be subverted for fun or money in numerous ways. I think we need to accept it and move on, Okulossos has some good valid points though.

 

[longboardfan]

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.

Right because only women deserve being treated nice and fairly. Like little children they need protecting. Lets change everything and force people to behave differently just because a woman might hear something offensive on the Internet while gaming. Honestly, your stance is more offensive than mine. That women NEED to be protected from themselves and others because they can't handle the chance that offensive things might be said.

Mute button works wonders. I wonder why women can't figure out how to use it. I know I learned how to use it about .5 seconds into my first Modern Warfare match. But no, lets change everything, because women are too incompetent to figure out how to use the Y button or (system specific button here). I say, treat women like adults, and have them learn the system before changing it.

Fake gamer girls are trying to change the way people play games and alter the mentality of gamers and publishers so that they can "Feel Safe (tm)." They exploit male gamers by pretending to be interested in their hobbies while at the same time stifling the culture. Lets all be Politically Correct, there might be a female listening! Its demeaning to men and very demeaning to women. Especially the ones that actually play games.