Jimquisition: Fake Nerd Girls

[Speksi]

BNWAHAHJAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Yeah, sex does not matter? Then why do people keep attacking female regulars on the TF2 server I visit? How do they know they are female? Well, they talk. And that is literally enough to tick people like you off, assume they are 'gamur gurlz' and giving them shit.

So may I ask you: Why does the sex of the people who play with you matter?

I'm sorry, I don't play TF2, or any other modern shooter for that matter. I have played CS, the older versions to be precise, with women and against women, and never once has it pissed me off. I have ran my mouth off about it, but you know what, I run my mouth at everyone, regardless of their gender. The difference is, at the end of it all, I can say GG, because the women I've played with never expected to be treated differently for being women, and they respond to my trash talk by talking it right back.

These women are not the problem. When they join a server or vent, they don't go "THATS RIGHT I'M A WOMAN DEAL WITH IT (oh god please someone pay attention to me)", they go "Sup fags, let's play". They don't want the attention for being female, and if someone gives it to them regardless, they ignore it.

http://steamcommunity.com/actions/Search?K=Girl+Gamer&x=0&y=0
http://specialsnowflakesyndrome.tumblr.com/post/20354624027/steam-gamer-girls-the-master-post

Why do these people feel the need to mention their gender in their posts/bio? I don't. Because they think they are special, and deserve the special attention for it. Only reason I can think of.

 

[Speksi]

What am I supposed to see in those links? The profile search is pretty normal, I don't see anything that implies that the girls who added 'girl' in their username expect to be treated different. If you think that... Does it work the other way? With males who add anything genderrelated to their profile name?

And those descirptions are the result of what happens to a random girl who decides to join a server and not keep her mouth shut (as in, she actually wants to play): She does get shit from the random idiots who think that she is a 'gurl gamer' - something I have yet to encounter in 15 years of multiplayer (14 with internet).

What you are supposed to see is "PAY ATTENTION TO MEEE!". Gaming is a male dominated culture, so when a guy references to himself as a "he", it's not seeking attention, it's just.. Well, everyone already assumed it, so who cares. When a girl does it, it's more along the lines of "LOOK! LOOK! I'M A GIRL, NOT A GUY AS YOU EXPECTED! BUT PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT IT!". And no, profiles like that are not the result of being harrassed, it's attention whoring at it's finest.

I don't know what it is you've been doing in the internet for 14 years, but what you should probably have picked up along the way is if you don't want to be called out on something you don't go "LOOK AT THIS THING I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO LOOK AT, AND PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT IT!".

I can't speak for the 12-year olds who play TF2/CoD/Halo/Whatever, but from my experience girls who like to play games are VERY different from girls who are in it for the attention. I have several female acquintances who play games, but who I've never heard talking about themselves as girl gamers. They are just girls who enjoy a rather male-dominated pastime. Gurl gamerzz, on the other hand, seem to mostly be a problem for console gamers, and only rarely does one encounter them in PC games.

Girls who play hockey don't refer to themselves as HOCKEY GURLLLS. Girls who tinker about with their cars/motorcycles don't call themselves CAR GURLLZ or MOTORCYCLE GURLLZ. Guys who like cooking don't call themselves GUY CHEFS. Guys who like Sex and the City (assuming they exist) don't call themselves GUYS WHO LIKE SEX AND THE CITY.

Why is it that girls who like gaming have to constantly bring it up? Don't you have a personality beyond your extra X chromosome?

 

[Speksi]

Because they have still to fight for the gaming community to accept them as equal. That. Fucking. Simple.

Why would anyone accept you as an equal if YOU are the one who HAS to try and act as if you're different, namely by pointing at your gender and going "LOOK, DIFFERENT!"? The best way to be accepted as an equal is to act like an equal. I've never used my own picture as a profile picture on forums/games/steam community, despite the fact that I'm really a rather handsome chap, but I don't see why I would. It's got nothing to do with my life online.

I don't care about my Steam profile, I care about the games I play, which is why I don't call myself THE HANDSOME FINNISH MALE, 24-YEARS OF AGE . I also don't have a bio, because again it has nothing to do with me playing games, but if I did, it most certainly wouldn't say "Yes I'm a good looking, athletic, intelligent male with a larger than average prostate. I like music, sports, games, and cooking (JUST BECAUSE I'M A MAN DON'T THINK I CAN'T COOK BETTER THAN YOU). But, despite all these things, please don't hit on me silly girls, I'm only here to play games!".

If I did, I would be attention whoring, and would be in no position to complain if someone were to ask pictures of the aforementioned prostate. But since I don't bring it up, nobody has. I also rarely use any of my actual nicknames, but instead just smash in something along the lines of DSAF, because I don't want the attention, I just want to play in peace. If I used a nickname along the lines of "HANDSOME GUY 22CM", I would once again have nobody but myself to blame if someone asked the meaning behind the 22cm.

Like it or not, gaming is still a culture populated by men. I consider WoW to be a fairly gender-neutral game, in that people from both sexes can find it enjoyable to an equal degree. I tried looking for stats on how many WoW players are men, and how many women, but the best rough estimate I could find was from about 60% men to about 75% men. And remember, it doesn't get much more gender-neutral than a fantasy MMO. If you want to blend in with the men, you don't go "I HAVE BREASTS!", you go "So how about that last update, eh?".

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Actually, the reason why a lot of girls wear sexy costumes is because they like wearing sexy costumes. A person capable of self-reflection and not wanting to attract a certain type of attention would think "hhmm it appears my enormous breasts are about to explode out of my costume" or "maybe I'll cosplay a different more reasonable-looking character." Women aren't idiots and there are plenty of solid female characters despite what gaming media would have you believe.

Q.E.D

I never said women are dressing up just for me, in fact I elaborated on this very concept. Women dressing up like this are capturing male attention in general, not just my attention. Also, the reason why girls go for this demographic is because it's easy, lucrative and non-threatening. Why the hell wouldn't women seeking this kind of attention target this culture? And I explicitly stated multiple times that it's within anyone's rights if they want to dress up in a couple of bits of masking tape at a gaming convention, I've just said a person doing this is worthy of contempt.

So girls arnt allowed to cosplay any game character who happens to wear clothing, designed by dudes, that appears slutty without being an attention whore. There is NO way they can do one without the other. At all. So that girl has large boobs. I dont think we can change that, the moxxi girl btw, so what can she do? Is she forbidden from cosplay? Must she adhere to ONLY cosplaying women with the correct amount of clothing? She has the same body type as moxxi. Maybe she LIKES moxxi? Maybe she likes borderlands? I can play ANY dude i want in gaming. Any at all. Without judgement if my body type is the same as the dude im playing. Spartan or otherwise. But women just cannot cosplay a large section of it because the characters were designed too raunchy and that makes them forbidden. Stop being so gorram judgmental of people. Stop assuming that just because someone does X their reasoning MUST be Y. Unless you talk to a person you have no right to guess what their motivation may be.

So a woman learns about a character and forks over a lot of money for an accurate cosplay and THEN attends a LONG event which is also expensive JUST for "General male attention" while weathering the storm of judgement from people like you for daring to do so. Sorry no im not buying that this happens in anything but a minority if at all. Basically no one goes to this level of fakery.

Here is a fake nerd girl as i imagine one to be:

"I love games, RPGS are my favourite!"

"Oh me too!"

"Oh what ones do you like?"

"Erm...."

SO its a casual conversation where someone fakes knowledge of a subject to try and be accepted by the other person. That person isnt a "Fake nerd girl". They are a liar. There doesnt need to be a name for it. It happens in ALL hobbies by anyone who wants to fake something to get accepted. You cannot tell who these people are by looks. Ever. Not even slightly. Its a certain type of person who does this and it doesnt restrict itself to "Nerds" or "Girls" or anything. Its just liars. A simple title that needs nothing added to it.

Someone at a con who took significant time and effort to appear like a character as well as attend an ALL DAY event about gaming is NOT someone i will ever assume is there JUST or primarily for attention unless i speak to them and they, personally, tell me that its the reason they turned up. Im alright with judging someone for their actions. Im not ok assuming i know anything about a person by looking at them, especially when i narrow that focus only to only women. Im pretty heavily against slut shaming anyway. If a woman wants to look sexy thats not always for you OR men generally. If it offends you that people like looking nice because you assume its to "Manipulate the poor liddle mensies" try thinking that its for THEMSELVES rather than you.

And also how "Into" a character does a woman have to be before we accept that shes doing it because she likes the character rather than BECAUSE they have a slutty outfit? Ive wanted to cosplay characters i dont know THAT much about just because i look like them (Light Yagami even though i never finished deathnote to the end). Some characters i love so much id cosplay even if it was a "Slutty outfit" like Scott Pilgrim so power to people who love a character enough to not give a shit. I think fake nerd girls are a tiny minority. These are people who intentionally lie when its easy in casual conversation to appear knowledgeable. Whats far more common is people with varying levels of interest in games.

 

[DanHibiki]

I blame Big Bang Theory.

It's the minstrel show of nerds.

 

[Loop Stricken]

I am a MLP fan.

Well that just says it all, doesn't it? No wonder I can't get through to you with logic. I bet you also go to reddit and post LE EPIC MEME FACES xDD

And if I'd wanted to be recognized as a female online I would neither put male as my gender nor my real name on most profiles. And I don't even want to think how you came to that conclusion. So what is your point?

You're trying to say women play for the sake of playing. That women want to be treated equally, and not be talked to as if they were women at all. Yet, you think it's not stupid at all that women feel the need to draw EXTRA ATTENTION to the fact that they are women? That is my point. It sounds unbelievably stupid to me, but maybe you have to have intellect low enough to be able to enjoy My Little Pony to understand the logic.

So instead, women should be ashamed of their gender and try their very damndest to purge all hint of femininity from their online interactions?

You're pretty weird, bro. Also, judgemental.
And as a watcher of the Pony scourge, I'd like to point out that I barely know what Reddit is, and despise 'le' anything.

 

[Hollyday]

What you are supposed to see is "PAY ATTENTION TO MEEE!". Gaming is a male dominated culture, so when a guy references to himself as a "he", it's not seeking attention, it's just.. Well, everyone already assumed it, so who cares. When a girl does it, it's more along the lines of "LOOK! LOOK! I'M A GIRL, NOT A GUY AS YOU EXPECTED! BUT PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT IT!". And no, profiles like that are not the result of being harrassed, it's attention whoring at it's finest.

I don't know what it is you've been doing in the internet for 14 years, but what you should probably have picked up along the way is if you don't want to be called out on something you don't go "LOOK AT THIS THING I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO LOOK AT, AND PLEASE DON'T TALK ABOUT IT!".

Hi! Been following this thread for a while without responding, but found this really interesting. You've had a lot of quotes on this post I'm sure, and I'm not trying to single you out to take to task on this issue, but your view is so different to mine that I'd be intrigued to know how you perceive my behaviour online.

You seem to imply that women shouldn't put anything gender related on profiles etc. because they don't want to be 'called out' for being women, and that's not the case. We just don't want to be harassed, ridiculed and insulted because of it. You can call me out for being a woman all day long - it's neither flattering nor offensive; it's simply a statement of fact. But when people start their screams of 'Get back in the kitchen' and calling you a fat/ugly/lesbian/slut/sex-starved attention whore for simply using a female pronoun in the 'about you' section, then I have a problem.

I use a female avatar, pick a female-skewing username and happily refer to myself as a woman because I'm a woman. To go out of my way to cover that up would not only be against my nature but would also be absurd. I'm not part of an ashamed minority.

I don't throw my femaleness in people's faces. I also don't hide it. Exactly as almost all male gamers/internet users do.

Would you say that I'm 'attention whoring'?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I was going to add something to the discussion but this pretty much covers it. Why exactly should we be ashamed of being female?

Most of my usernames could be taken as 'feminine' and I tend to err towards the colour pink and female characters. If we hide who we are we tend to just get told 'No women game that's why the devs don't care' when we say we would like female marines in AVP or something.

The fact is we don't do it for your attention we just name ourselves what WE like and pick characters that WE like. Stop being so self important.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

Is it so hard to understand that people don't like phonies?

This topic has very little to do with either women or games. If a man claims, emphatically, that he's into figure skating and walks around with skates all the time but then falls flat on his ass as soon as he's put on ice then I'll laugh at him. I'll point and jeer too, most likely.

So why shouldn't I with "girl gamers"?

What possesses people to fake it that hard? Are their lives so dull and uninteresting, have they so few genuine interests that they have to lie about them just to get accepted? That doesn't sound healthy at all and you're doing yourself a disservice and you're doing your intended "audience" a disservice too. Eventually you'll stretch yourself so thin with the lies that you can't keep them up. And when your 'audience' finds out, they'll feel betrayed...

And factor the sheer moneygrubbing factor into that story and you've got yourself a lovely picture.


Should you give anyone a hard time for wearing a pikachu dress for fun, when they don't know what a magikarp is? No. Should you give them a hard time for having a portal desktop picture when they don't know who Valve is? No.

Should you give them a hard time when they've just exclaimed how much they love gaming, how much of a gamer they are, how awesome games are and basically been droning on for 30 long contentless minutes while their experience with games comes down to Angry Birds? In my opinion? Yes.


We're human beings. As human beings, we don't like being lied to and we don't like being manipulated. That really isn't such an outlandish thing to frown upon.

 

[Mahoshonen]

Is it so hard to understand that people don't like phonies?

This topic has very little to do with either women or games. If a man claims, emphatically, that he's into figure skating and walks around with skates all the time but then falls flat on his ass as soon as he's put on ice then I'll laugh at him. I'll point and jeer too, most likely.

So why shouldn't I with "girl gamers"?

What possesses people to fake it that hard? Are their lives so dull and uninteresting, have they so few genuine interests that they have to lie about them just to get accepted? That doesn't sound healthy at all and you're doing yourself a disservice and you're doing your intended "audience" a disservice too. Eventually you'll stretch yourself so thin with the lies that you can't keep them up. And when your 'audience' finds out, they'll feel betrayed...

And factor the sheer moneygrubbing factor into that story and you've got yourself a lovely picture.


Should you give anyone a hard time for wearing a pikachu dress for fun, when they don't know what a magikarp is? No. Should you give them a hard time for having a portal desktop picture when they don't know who Valve is? No.

Should you give them a hard time when they've just exclaimed how much they love gaming, how much of a gamer they are, how awesome games are and basically been droning on for 30 long contentless minutes while their experience with games comes down to Angry Birds? In my opinion? Yes.


We're human beings. As human beings, we don't like being lied to and we don't like being manipulated. That really isn't such an outlandish thing to frown upon.

Quite simple: You have failed to find any evidence that they are 'faking' an interest in games whatsoever, other than your presupposition that an attractive girl cannot possibly be interested in videogames and deserves to be shamed by you in order to feel better about yourself. Nor have you provided any evidence that such a strawman (or strawwoman, I suppose) even exists, or provide a reason for why playing Angry Birds exclusively is somehow less of a qualifier for liking video games than someone who only plays, say, World of Warcraft.

Note that I said "interest". A person can be interested in Star Trek without having seen all 73 episodes of the original series. Someone can like the Lord of the Rings without having read every single thesis J.J.R. Tolkein has ever written. And someone dressed up as Pikachu can still be interested in Pokemon even if they can't name all 649 of them from memory.

 

[PH3NOmenon]

Is it so hard to understand that people don't like phonies?

This topic has very little to do with either women or games. If a man claims, emphatically, that he's into figure skating and walks around with skates all the time but then falls flat on his ass as soon as he's put on ice then I'll laugh at him. I'll point and jeer too, most likely.

So why shouldn't I with "girl gamers"?

What possesses people to fake it that hard? Are their lives so dull and uninteresting, have they so few genuine interests that they have to lie about them just to get accepted? That doesn't sound healthy at all and you're doing yourself a disservice and you're doing your intended "audience" a disservice too. Eventually you'll stretch yourself so thin with the lies that you can't keep them up. And when your 'audience' finds out, they'll feel betrayed...

And factor the sheer moneygrubbing factor into that story and you've got yourself a lovely picture.


Should you give anyone a hard time for wearing a pikachu dress for fun, when they don't know what a magikarp is? No. Should you give them a hard time for having a portal desktop picture when they don't know who Valve is? No.

Should you give them a hard time when they've just exclaimed how much they love gaming, how much of a gamer they are, how awesome games are and basically been droning on for 30 long contentless minutes while their experience with games comes down to Angry Birds? In my opinion? Yes.


We're human beings. As human beings, we don't like being lied to and we don't like being manipulated. That really isn't such an outlandish thing to frown upon.

Quite simple: You have failed to find any evidence that they are 'faking' an interest in games whatsoever, other than your presupposition that an attractive girl cannot possibly be interested in videogames and deserves to be shamed by you in order to feel better about yourself. Nor have you provided any evidence that such a strawman (or strawwoman, I suppose) even exists, or provide a reason for why playing Angry Birds exclusively is somehow less of a qualifier for liking video games than someone who only plays, say, World of Warcraft.

Note that I said "interest". A person can be interested in Star Trek without having seen all 73 episodes of the original series. Someone can like the Lord of the Rings without having read every single thesis J.J.R. Tolkein has ever written. And someone dressed up as Pikachu can still be interested in Pokemon even if they can't name all 649 of them from memory.

I disagree.

If you call yourself a gamer, then that implies you know about more than one game. Note that I say "know about". I'm deliberately being very broad here. It's quite simple: you don't call yourself a movie buff because you've seen one movie. You don't call yourself a football-fan because you play football in your backyard. Claiming a term implies some greater interest in whatever field you're talking about. And again, that doesn't mean that people who don't know the first thing about basketball can't wear a basketball-team jersey. That's perfectly fine. It's when they start mouthing off endlessly about how big of a fan they are (or start monetizing that claim) and they can't put their money where their mouth is that a problem arises.

Also, I never even mentioned the gender of my supposed phony, nor their attractiveness. You just got that out of thin air. I don't specify anything except the fact that if you're going to boast about being a "huge fan" of anything, then you shouldn't come crying when people are upset when they find out that you aren't what you claimed you were.

Methinks people are getting a wee bit too riled up in this thread. I should've known better than to reply in any thread that has the word "gender" in it on the escapist forum.

 

[WOPR]

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.

I'm sure people have replied but let me throw my 2 cents in. I don't get "angry" per-say, I just get really annoyed with them.


As for the "fake nerd girls" that actually do bug me, I don't "hate" them, they're just annoying... It's like shoving a republican in a room full of democrats, almost every person in there will see this guy and think "Ugh he has no idea what he's talking about and we really wish he would just shut up and leave". At least that's what the fake nerd girls here are like...

Terrible analogy there, that's an example of fundamental disagreement. A better example would be to put someone who's never studied any science besides what he learned in high school while thinking he understand it in a room of scientists. I have had several discussions trying to explain evolution to someone who's misunderstood the basic concepts of it and refusing to believe that he is wrong.

Now that wasn't the topic on hand so let's get back on track. I have never seen Nintendo commercials because it's illegal to run advertisement directed towards kids here (which means almost no game commercials at all) so I wont comment on that. For the rest of it though I agree. It's annoying and there's no way around it. I just don't see a reason to hate it and to get upset over it. They want to think of themselves as nerds, OK I don't see a problem with that. They want to discuss something they wouldn't know existed if it wasn't for The Big Bang Theory? OK, now we're talking annoying.

No matter how hard I try, I can't bring myself to disagree with your statement. They are annoying and that's final. The problem though is those who feel so much pride in being a nerd that they force anyone who calls themselves a gamer or a nerd to prove themselves like it's a protected title. This is the path towards becoming a misogynist.

Now you're right that you're not the first one to quote me, but you are the first one who isn't a misogynist who uses every negative stereotype about both nerds and girls so I feel refreshed by your post. Thank you for being reasonable.

Yeah sorry, those were really terrible anologies, I was half asleep and really hungry at the time so I don't doubt it haha.

Back on track though... The nintendo commercials generally go something like this
or this
yeah, and WE'RE the ones pushing gaming stereotypes and trying to keep it a "boys only" club... *grumbles*

But yes, it's just really annoying... Personally, I do have standards to what is and is not a gamer, but they're really low... If all you do is play Sims/Farmville you're not a gamer, in the same way someone who can only play Hot Crossed Buns and Marry had a little lamb isn't a musician; and if you're dressed in costume... at least know who you are... The only time I have ever been PO'ed at a cosplayer was on halloween at high school my Jr. Year, I don't care how attractive you are, you're not "Green Mario" you're "Luigi"! It even says on the hat!

And thank you too for being reasonable, I'm used to getting flack for everything haha.

 

[Ishal]

For the 3 girls who claim to be gamers.

When did you beat Dark Souls?

Don't answer. You didn't.

so I'm not a gamer?

and thats your benchmark? what if say...I wasnt interested in darksouls?

how many guys didn't beat dark souls? answer me that, being a gamer has fuck all to do with whats in between your legs

no, I didn't beat dark souls, I played it for a while to check it out, while it was hard mabye I could have if I had the dedication and time, but I didn't..I moved on

but you know what? I never claimed to be GOOD at games, I'd say I'm decent and games thease days are generally very easy anyway, so apologies if I don't fit your stupid criteria

For what its worth. Guy gamer/nerd/geek etc right here. Never touched Demon Souls or Dark Souls. Don't have the interest.

 

[Chemical Alia]

All this thread has succeeded in is making me hate nerds and nerd culture even more than I usually do. For such a "maligned" group ofpeople, some of you sure seem to have an unusual interest in judging others. I'd love to know why one's femininity is something so bad that it must be hidden (up to women simply using voice chat). If I meet someome who just newly into something that I have enjoyed for a long time, or shows some interest but donesn't know a whole lot, I'm more than happy to share it, discuss it with them and help them learn, not degrade them. Whether it's games, art, modeling, Star Wars AU, etc.

People can be so nasty in their insecurity.