Poll: Fake Geek Girl Meme

[DoPo]

People wear strange things because they think that it looks good

And if they are free to think that, I'm free to think it's dumb. We're even there.

 

[Megacherv]

I know plenty of people who suffer from 'Fake Geek', mostly from stuff such as liking Big Bang Theory or figuring out how to bring up the DOS prompt on the high school machines (note I said DOS prompt, which is different to the command prompt).

I'm a CS student and avid gamer who plays game both virtual and physical, and yet these people try and claim they're part of geek culture when they're the kind of people we hate claiming they're geeks.

With regards to the DOS prompt thing, you do realise that the filename of the operating system in MS-DOS was called command.com - hence the "command" prompt is the "DOS" prompt because it starts MS-DOS and a text shell interface. Here's the thing though: that's only true on machines with MS-DOS installed, which I doubt your high school PCs are unless they're pretty old, as MS-DOS only ran in parallel with Windows up to Windows XP. The command line shell you boot from disc or memory stick when repairing a broken installation, for example, is Windows with a text shell.

So, unless those PCs really are ancient, or you're talking about an emulator or vitual machine like DOSBOX, your distinction is meaningless at best and confusing at worst.

But congratulations - you've discovered one of the most important things about working in CS - as long as you're confident in your bullshit and don't get found out you can get away with anything. You'll also find that if you're a guy, you'll be "innocent until proven guilty" - you can get away with as much bullshit as you want unless and until you're found out.

What this thread is about is how, if you're not a guy, you're guilty until proven innocent. If you say you're into something geeky, you will be grilled about it until you can prove your credentials. People want you to fail.

And why hate it if someone claims they're a geek anyway? What harm does it do you? You'll soon find out that it's actually better that people don't know how good you are at computers (outside of your peers or when promoting your skills in a professional capacity of course) because you'll soon get sick of them asking you to fix their printer or set up their Wi-fi.

I'm 38 and I've reinstalled a lot of drivers over the years.

Thanks for explaining stuff I already knew, and this was before Windows 7 was released so we were still on XP.

(What do you mean by 'in my bullshit'?)

 

[Hollyday]

I wear spectacles, and without them, I can't see more than seven inches in front of me without whatever I'm looking at becoming a blur. This has been a limitation to me in certain respects, so the idea of somebody wearing spectacles solely for the purposes of fashion revolts me. As some of my pairs of spectacles have, in retrospect, been unfashionable when I have worn them, having somebody wear spectacles in those styles and be praised for their fashion sense sends me ballistic.

This is very much a cultural thing as well though. I live in Italy and most of my students wear glasses, even though very few of them need them, because glasses are culturally a sign of fashion sense and intelligence. I need strong glasses but I wear contact lenses instead, mainly because of all the taunting I used to get about my glasses as a kid, but my students think it's hilarious that I choose not to wear glasses when I legitimately could, especially in a profession where I should want to look intelligent. European attitudes towards these things are totally different, and those attitudes are seeping into our culture more and more which can only be a positive thing. I bought a new pair of glasses last week which I am DETERMINED to wear and feel happy in for once.

Feeling the way you do about it can only make you bitter - fashion is faddish by nature. We all have this feeling, that something we used to hate wearing is now really fashionable, and glasses is a common one. The fact that they are fashionable now should make you feel liberated, not revolted.

 

[rbstewart7263]

Does the fake geek girl exist and if so why?

First Id have to argue yes but as to whether she has attained numbers to warrant her own meme? meh

This may be an outgrowth from the number of gamestops to hire women simply because they wanted a woman working there in spite of her not knowing anything.

We had that a couple years back at my gamestop.

And also if she exists(theres always a few) who is she trying to impress? gaming doesnt exactly have the ("the guys are like spartans and will fuck you real good") kind of reputation far as I know?

Do we have the rep of being good lays?(

shrug who cares.this brings me back to the felicia day incident. I was like "She is proven. She plays skyrim does she need to have PROGRAMMED ON AN APPLE II BEFORE YOU GIVE HER THE VENERABLE GAMER LABEL!!!lmao

 

[AdumbroDeus]

The main idea boils down to this: "...the persisting idea that tells people it's ok to nastily call *people of any sex* out for not being 'authentically geeky' enough. It's basically the idea that you can use that old middle school tactic of calling people 'posers' because they don't adhere to your own particular rules as to what qualifies a 'geek'..."

If you're outright lying to become a successful attention whore, the "poser" tag fits like a glove.

I don't call bullshit if someone tells me they never watched Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek or read the 900 issues of Batman because fuck knows I never watched/read them either. But if self-proclaimed "geeks" have no actual knowledge about geek

And what do they have to have knowledge about to be "geek"?

People define it differently.

Which happen to be the subjects that are more prevalent on the internet.

Intellectually developed people who have no interest in computers are usually not on their computer trying to build "cred" on the internet because they know about "cumputerz".
i.e. using IRC, having a Geocities page, etc - my knowledge in posers is definitely outdated. They probably use tumblr and edit their youtube videos on a Mac.

Or, you know they could using tumblers/youtube to make/spread media about their geeky interests. I hear anime/manga is a pretty popular one for example. Video games are also pretty popular among people with no real knowledge of computers.

 

[ms_sunlight]

Thanks for explaining stuff I already knew, and this was before Windows 7 was released so we were still on XP.

Well, Vista *shudder* came out in 2006, although I do appreciate that schools tend to be both conservative and infrequent when it comes to IT procurement. I'm not at all sure why figuring out how to get to text shell somehow makes one a "fake" geek though. Besides, if you're so many years out of school , why are examples from such a long time ago even relevant to this thread? Still bitter about "fake" geeks from your schooldays? Insecure?

(What do you mean by 'in my bullshit'?)

Okay, since colloquial English didn't work for you, I shall go formal. Substitute "in one's bullshit" where applicable.

 

[DoPo]

When I watch a woman make a video about video games it's always about THEM and the EGO.

Uhh, what? It's probably because I don't watch any videos where somebody talks about games [footnote]Well, unless you consider the Jumquisition and EC, which are more about the industry as a whole, Zero Punctuation and the very occasional Total Biscuit video just focus on one particular game, rather than the industry. And that's the extent of video game related videos I watch[/footnote] but I don't understand why you bring it up at all.

 

[Hollyday]

I don't know which is worse, the hostility of the opening post or the blatant misuse of the meme. The geek girl meme applies to girls who are vocal about their 'nerdy' tastes and yet somehow manage to get them blatantly wrong. Like a Facebook status declaring "I'm going to play some Mind Craft before bed <3"...or endless statuses designed specifically to tell everybody that she's a geek because she plays Call of Duty.

It's merely mocking the image she wants to create for herself, not the concept of geeky girls at all. Men doing this is virtually unheard of - I've never seen a guy do it. Maybe you have. But I sure as hell haven't.

Apologies if the opening post seemed hostile to you - that wasn't my intention, as I'm genuinely interested in what everyone had to say on this topic.

I don't think the appropriation of the meme IS 'blatant misuse'. I understand what you mean, that the 'idiot geek girl' meme is about girls who make mistakes with their geeky knowledge and some people would call 'fake' or 'a poser'. The point of the author of the article, and the maker of the new meme, is that if a man made these mistakes they would more easily be written off as that, just mistakes, rather than someone who is pretending to be something they're not. None of us have the right to say someone isn't a geek because they write a facebook status saying they played CoD once and they're a hardcore gamer. Yes, that's a bit daft, but maybe they know more about sci-fi lit than most uber-nerds. Or maybe they collect moon dust in jars, or they're a massive film geek. What right do we have to point at anyone and tell them that they're a poser, a fake, just because they don't reach some high standard we've decided upon for geekdom. When you think about it it's just horribly judgemental. You have every right to think that someone is a phoney, but just keep it to yourself, and keep an open mind. That's the message I took from the article, and the new meme, anyway.

 

[Emperor Nat]

In terms of the "Fake Geek" meme, it's talking more specifically about people (generally teenaged girls) who say 'I play halo on the weekends lol, im such a n3rd' and such for attention.

That said, the elitism of "you're not niche enough for our niche" does exist for both genders. As an example, within the hardcore Star Wars fanbase it's looked down upon to admit to enjoying (or even being ambivalent to) the prequel trilogy.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

What right do we have to point at anyone and tell them that they're a poser, a fake, just because they don't reach some high standard we've decided upon for geekdom.

"You fail to conform to the criteria I personally hold for a nebulous and ill-defined term. How. Dare. You."

 

[Daria.Morgendorffer]

2. As a nerd, I suffer from my own brand of snobbery. Admittedly, that's wrong, but I'm tired of people who call themselves nerds because they call themselves fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, but can't tell me anything about Stephen Baxter, Neal Stephenson, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, or even Stephen Hawking. I like Star Trek, I don't even have THAT big a hate-on for Episodes 1-3 (If you view them through the lens of "it was written as an oral tradition, it actually makes sense in a quirky sort of way"), I don't really like Firefly (which I've taken a lot of heat for, I'll tell you something). I just have a hate-on for people who like what it's "easy", "most accessible" or "in vogue" to like. Go read some Frank Herbert and stop shouting me down because I don't know in what book Chewbacca died, or in which episode the Enterprise crew were all high on the Lemon Wacky Hello. (Not that I actually SAY that to people, but I've been told "I'm not a nerd" for saying that Firefly is not nearly as good as Lexx.)

That's dumb, science fiction novels is an entirely different section of nerd culture then science fiction TV, you're literally doing the same thing you're complaining about other people doing in this very section of your post.

Didya MISS the part where I said it was my own snobbery? I am quite aware of this. The reason I bring it up, though, is that I have a hard time with people who claim that authors like JK Rowling are in the pantheon of Geek Gods, when she's not even fit to lick the boots of Tolkien.

But the point I was making was that I, in my own bias, which I wholly own, claim they understand "great" science fiction because they think "Firefly" is "sci-fi" for grownups (oh, please; it's barely sci-fi to start with), when they've clearly never read ANY hard sci-fi EVER. And THAT is why those people never impress me.

 

[Stasisesque]

2. As a nerd, I suffer from my own brand of snobbery. Admittedly, that's wrong, but I'm tired of people who call themselves nerds because they call themselves fans of Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, but can't tell me anything about Stephen Baxter, Neal Stephenson, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, or even Stephen Hawking. I like Star Trek, I don't even have THAT big a hate-on for Episodes 1-3 (If you view them through the lens of "it was written as an oral tradition, it actually makes sense in a quirky sort of way"), I don't really like Firefly (which I've taken a lot of heat for, I'll tell you something). I just have a hate-on for people who like what it's "easy", "most accessible" or "in vogue" to like. Go read some Frank Herbert and stop shouting me down because I don't know in what book Chewbacca died, or in which episode the Enterprise crew were all high on the Lemon Wacky Hello. (Not that I actually SAY that to people, but I've been told "I'm not a nerd" for saying that Firefly is not nearly as good as Lexx.)

That's dumb, science fiction novels is an entirely different section of nerd culture then science fiction TV, you're literally doing the same thing you're complaining about other people doing in this very section of your post.

Didya MISS the part where I said it was my own snobbery? I am quite aware of this. The reason I bring it up, though, is that I have a hard time with people who claim that authors like JK Rowling are in the pantheon of Geek Gods, when she's not even fit to lick the boots of Tolkien.

But the point I was making was that I, in my own bias, which I wholly own, claim they understand "great" science fiction because they think "Firefly" is "sci-fi" for grownups (oh, please; it's barely sci-fi to start with), when they've clearly never read ANY hard sci-fi EVER. And THAT is why those people never impress me.

Jesus Christ, you hate people who read things that are accessible? You're the worst kind of person.

 

[ElPatron]

And what do they have to have knowledge about to be "geek"?

Here is the part I say that those posers are just dumb and have no actual knowledge.

Besides what's on school books, that is.

 

[kannibus]

Something weird happened to me a few weeks ago. I was in a comic book/hobby shop and inquired if they had any Warhammer 40K stuff with the Blood Ravens of Dawn of War fame. I was immediately set upon by the nerd crowd that was hanging out there and ridiculed for being a poser that had no idea about how to truly be a nerd. Needless to say I left soon thereafter but almost punched one of them out.

Flashback to 1998, before laser eye surgery and solid exercise routine. I got beat up because I liked Star Trek, Star Wars and so forth, always got As in school and regularly hung out at the library because I liked the Sci Fi and Fantasy section.

THE WHOLE WORLD'S GONE FIDDLE FADDLE FOO!

 

[DoPo]

"Firefly" is "sci-fi" for grownups (oh, please; it's barely sci-fi to start with)

Ok, WHAT?! You'll have to clear this up for me - "barely sci-fi"? Since when there is a scale to measure how much of a sci-fi something is. Sure, some works may get somewhat muddled, if they are, say, set two years in the future or something, but I don't see any such problems with Firefly - it ticks all the necessary boxes. How can it be more sci-fi than that?

 

[acosn]

"Firefly" is "sci-fi" for grownups (oh, please; it's barely sci-fi to start with)

Ok, WHAT?! You'll have to clear this up for me - "barely sci-fi"? Since when there is a scale to measure how much of a sci-fi something is. Sure, some works may get somewhat muddled, if they are, say, set two years in the future or something, but I don't see any such problems with Firefly - it ticks all the necessary boxes. How can it be more sci-fi than that?

Science Fantasy. Firefly is more science fantasy than science fiction. It's not something that gets discussed terribly often, but the action shlock you see thrown around today like the new Star Trek, the Starwars prequel trilogy and so on are science fantasy. Which is to say, they're drawing a strong difference from other media set in the same rough time period.

Seriously, read Fahrenheit 451 and then watch Star trek. Or watch the new Star Trek, and then watch any of the old school ones with Shatner.



And this is to say nothing of the western aesthetic they tossed into firefly. Don't get me wrong- it's not a bad show. I loved it to pieces and I was pissed off when Fox canned it after genuinely expecting it to compete against fucking Friends, and then exiled it to the Friday night time slot.


TL;DR Science Fiction doesn't merely refer to when the story takes place.

As for the actual topic....

Yeah, no. The fake geek thing is very real, and they get called out on their horseshit just as often as anyone else craving acceptance from a subculture they know barely anything about. We all go through that phase. I wouldn't take it personally- if someone who simply hadn't disclosed their gender had made the exact same mistake they'd get jumped on just the same.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

But the point I was making was that I, in my own bias, which I wholly own, claim they understand "great" science fiction because they think "Firefly" is "sci-fi" for grownups (oh, please; it's barely sci-fi to start with), when they've clearly never read ANY hard sci-fi EVER. And THAT is why those people never impress me.

You're missing the point, you admit your bias yet you don't change it. That makes you WORSE then people who actually believe it. Failing to impress YOU is not the test of being a geek, and the fact that you know it doesn't but apply the test anyway is... yea.


For reference the reason that firefly is considered sci-fi for grownups is it's themes. There's nothing particularly adult about hard science fiction in particular. It's simply more explicitly speculative. It CAN be adult, but the majority of hard science fiction is just as immature as soft science fiction. Firefly however, is thematically mature.

And what do they have to have knowledge about to be "geek"?

Here is the part I say that those posers are just dumb and have no actual knowledge.

Besides what's on school books, that is.

...

About what?

"Firefly" is "sci-fi" for grownups (oh, please; it's barely sci-fi to start with)

Ok, WHAT?! You'll have to clear this up for me - "barely sci-fi"? Since when there is a scale to measure how much of a sci-fi something is. Sure, some works may get somewhat muddled, if they are, say, set two years in the future or something, but I don't see any such problems with Firefly - it ticks all the necessary boxes. How can it be more sci-fi than that?

Science Fantasy. Firefly is more science fantasy than science fiction. It's not something that gets discussed terribly often, but the action shlock you see thrown around today like the new Star Trek, the Starwars prequel trilogy and so on are science fantasy. Which is to say, they're drawing a strong difference from other media set in the same rough time period.

Seriously, read Fahrenheit 451 and then watch Star trek. Or watch the new Star Trek, and then watch any of the old school ones with Shatner.



And this is to say nothing of the western aesthetic they tossed into firefly. Don't get me wrong- it's not a bad show. I loved it to pieces and I was pissed off when Fox canned it after genuinely expecting it to compete against fucking Friends, and then exiled it to the Friday night time slot.


TL;DR Science Fiction doesn't merely refer to when the story takes place.

As for the actual topic....

Yeah, no. The fake geek thing is very real, and they get called out on their horseshit just as often as anyone else craving acceptance from a subculture they know barely anything about. We all go through that phase. I wouldn't take it personally- if someone who simply hadn't disclosed their gender had made the exact same mistake they'd get jumped on just the same.

Except science fiction DOES merely mean the setting.

There is already an explicit differentiation between hard science fiction and soft science fiction which is exactly the difference you are discussing.