This is why I hate "Fake Geek/Gamer Girls"

[Tomaius]

Overall video games is experiencing a commodification of a culture where what used to have meaning is being sold en masse and this makes people who are actually part of that culture mad. It would be like if I played 10 minutes of basketball and called myself a professional athlete and tried to fit in with other 6'4" basketball players.

The best example is the punk rock which was anti establishment but now you can buy punk rock on iTunes and buy spiky belts in Hot Topic.

mod note: please embed your videos

I have zero problem with these people and neither should you. Your example is immature and extreme, bearing no relevance to the topic you bring up.

People want to say they like video games and dressing up as video game characters? Let them. In no way should it affect or bug you, they're not forcing you to do anything nor are they radically altering geek culture.

 

[enriquetnt]

Im a very serious gamer, 30 years gaming all the way from atari to nowaday, at least 15 solid hours a week, i also an avid consumer of anime, sci-fi, and fantasy and are extremely knowledgeable about those themes, yes i played D&D, also im VERY good with computers, and have a good working knowledge about both manga and comic books, but i dont consider or call myself a nerd nor does any of my friends or family, this are just my hobbies and past times and as big as they are part of my life that as far as it goes, i think the difference between "nerd" and "normal" is just that thin line of separations between enjoying your hobbies or letting them run your life

 

[enriquetnt]

How exactly do you be a fake gamer?

If you want to play games...and you play games...

Whatever maybe I just missed all the rigorous qualification standards.

Ah must have been a clerical error on our part.

Excuse me Ill get the forms ready.

How many ten sided die do you own?

Have you ever completed Luigi's Purple coin challenge?

Can you complete the sentence "A man chooses x x x"?

Can you tell me what stat is commonly tied to ranged dmg?

Have you ever been a member of a raiding guild?

Can you point out who of these 2 world leaders poses the greatest threat to you?
Montezuma
Augustus Caesar

Can you mention 3 different characters from Street Fighter?

Please list videogames you own:

Please list videogames you have finished (continual progression games excluded):

You mail me the forms and ill let you know if you applicable for a Basic Geeking Licence. Your BGL should arrive in the post in 2-3 days.

Should you want to wear costumes you will have to apply for an Advanced Geeking Licence afterwards and or I can send you the advanced forms, thou you will have to provide your own 3rd party witness for the all night gaming session.

- GSA -
Geek Standard Association

How many ten sided die do you own?

None gave them away years ago (all my books also)

Have you ever completed Luigi's Purple coin challenge?
All of them im masochistic like that

Can you complete the sentence "A man chooses x x x"?
No idea what your talking about

Can you tell me what stat is commonly tied to ranged dmg?
dexterity? (havent played in over 20 years)


Have you ever been a member of a raiding guild?
nope

Can you point out who of these 2 world leaders poses the greatest threat to you?
Montezuma
Augustus Caesar
Caesar all the way

Can you mention 3 different characters from Street Fighter?
Bison, Sagat, Chun Li, Blanka, E Honda, Ryu, Ken, Guile, Dhalsim, Vega, Akuma, Cammy, Dan, ... (i could go on forever)

Please list videogames you own:
Your kidding right?

Please list videogames you have finished (continual progression games excluded):
vast, VAST majority of what i own and that includes Ninja Gaiden, Ghost and Goblins an all megamans on the NES (and while i was a kid to boot, Ninja Gaiden practically turned me into a local legend at school)

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Okay, I love your post, but I really have to ask. Has anyone really questioned Vin's gamer cred?

Maybe, yeah?

I really don't know. My guess is his career doesn't leave him a lot of chances to check out more than the bigger releases, and I'd doubt it if you told me he gets together with some of his closest friends for some D&D. The closest thing to admitting that there might be some kind of "fake gamer" strata is well-intentioned celebs fronting a bunch of microphones and going "Yeah, I'm a gamer!" because they have a distantly positive relationship with the medium. It's just frustratingly hard to figure out who honestly has some games-related habits and preferences, and who's following a sort of prefab PR bandwagon to instant notability with the PC and console crowds. That's always the impression I get when I hear stars say they're actually gamers in their off time.

It's just - it's a little irksome. It's impossible to know if they're being honest or if it's just part of their latest PR stunt. I'm sure there's a ton of actors and actresses who actually do game often enough, but it's not like they wear a tag somewhere on their person. We can't identify them easily.

So I'm not annoyed when I see someone from the star system do that - I remember Robin Williams demo-ing Spore, for instance - but it's just difficult to sort the work of the spin doctors from genuine passion.

That doesn't change my perspective, though. Say I can catch Jack Black playing a round of Angry Birds or checking out Team Fortress 2 after spying on an interview in which he *claimed* to be a huge gamer. I'd actually agree. By my definition, that's exactly what he is. A gamer. Just probably not as exclusive a gamer as I or others can be.

 

[Uszi]

There's so much butt hurt false indignation in the posted video in the OP, that it honestly left a bad taste in my mouth. I think this is an accurate paraphrase of the video maker's points:

"Wah, wah, wah. I dislike when people use the word nerd casually. And I dislike when people make money catering to the mass market with novel ideas from subculture wellsprings, which are really the only source of new ideas in any form of media. And I don't like Big Bang theory, people are misunderstanding my subculture, and it is my subculture, and definitely not your subculture. So there! Wah, wah, wah!"

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Now, just to be fair, I think we should also play Devil's Advocate for a second. Lemme don my best suit and part my hair, I'll go and fetch my Keanu Reeves Court Drama voice. Ahem.

This is spoilered for length. Click ahead if you don't mind Walls of Text...

Spoiler

Okay. Games are, indeed, becoming mainstream. The medium is now commonplace in several households across the Western world. Now, are there drawbacks to games growing in popularity? We all know the strengths we can derive from the medium being popular, but what price *did* we pay, pontificating videos about lost values of occult appeal notwithstanding?

I'd say we had to ditch innovation for a few decades. Indies are still in the process of finding out ways to survive and thrive in a market that's now dominated with AAA developers - but the indie scene does have its success stories. Mojang, for instance. I'd add Introversion Software and Telltale Games, too. They're obviously not forced to sacrifice much in the way of artistic integrity. They've got just enough financial clout to be able to hoist up concepts instead of whatever qualifies as a cash cow to hold onto to stave off bankruptcy.

At the same time, the majors end up having enough financial pull to more or less dictate the bigger shifts in the industry. One clear example would be the spate of "realistic" shooters we've been getting over the past twelve years. The indies and triple-A typically don't overlap, but the bunch of dudes with the deepest pockets naturally outweighs the spunky little teams with lots of know-how but little budget.

So you could argue mainstream success is drowning out innovative considerations; making it difficult for the equivalents to the more game-changing titles of yesteryear to be seen. If being a gamer meant being culturally expected to at least cast a glance at the indie scene once or twice, then yeah, that'd be a problem.

But it isn't. Why isn't it a problem? Because not everyone is drawn to the indie market, just as not everyone is drawn to the triple-A market. I consider myself a bookworm, for instance, and yet I've never checked out much of the Crime genre. Paul Auster, Henning Mankell, fuck, even Arthur Conan Doyle are all mostly new to me. I'm barely starting to catch up on my Sherlock Holmes and I'm only now starting to pay attention to Hercule Poirot novellas. Outside of Crime novels, though, I've tried some French and English classics, lots of Horror, tons of Sci Fi, bucketloads of Fantasy novels. I read a lot of stuff per month. I can't go on any commute or travel by subway or bus without a book of some kind, or I go freaking insane.

So does my lack of knowledge of the current darlings of criminal literature make me any less of a bookworm? Of course not. That also applies to gamers.

You can't expect everyone to grasp *everything* there is about our shared culture. You can't expect the grandma who plays Wii Sports to give two shits about The Witcher, just as you can't expect me to give two shits about the Shin Megami Tensei series, no matter how good I've heard it is. I know they're considered by some as seminal JRPGs and I respect their value as additions to the corpus of gaming and especially of Japanese game development - but they're just not the kind of titles I'd keep around for repeated and extended play sessions. That's literally just me. Is that a judgment of quality on the series as a whole? Of course not. This is just my avowed lack of interest.

As there's different ways to be a gamer, even briefly trying to look at things from the point of view of someone who views games becoming common as a bad thing ends up underlining that it's *not* a bad thing. Gaming in the broader sense of the word has gone mainstream, yes, but there's so many hues to the medium, so many colours and angles of approach that any kind of alarmist discourse really has no place or grounding. The neat little boxes which are genres are still there to give some semblance of structure to your relationship with the medium; even if it turns out you actually can't point at a group of people and say they're "fake" gamers.

By claiming that girls only occasionally fiddling with handhelds or assuming affects of nerd culture is destructive, you're basically telling me that my not having read the complete works of Arthur Conan Doyle completely nullifies my worth as a reader. You're telling me that because *my* cultural habits don't fit *your* definition, then my opinion *obviously* has no worth whatsoever.

That, my friend, is sophistry.

 

[Le_Lisra]

Maybe because I'm foreign - I have no idea what OP is talking about, or many of the other posters.

Feels a bit like when I see hipsters at metal concerts? I dunno. The whole issue seems silly.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

So basically it boils down to "I was into it before it was cool." Is that it?

 

[Rose and Thorn]

The only person I have ever wondered on whether or not someone is a fake gamer person is Jessica Nigri.

She is a really popular Cos-player. I think if I ever found out she doesn't actually play video games I would be a little disappointed, but not overly. If you just like to dress up as cool characters it doesn't really matter if you play the game or not. After all she is making money, she was the official Lollipop Chainsaw girl.

Spoiler: Jessica Nigri

 

[Realitycrash]

Getting into this discussion a bit late, but I have a question, and I really, REALLY want an answer, so please help me: Why do I get the feeling that most people have an issue with 'fake nerd girls' because they are attractive, but chose to dress in a manner that is traditionally worn by 'ugly' people (i.e what people call 'nerds')? Why do X person get to decide who is a 'nerd' and who is not? Especially given that I never hear this 'fake nerd girl'-crap aimed at someone even remotely ugly (and by 'ugly' I mean 'not meeting the traditional requirements of beauty')?
How often do you even ask these people what their interests are? If you rage at some girl who wears big glasses and have written 'nerd' on her palm, how on earth would you know what she is or is not?
You can look at my profile. I have a picture. Do I meet the requirements? Am I 'nerd' enough to be a 'nerd', just by you judging my appearance?

 

[Vhite]

I was going to say how I agree with the video but then I saw how you named this topic and decided not to. The video is fine with what Im about to say but name of this thread is not. So here is the elephant in the room that no one seems to notice. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GIRLS. I think this is a real issue as its explained in the video but for some insane reason people tend to mark it as problem with girls rather than with the cultrue. The problem is subtle enough as it is and you people must draw attention from it even more by offending half of the population by incorrectly labeling the problem and so by now everyone thinks that fake nerd problem is bullshit because you present it as fake GIRL nerd problem witch really is bullshit. Get your details right, they make a difference.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Yeah... This again? Are you really that afraid of girls in your club or why do you specify the gender? Do you want to imply that there is no fake behaviour from the other gender or do you just imply that you hold the female gender to such irrational standards that no one could qualify as geek or nerd in your book when they have a pair of tits. If including this, do you also hold overweight males to such standards because they also have a pair of tits?

Well. Eplain this to me with your own words and not with some stupid yt link I won't even bother to look at: Why the need to specify the gender?

Also, no, I don't feel particulary enraged by fake geeks / nerds. Because they have *shock* zero impact on my life.

And finally: You imply that being a nerd or geek had some kind of entry barrier. Well, it had only one in particular. Have a non-mainstream hobby which consumes a big chunk of your time. Tadaa, you are a geek / nerd.

Wow, this is lovely.
I heart this comment.

Stupid bullshit about fake girls is stupid bullshit and I really don't care for the frustrated tears of gamer hipsters who don't want ladies in their treehouse.

Gaming is not `your` thing. It's just a thing. And everyone can enjoy it.

Oh yeah, and, I'm a gamer girl.
Come at me bro.

*high fives Phasmal*

I'm not a gamer girl, but I am on your side here. Well put.

And honestly, I really don't see the point of hating on "fake nerd girls". All it means for me is someone else who will listen to me rant about how awesome the Elder Scrolls is. Or possibly face me at Smash Bros.

Also, I agree with pretty much everything Jim has to say on the topic:

Spoiler

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6535-Fake-Nerd-Girls

 

[AngloDoom]

I don't understand why someone trying to be part of a culture is annoying.

Nothing strikes me as more arrogant than people who quiz others on their worthiness to be part of a culture.
"You like reading, huh? Well, what's your favourite quote in George Orwell's 1984?"
"I haven't read tha-"
"Pfft, faker."

Hell, I don't even know if I'm counted as a gamer - my console and gaming PC are bust, I haven't played any games newer than probably 2010, and I haven't played a game in over a month. Until people can sort out what it means to be a 'gamer' they should stop conjuring yard-stick trivia that determines who and who isn't a 'REAL gamer'.

 

[AwesomeWunderbar]

It's not as common amongst males.

OR, people aren't trying to trip up guys and giving them pop quizzes as much because they assume their interest is genuine automatically.

I'd be willing to accept that it's not as common amongst males. Being a "fake geek" have a better risk/reward ratio in terms of social capital for girls than it does guys.

you playing games ruins it for the guys/this is our space and you shouldn't be here

Let's talk about gendered spaces for a second. I'm going to define some terms: Women's space is space in which men are explicitly excluded. Men's space is space from which women are explicitly excluded. Male-dominant space is space that has dominant male influences, but from which women are not excluded. Female-dominant space is space that has dominant female influences, but from which men are not excluded.

Women's space is a thing, a fairly common one at that and is respected as just shy of sacrosanct. Men's space barely exists anymore, and is generally treated as something inherently offensive and sexist because women are excluded from it.

Try to name some things that are men's spaces, it's a lot harder than naming women's spaces, isn't it?

Men in a female-dominant space are expected to conform to the space, that is they are expected to follow along with the rules and expectations of the space, and that it is right to shame, mistreat, or exclude them if they upset the space as it stands. If the space as it is, makes them uncomfortable, they are expected to leave it. Women in a male-dominant space are usually more or less welcome so long as they act like men in a female-dominant space are expected to ask, meaning that they conform to the space. What tends to happen though is that women in a male-dominant space tend to try to force the space to conform to them, to change the rules and expectations of the space to make them more comfortable, and generally see no issue with shaming men who take issue with that ("not wanting to let girls in their treehouse" sound familiar?).

Name one of these women spaces, please.


[/quote]I just give people the benefit of the doubt and if they start to sound like they have no idea what they're talking about then I may quiz them (male or female). Or, you, know, stop talking to them completely.
[/quote]
That may be what you do but as I'm trying to explain, your experience is not universal.
I haven't seen any dudes be pop-quizzed, and none of my geeky guy friends have been, but for some reason all my female geek friends have.
Still, checking people is fucked up, we should be inviting people into our little club, not trying to exclude people, even if they are pretending they know a little more than they actually do.[/quote]

Geek checking happens all around. Hell, I resemble a stereotype of a geek in his 30s, and still get geek checked from time to time. One thing I've always wondered that comes up in these discussions -- women claiming to be geek checked because they are women. One of the women that comes into these threads fairly often even admitted that geek checking has been around for a long time, but that it's only fairly recently she's started being geek checked because she's a woman. That leads me to ask the obvious question: how do you differentiate the general geek checking that happens from special geek checking directed at you solely because you are female? [/quote]

What the hell is geek checking? If I play video games then by definition I am a gamer girl whether or not the are the games you like or play.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

You want to know with my problem with this is? The people who complain about "fake nerd girls" are the same people who were complaining about real "nerd girls" ten years ago. All men, all insecure, thinking their hobby is safe an impenetrable... I mean, Jesus Christ, what? The hobby is being "commodified"? A hobby... built around rampant consumerism... is being commodified. Oh. I'm so sorry.

 

[Danial]

This is perhaps the least important issue to have ever graced the history of mankind, And i mean that, people are angry and debating if people pretending to be a part of a culture that has no real culture is somehow a terrible thing that can only be stopped by sexism.

Do girls pretend to like games for attention? Ok, now I want you to go play one of you're games, go on. This can wait. Back? did that feel the same as all the other times? even though women might still at this very second be pretending to like games for attention, yet that last team Deathmatch/Looking for Raid/dungeon crawl went the same as before, why?

BECAUSE THIS IS THE LEAST IMPORTANT ISSUE TO HAVE EVER GRACED MANKIND AND IS NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM AFFECTING ANYONE.

If you can think of a way that Women in Mario Tee shirts who never ONCE played the lost levels or women dressed up as sexy Garrosh Hellscream who probably didn't even clear the first boss of Sunwell pre Nerf affects you in any way or form I will go and buy a hat just so I can eat it. And no "sometimes women are annoying in games!!1" is not a valid argument, I tried to work out how many more men have annoyed me or acted like idiots over XBL/Raid chat/Vent than women, It is a figure approaching Grahams number.

And if Someone who is a fake gamer girl annoys you, here's how you counter them, Ignore them! Egads! A weapon!

Sponsored by the conversation i had about this on with someone mocking fake gaming girls in gaming tees who was wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt and, without irony or indeed Ironing called him Fidel Castro.

 

[Ishal]

Maybe because I'm foreign - I have no idea what OP is talking about, or many of the other posters.

Feels a bit like when I see hipsters at metal concerts? I dunno. The whole issue seems silly.

You... your avatar.

Dat Katatonia...

\m/

 

[silversnake4133]

What's the problem here? So what if fake people call themselves whatever they call them. It's obvious that nerd culture has become a fad in today's "trend seeker" population. But honestly who cares? If they want to call themselves nerds and try to fit in with others, let them. It makes them happy, and what right do you people have to take away their happiness just because you think you're some kind of nerd crusader and need to protect nerdom's true form? Unless they're being a dick about their obsessions, just leave them be.

If anything perhaps some people are trying to experience the specific culture they're trying to imitate. They want to test the waters and if they find they don't like it or they grow tired of it, they'll leave. Just be happy with your life and let others be "fake nerds" if they want. After all we're not they're masters, so why should we feel the need to tell them what they can and can't be?