Fake Geek Girls

[Andrew_C]

M'kay, scanned the article that was linked to in the dialogue underneath the comic. I think both Harris and Faraci have legit points...and both where they're acting like idiots. First, Harris; it is true, some of these ladies are just looking for attention because they like toying with people. Women like that are bitches because they're treating the men in a given fan community in a way very similar, if not identical, to the way some men treat women as nothing more than meat; both are using the opposite gender to get what they want with no concern for other people's feelings.

It's a pity that your first paragraph is batshit insane, because you actually make a few half decent points in the rest of your post.

Do you really believe there is a cabal of women (or worse... wymmyn!) out there who deliberately go to conventions to torment and seduce pure innocent male geeks, contaminate their precious bodily fluids and steal their virginity to fuel their soulless undead feminazi existences?

 

[Sanguine]

It's a pity that your first paragraph is batshit insane, because you actually make a few half decent points in the rest of your post. Do you really believe there is a cabal of women (or worse... wymmyn!) out there who deliberately go to conventions to torment and seduce rure innocent male geeks, contaminte their precious bidily fuilds and steal their virginity to fuel their soulless undead feminazi existences.

It that what he was implying? Because it seems to me that what he was implying was that some women dress up in particular costumes/ways for attentions sake. Which seems like a reasonable conclusion, especially because he goes on in the next paragraph to say that this is irrelevant because men do it as well.

Please don't be so brash with the hyperbole, we can understand the attempt at humour from the first example.

 

[LazyAza]

Any lady willing to dress like Mai Shiranui has infinite respect from me, that is not an outfit one can wear without confidence lol.

 

[Sanguine]

snip

You all need to pay attention to this post. It's another example of journalists and general commenters talking about an issue they pretend to be above when they're clearly not.

Care to elaborate as to exactly where?

 

[Sanguine]

Funny comic as usual guys.

But...er gender issues again Escapist? We don't need more pointless arguments on that. Of course if the recent Jimquisition episode is anything to go by there is likely going to be one here soon.

Of course there's going to be pointless arguments. Why? Because the pointless misogyny in gamer and nerd culture hasn't been shot in the forehead yet.

The pointless discussions will stop when the screaming assholes learn to shut their mouths at cons and on Xbox Live/Steam.

If the discussions are trying to stop the pointless misogyny, that would seemingly imply that they aren't pointless. They might be useless, or ineffective, but they have a definite point.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

So, it appears that Critical Miss and Jimquisition are taking on the same problem this week.

Um... was this even a problem before this week? Seriously, I had NEVER, EVER heard of nerds bitching about fake nerd girls until a heard Jim ranting about said bitching. Having everyone blow their lids at the same time like this about a seemingly nonexistant problem is kind of surreal...

 

[themilo504]

The sad part is I never read spiderman and I know the answer to that question you can blame atop the fourth wall for that.

 

[Legion]

So, it appears that Critical Miss and Jimquisition are taking on the same problem this week.

Um... was this even a problem before this week? Seriously, I had NEVER, EVER heard of nerds bitching about fake nerd girls until a heard Jim ranting about said bitching. Having everyone blow their lids at the same time like this about a seemingly nonexistant problem is kind of surreal...

Basically some tool made a post about fake geek girls a little while back, some other tools (almost certainly the same kind of people we block when we game due to all the childish, abusive crap) and it has been blown way out of proportion.

I am not sure what exactly caused it to be dragged back up again though.

It's one of those mountains out of molehills things. There are misogynistic arseholes in geek culture, of course. But considering all of the millions of geeks in the world, they are hardly anything more than a very vocal minority.

The same way all of the crazy femi-nazi's and the people who use the "It's called the White House" line when saying Obama shouldn't be President are not seen as a "Problem with feminism/Americans."

 

[Darth_Payn]

Do one of you guys know the origins to this whole "fake geek girl" thing? It just sounds like a big non-issue to me. As geeks, should we not preach the gospels of the things we like to the nonbelievers?

 

[BreakfastMan]

Also are you seriously accusing Grey of pointing out this issue solely for the attention?

Hurr hurr wouldn't that be ironic.

I just ordered some comic books guys PHASE 3 IS IN PROGRESS.

*touches all the nerdy things with her cootie ridden hands*

I for one welcome our new female overlords, being as I am a white knight, self-hating, beta-male who despises masculinity. I submit my testicles to you, my queen!

OT: Great comic as always, Grey. Really helps illustrate just how absurd this whole thing is. XD

 

[Fappy]

Why bring up the clone saga!? It was such a dark time in comic book history

 

[Souplex]

Sure but can you name all the characters the girls are cosplaying as?

Ooh! Ooh! I know! They're Mai Shiranui, Catwoman, and Tomoe Mami. What do I win?

Who's "Tomoe Mami"? I've never heard of her?
It's some Japanime thing, isn't it.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

OK quick question why did the escapist suddenly go apeshit about this whole thing? i mean this meme has been around for some time and you're only now saying something about it? you're slow, very slow, like a turtle.

I think that's just it. It's been around for some time, and they're saying "enough is enough, we get it already, and it's not that big of a deal anyway". Sort of a thing where they weren't going to say anything, hoping that the rage against "fake gamer girls" was just a passing fad that would come and go and everyone would forget about it... then it just kept going.

Edit: Also, I hardly consider two contributors talking about the same topic as The Escapist (as a whole) "suddenly going apeshit". So unless I missed something...

 

[yeti585]

Do one of you guys know the origins to this whole "fake geek girl" thing? It just sounds like a big non-issue to me. As geeks, should we not preach the gospels of the things we like to the nonbelievers?

Well, it all started out when being "hipster" became cool (the irony is killing me). Many people didn't get what hipsters were and thought it was just something geeky. So now you had people going around saying how much of a nerd they are because they play angry birds on their iPhone. it spawned people like the pic from the linked article in today's strip. (I'm not trying to say anything about the person in the picture, just her choice of things in the picture)

Spoiler

It annoyed some people because they would have someone butting in saying "I love video games! My favorite is Draw Something!" when they tried to have a conversation about the Halo storyline with their friend. Or, people just got tired of hearing "OMG I'm such a nerd!" a hundred times a day because someone can do something as simple (to them) as typing with every finger. It was also annoying because, and I can't stress this enough, it reinforced stereotypes. Thick rimmed glasses? that's nerdy. Not being able to dress "trendy"? that's nerdy. Not having a social life (or seeming not to in this case)? that's nerdy. etc.

It really wasn't an issue. Not how Jim or the writers behind Critical Miss have spotlighted it. It was more a nuisance to a select few.

There was also a brief spat about Cosplayers (in general) not being knowledgeable of the character/series they were. This got misconstrued so many times it became "Hot girls who dress like characters from geeky series and fake being a nerd to get attention from overweight, unattractive, unworthy nerds."

 

[Twilight_guy]

Seems more possibly then the explanation that "EA is evil because they are evil".

Also, Really... a clone saga question? That the best you could do? I'd have asked an Amalgam universe question and actually made some people Wikipedia it.

 

[idodo35]

first of all the comic was funny
second is this seriously still an issue? this whole "fake geek girls"? can someone explain WHY?! i thought hot ladies taking interest in our medium (or not hot ladies or just other people) is a good thing even if they arent hard core! why is that a problem if a girl just wanna dress like catwoman even if she doesnt know shit about selina kyle?

PS the answer is ben riely the name is a combination of the uncles first name (uncle ben duh) and may parker's pre marital name (riely) there was also cain who was another clone but thats a whole other can of worms.. what were we talking about again?

 

[geizr]

I didn't realize this was even an issue. Since I've now been made aware of the issue, I looked a bit into it, and all I've got to say to the people bitching on it is: GROW THE FUCK UP, GET SOME FUCKING PERSPECTIVE, AND GET THE FUCK OVER YOURSELVES! Really! It is clear that closed-minded, exclusive religious-like thinking is not restricted to extremist, fundamentalist religious-zealots. These guys really have the absolute nerve to be perturbed that a bunch of girls are just using them as some means of objectified entertainment? A bunch of geeks who derive objectified entertainment staring at sexually idealized imagery of women are incensed that a bunch of women derive objectified entertainment trying to garner their attention at conventions. Really!? Guys, welcome to the human race; the door swings both ways. Honestly, I would half consider myself in heaven that some hot or semi-hot chick is going out of her way to vie for my attention and affection. I agree 100% with the point that, at a con, ANYONE dressed in cos-play is vying for attention, regardless of the underlying motives.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Y'know, I do actually have a contribution on this, and that is Fake Nerds both exist and most importantly are not just girls.

As just about anyone who's spent time working in a comic shop is aware you get a whole plethora of non-fans who stop by to buy things, ranging from the speculators (people who buy comicbooks just because they assume the market still works like it did in the 1970's and they'll be WORTH something in the future, ignoring the fact the only people it'll be worth money to is people exactly like them) to the fakers, and the fakers are apparently now important enough the rest of the geek world is dealing with it.

Ever since the Dark Knight I have to had to deal with idiots telling me how cool Batman is, how the Joker is awesome and how Heath Ledger's version is the best that'll ever be achieved. And I don't mind that they're big on the movie, it's just when this extends into pretending to read the comics. People will buy one batman issue, half read it, decide it's more fun to just claim to love batman/wiki it and spend their days claiming to be a huge fan. Understandably, I find this aggravating when I get told how lame Robin is solely because of a skit on Family Guy or because Christopher Nolan didn't use him (wisely, it wouldn't have fit the tone of the movie but there is a POINT to the character so *rant ramble, WWII and daddy issues, boring and irrelevant*) Aquaman's worse, the cow-eyed shit-spewers on Big Bang Theory say how "no-one likes aquaman" and suddenly he's not cool any more. I get that its cool to rag on him (despite his prowess at throwing polar bears [http://i671.photobucket.com/albums/vv73/scarey_01/01-Polar-Bear-Toss-Aquaman.jpg])

But this problem is one that I've just started ignoring. You know if someone's not really interested and only doing it for the attention and you ignore them and eventually they'll move on, you might overhear them saying how 'amazing' the N64's graphics while wondering what resolution they are and then you'll probably need to smack your head on a table for a few minutes.

Point is (and this is decidedly unhelpful since it's a rant aimed at stopping exactly what the rant itself is doing) if we stop talking about and stop paying attention the problem will go away, or at least we won't need to deal with it. Though as a serious note, it does piss me off that it's always 'Fake Nerd Girls', gender doesn't come into it, you get posers on both sides why do all these articles have to mention that it's a problem with "Fake Nerd girls" not fake nerds in general? + Cosplay is really just a thing people do, it's not neccessarily exhibitionism even if the costume is scanty (Saw a dude cosplaying as Namor, didn't assume he was doing it to show off he was an aspiring Micheal Phelps)