Jimquisition: Fake Nerd Girls

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I've been gaming since 1984. It's my main hobby, it's pretty much all I do. Exactly how are you sitting there telling me I'm not a gamer just because I happen to have ovaries.

Sometimes people want to make me flip a goddamn table seriously.

The 1920's called they want their opinion of women back.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I've been gaming since 1984. It's my main hobby, it's pretty much all I do. Exactly how are you sitting there telling me I'm not a gamer just because I happen to have ovaries.

Sometimes people want to make me flip a goddamn table seriously.

I stand by what I told him about firing up a copy of Quake and coming at me. Hell, I get home tonight, I'm going to go and scrape some rust off my hands just on the off chance this little frag-bait actually let's me gib his ass one on one.

We shouldn't have to fucking prove ourselves tbh.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

When was the last time you heard anything about Ms. Sarkeesian? 'Cause I haven't heard anything from her in ages. Probably because I get most of my new from this site, but whatever.

2 months ago as I wrote a little article about something related to her and how EA have hired her to essentially tell DICE how to make Mirrors edge 2.
Mostly it was questing why she was actually consulting upon gameplay when her area is characters. Along with questioning the idea that Faith is a good female character when honestly she's not much more rounded a character than Gordon Freeman (Gordon freeman is more of a narrative device than a character in his own right, not saying its a bad thing as such though)

2 months? Yeah that sounds about right. In that time we really haven't heard a peep out of her. Or at least I haven't. Although her consulting on Mirrors Edge 2 is an interesting development.

Why haven't I heard about either of those things? I knew Wil Wheaton had made a few statements but I didn't know he had received death threats or anything. ...not that that surprises me any. It seems few people on the Internet know how to properly address issues they feel strongly about and resort to lashing out like a pack of rabid chimpanzees. ...except that would be an insult to rabid chimpanzees.

Actually Wil wheaton didn't recieve death threats (at least to the best of my knowledge) )
it was the now ex Destructoid guy who received them from some of the army of Wheatons fans.

Either way, I haven't heard of it.

 

[Mel Theofficegamergirl]

Can't we all just get along? I never actually see this happening IRL when I've been at events or conventions or whatever. As for online, I get a little pissed when someone questions my nerdiness because said fakes exist. It's okay though, I forgive people who are ignorant enough to approach me with such questioning.

 

[Grumpy Ginger]

Maybe a good little way to get peoples head around why telling women to just turn off chat online or to ignore abuse is insensitive and dickish is to do one simple thing, replace every mention of women with a black person and every sexist insult with the n word and other racist slurs.Now how do you feel defending racist slurs and discrimination soak it in because you should be feeling just as bad for defending being a sexist douche or sexist douche enabler.

 

[clippen05]

I also just though of something else. Recently at my school there was a school volleyball tournament. It was competitive, but many teams entered just to have fun and not care about their record. Many teams went with a team costume in mind. One team were all dressed as superheroes in some way. There were girls on that team, and guess what, they knew a decent amount about superheroes. But then there was another team, aptly named, "Revenge of the Nerds." I know I might catch some flak for saying this, but here we go. The girls on this team were all the kind of people that 100% I know for a fact couldn't tell Star Trek from Star Wars, couldn't name one video consoles, don't play video games, nothing. I know that people may say, "But you don't know that for sure!!!!" That's true, I don't, but I'm sure all of you know of that one clique from highschool: girls that are attractive cheerleader types who go out and drink every weekend at parties. That was these girls. Their team attire were suspenders, ties, office shirts, and the typical "Nerd Glasses:" Is that what nerds are? Going into this further, many of these girls dressed up in the same attire at Halloween parties. To me, this is really offensive. Is that what represents a nerd or a geek? Are we such a joke that we're a Halloween costume? Now to concede I know these girls weren't trying to fool anyone into thinking they were "nerds", (Some of them are actually pretty cool people that I could talk to) but still, it makes me wonder how the subculture is thought of...

 

[Cat of Doom]

My girlfreind often gets 'tested' on her knowledge of games, especially by when she wears her assassins creed of mass effect T-shirts. Nerds seem to get angry, as if shes wearing their uniform, and she has to meet a certain grade to be able to wear them. Some jackass even accused her of being a fake nerd girl (something she dosen't claim to be) because she only plays a few titles mainstream titles on the xbox, and not obscure indie games on a £1000 gaming pc. If you regularly play any game your a gamer, its not an elite club.

Even I'v been questioned if I'm a REAL gamer before because I guess I don't look the part, and I work in the industry.

 

[Vault101]

snip.

.......

this whole persecution complex is toxic and not good for anything, people need to move the fuck on , this is what happens when people take labels and titles too seriously..people you don;t like play games BIG FUCKING DEAL....

I'm female and I'm a "gamer" DEAL WITH IT

 

[OuroborosChoked]

It's one thing if I can go up to one of these supposed "fake nerd" girls, and we can actually hold a discussion about the Atari 2600's impact on modern gaming citing specific examples (or something similar)... if you can do that, you're a nerd in my book.

How often do you even see that conversation happen? I was playin' Star Raiders on the Atari 400, son. I go to some pretty in-depth gaming sites and blogs. You know how often I've seen a conversation about the "Atari 2600's impact on modern gaming?" Certainly not here in the Escapist forums. And rarely outside of an article on Gamasutra. The very statement is pretentious*.

But then, in some peoples' book I'd be a fake gamer, too.

*As an aside I could go off on how the Star Raiders design did not go on to influence modern gaming, when it should have. Despite its DNA being found in Elite, Wing Commander, and the like, but completely gone by the time we get Mass Effect.

Pretentious? Not to me. I grew up on the Atari 2600. When most kids were playing Nintendo, my family had Atari. I played the shit out of the old 2600 Pac Man! Moon Patrol, Space Invaders, Sea Quest, Megamania... that made up years of my childhood. Just because it's old doesn't mean it's pretentious, either. If you have a passion for something, you'll find a way to expose yourself to it. I never had a Genesis growing up, nor were there a lot of arcades around me anywhere I lived, but emulators in college helped with that.

And I did say "or something similar", so it doesn't have to be that specifically... but any topic of excruciating detail that only someone with that specific knowledge would be able to participate in. People who can are people who have a real passion for the medium... they become nerds for that topic. To me, if you can talk about how Star Raiders should have influenced gaming more, you're a nerd... and I want to hear it!

Besides, it's not like this is setting the bar too high. When I was in college, I used to hang out at a locally-owned video game store. It was where a bunch of nerdy guys (and some nerdy girls!) congregated and just talked about video games, cracked jokes, and had a good time... yes, we bought games from the store, too... In there, that kind of conversation was COMMON. It was like video game nerd heaven and my second home. Those were some of... no, fuck it... they WERE the best years of my life. I felt accepted for who I was... and I've missed it every day since it closed.

Basically, it comes down to this: gaming makes you a gamer, but being a gamer doesn't make you a nerd.

^If anyone is going to take anything away from this thread, it's that.^


P.S. I just want to share this one bit from memory lane here. One day we were all sitting around watching the store's clerk play Mario Golf or something on the Gamecube... and this guy who was a regular there just says out of the blue: I wonder if Boo died in a car accident...

I was in TEARS! I was literally on the floor laughing because I had never thought about it... I mean, he's a ghost, right? How did he become a ghost? It just struck me that this cutesy little Nintendo character was actually someone who just ran into a tree...

Okay, I'm a sick fuck... but I found it hilarious. I still do.

God, I miss those days...

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Let me just put it out that people can wear/listen to/watch/play/eat whatever the hell they want. And nobody needs to justify anything to anyone, unless they are trying to be something they claim to be.

The issue that I think Jim might be missing here, is that fake *anything* people are annoying to those who are legit, simple as that. Because that's called a poser. Yes, you are right, they have little impact on any industry or genre or culture, but it's annoying for those who are genuinely involved in something to see others try to cash-in on it in some shape or form (attention, money, recognition, respect etc) when they are obviously doing it for some other reason than that they simply like it.

I'm probably a bit out of touch now being almost 30, but I got the same amount of flak for lots of stuff in my teens. Even my own brother tried to call me out for drawing a Slayer logo on my school bag when I was in 7th Grade, until I proved myself. (Now we've grown up, and I've been listening to metal a lot longer than he has). It's what kids do, and in general, the effect is minimal, but it won't stop others from being offended by it.

Before, it was fake gangsters, surfers, metal heads, even weed smokers, now its hipsters, nerds, emos and god knows what you'll have to ask someone younger than me.

 

[Vault101]

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