Jimquisition: Fake Nerd Girls

[Speksi]

Hows that fake, everyone's got to start somewhere. The only time any of that would be an issue is when youtube "personality's" are branching out into other specialised area's like gaming.

If you're just starting out, you're not a huge anything, except a huge attention w***e, if you feel the need to tell it to everybody.

If Halo is the first and only game you ever played (aside with maybe CoD), you're not a "huge gamer nerd", you're an average person, so act like one.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

You know what? I was going to go through this and quote some of the asinine things being said, refute points, stand up for things I believe in. I'm not going to do any of that though. It's a waste of bloody time to bother with people who are too set on what they think to argue with them and pointing out how wrong they are only makes them more insistent that they are right and - somehow, mysteriously - gives them a sense of superiority derived from how tragically misunderstood they must be by a world that repeatedly tells them they are wrong.

What I will say is that I am disheartened by the arguments at this point. I'm trying to push games forward as a growing storytelling media that is important to our society and should be taken seriously as a literacy in academia so that it might foster the type of growth and credibility that made novels the dominant form of story telling for the past several hundred years (recently somewhat supplanted by television and movies, which I feel don't offer the same interactive experience that video games and deep reading offer). That's what I'm doing with my academic career, or trying to.

Apparently I should hang that up and get the hell out of the boys club because I haven't beaten (because I haven't played, because I don't want to play, because I am simply not interested in) Dark Souls. Interesting.

I'm going to go play some other games that I like instead of working on my research project about racial metaphor exploration in games to try and remember why it is I want to associate with any of you people.

 

[Jenvas1306]

If you were gaming for 30 years you would know EXACTLY what I was talking about.

I'm a guy that's been gaming for 20 years, I'm still ignorant of a whole heap of shit that is being said right now.

To everyone;
Could you please stop it?, the whole "i'm this I'm that, your this, your that, you don't get it blah blah blah", its gone on for 2 pages now and your all getting precisely nowhere with it.

I would stop but this guy is getting on my tits and that's a long climb.

I told you two pages ago you don't have to care what I think. But what a shock, the FAKE NERD GIRLS had to cause a PROBLEM.

You made the accusations. You threw down the gauntlet. Not us. Take some responsibility here.

I responded to a blanket statement by Jim Sterling and you (plural again) took offense at that. I then proved the point I was making multiple times which only caused even more fury. But the scenarios I illustrated are real and hit dangerously close to home (see the above two pages). I'm not going to apologize for saying the truth.

uhh you are coming out now as the big mean lady is gone? how brave of you, with your stupid glasses.

 

[Astro]

Guess what: the guy selling cheap, over-priced kitchen utensils on some home shopping network might not actually know how to cook.

Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe, but be strong. Such is life.

Okay, but is that guy selling cheap, over-priced kitchen utensils for the expressed purpose of getting sexually-charged attention from needy women who thoroughly enjoy cooking?

 

[Monsterfurby]

Guess what: the guy selling cheap, over-priced kitchen utensils on some home shopping network might not actually know how to cook.

Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe, but be strong. Such is life.

Okay, but is that guy selling cheap, over-priced kitchen utensils for the expressed purpose of getting sexually-charged attention from needy women who thoroughly enjoy cooking?

Now that you phrase it that way, it doesn't seem all that implausible...

Yuck.

 

[Astro]

Guess what: the guy selling cheap, over-priced kitchen utensils on some home shopping network might not actually know how to cook.

Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe, but be strong. Such is life.

Okay, but is that guy selling cheap, over-priced kitchen utensils for the expressed purpose of getting sexually-charged attention from needy women who thoroughly enjoy cooking?

Now that you phrase it that way, it doesn't seem all that implausible...

Yuck.

I agree, 'fake nerd girls' are yuck. It's slimy and dishonest to feign interest in something purely to reap the special attention (sexual attention [let's not kid ourselves]) your gender provides you with in the context of what you're pretending to be into. It's even worse when you're preying on a particular group renowned for having poor social skills. It's predatory, but it's just without the culpability of full agency that normally comes with being a predator because the only way the bullshit fawning can progress is through inherently consensual acts.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I think we should all just hold hands and be happy about video games.

 

[rbstewart7263]

I would stop but this guy is getting on my tits and that's a long climb.

Having a difference of opinion (no matter how different) is not a final boss you need to conquer Moonlight.

Accusing people of destroying your beloved culture just by being in it and calling them a liar goes beyond having a difference of opinion.

true though in this case I think that prejudice runs so deep that the only way you could even have a chance at combating it would be to challenge him in a game. words will not suffice. Dark souls would be perfect, or perhaps halo or unreal tournament? quake? perhaps a time trial run on ninja gaiden?

And if thats not enough than ignoring him is the only option you got really.

And moonlight I wouldnt get frazzled prejudice hurts the one carrying prejudice it shouldnt hurt you as well. State your points fluidly, clearly, and concisely and then be done with it thats really all you can do.

edit: Ill say this its alright actually having a sexist baddy on these forums I was begining to wonder where all these douchbags were or if they were real.

its usually been these characters.

"white knights"- how can you say that to HER! All you mean sexists are BAD GO AWAY!
vs
"pity princess"- woe is me. All the prejudice that I deal with its...sniff... TOO MUCH!
vs
"badass *****"(compliment)- I can play games and fuck better than you get over it!
vs
"apathetic pragmatists"- Those high heels arent that big a deal who cares!

So yeah change of pace and all that stuff.

 

[Loethlin]

Snip!

Stop being reasonable!

OT: See, this is exactly the kind of shitstorm that makes me unwilling to talk about my gender on the internet. Noone gives a damn about it if I don't draw attention to it.
Also, I don't have to prove anything to anyone for some perceived cred. You know why? I'm secure in my hobbies and opinions and generally happy.
And so should you all be.

 

[Haefulz]

The only issue I can think off is these people is they do exist are likely to be the same kind of people who 10 years ago would have bullied someone for liking games so I can see the problem there.

People who at one point would not like a thing, than ten years later do? That's what people call progress.

It's tough for the old fans to swallow though. I understand the frustration. My friend was a huge fan of all the superhero comics and cartoons when he was a kid, and he got ridiculed in school for it. Now everyone that was making fun of him is watching the new Marvel movies and he's seeing them claim to be "huge fans of Marvel!" There's nothing really wrong with the person changing and enjoying superheros now, but from my friend's perspective, I'm sure it's tough to swallow.

 

[Jenvas1306]

this, is a very educational thread. I'm glad my brain has such a big storage, so I can put nonsense in there too

"how do you sweat?" was a common egyptian greeting

 

[Frankster]

Anyone else feeling like less of a gamer after reading through this thread?

I only been playing since the master system, never played dark souls, havent beaten most classic hard games and have always sucked badly at fps games let alone competitive arena ones like quake or unreal.

Heck my current favorite multiplayer game is m & b:napoleonic wars cos i can play a musician and just spend the entire battle playing music and not killing anyone. I am the cancer. Good thing im not female too or id really be in trouble :S

 

[Smeatza]

I wonder why - again - a subculture issue has been turned into a gender issue.

Surely everyone realises that fake nerd guys get the piss taken out of them by "real" nerds as well.

But it's not quite as dramatic if well look at the full picture is it.

Continue with the sensationalism.

 

[ms_sunlight]

Surely everyone realises that fake nerd guys get the piss taken out of them by "real" nerds as well.
.

Noone here with any kind of dealings in either the tabletop or video game sub culture will deny that. I sure as heck don't.

The point is that, lately, I've been having my card checked soley on the basis of being female, NOT whether or not I prefer 4.0 over 3.5, not over which MST3k host I prefer, not which religious parallel's were made in the first Silent Hill, ect...

Exactly. Men are assumed to be legitimate and on the level until they slip up. Women are often assumed to be fakes until they prove otherwise. There's no presumtion of good faith. Some guys will subject women to an inquisition until they slip on anything that the guys can then pounce on to "prove" she's a fake. This is in the context of a general miasma where men seem to think they are the "real victims" because boobs make them utterly powerless and other retrograde sexist shite and MRA influenced nonsense.

*seethe*

 

[JarinArenos]

The point is that, lately, I've been having my card checked soley on the basis of being female, NOT whether or not I prefer 4.0 over 3.5, not over which MST3k host I prefer, not which religious parallel's were made in the first Silent Hill, ect...

Yeah, this is a problem. If a guy is faulted for something not-real-gamer-ish (liking 4.0 over 3.5 or actually enjoying Battlefield 4), they just get at most a passing slight on their taste, and possibly intelligence. There's never any cries of being "fake" or the like.

HOWEVER
(here's where I try not to sound like a sexist douche while still disagreeing)

The issue here isn't really faking interest. It's how you act about it. From personal experience, I've known two different girls who were only into gaming for the attention they could get from it. How much they actually enjoyed the games themselves is actually entirely irrelevant to the discussion. They knew that these socially awkward nerd boys would fawn all over the girl in their midst, and they just loved the attention. This often included soliciting gifts and random favors from the "losers" who were apparently just grateful for a halfway-attractive girl deigning to notice they existed.

This is not being a gamer, this is emotional manipulation. Whether they're a "fake" gamer or not is entirely irrelevant to the manipulation aspect.

Now, to be fair, this highlights a problem with the MALES in the culture, as well. They needed to grow up and not be acting that way in the first place. These girls were just happy to exploit their lack of social ability.

TL/DR
Judge gamer girls by how they act, just like anyone else; not by how much you think/don't-think they know about a subject matter.
Edit: Protip, if they're licking an Xbox controller provocatively for anything other than total mocking irony, there might be something worth questioning...

------
Edit2: I should clarify before I get strung up. Making some assumption of being "fake" just because an attractive girl happens to claim to like games, without any other evidence, is wrong and assholeish. And hell, even the best of us enjoy attention. I am ONLY speaking of the rare occurance when someone is intentionally manipulating others and exploiting their lack of social interaction. Especially in a culture very heavy in light mental/social disorders that exacerbate inherent social ineptness. And this is not something you can judge on sight, it's something observed over time.

The reason this is a gender issue is that there's no situation that I am aware of where this can happen with guys. Unless there's some culture out there heavily populated by socially-awkward girls where the occasional guy can show inter-

Nevermind. It's gender-swapped high school art class. o.o (Incidentally, those guys were jackasses too, so I stand by my dislike of girls who do this sort of thing)

 

[Astro]

Surely everyone realises that fake nerd guys get the piss taken out of them by "real" nerds as well.
.

Noone here with any kind of dealings in either the tabletop or video game sub culture will deny that. I sure as heck don't.

The point is that, lately, I've been having my card checked soley on the basis of being female, NOT whether or not I prefer 4.0 over 3.5, not over which MST3k host I prefer, not which religious parallel's were made in the first Silent Hill, ect...

Exactly. Men are assumed to be legitimate and on the level until they slip up. Women are often assumed to be fakes until they prove otherwise. There's no presumtion of good faith. Some guys will subject women to an inquisition until they slip on anything that the guys can then pounce on to "prove" she's a fake. This is in the context of a general miasma where men seem to think they are the "real victims" because boobs make them utterly powerless and other retrograde sexist shite and MRA influenced nonsense.

*seethe*

Women aren't assumed to be fakes, most people are just cautious about deciding whether they think they're legitimate or not whereas they aren't for men. No-one ever says they're 'utterly powerless' because they're attracted to women, they're just aware that they are attracted to women and some women will actively seek to exploit that. Fake nerd girls wouldn't exist if acting like one wasn't effective, and I don't think anyone likes being exploited.

You're creating a false antagonist.

 

[SweetLiquidSnake]

I know girls that fake interest in shit they don't care about for the sake of pleasing a man. They're called strippers.

 

[JarinArenos]

I know girls that fake interest in shit they don't care about for the sake of pleasing a man. They're called strippers.

And they're quite open about getting paid for it. Likewise, the issue of "booth babes" is separate from this one. They're doing a job; blame the person writing checks if you don't like it.

 

[AngloDoom]

I know girls that fake interest in shit they don't care about for the sake of pleasing a man. They're called strippers.

I've pretended to like football to continue a conversation with a man I liked, I never realised until now that I was a stripper.
I've also faked an orgasm - sometimes it's just polite to fake interest, non?

OT:

Personally, I just think this is the result of the whole 'geek culture' thing springing into popularity. People have accused me of swapping from contact-lenses to glasses in recent years because I'm trying to keep up with fashion.

I am. What of it? I think it looks nice, it makes people give me compliments and it makes everyone think I'm about twice as capable as when I had contact-lenses. I really don't see what everyone's problem is with trying to fit in - we all do it and it's fun to do it.

 

[JarinArenos]

Personally, I just think this is the result of the whole 'geek culture' thing springing into popularity. People have accused me of swapping from contact-lenses to glasses in recent years because I'm trying to keep up with fashion.

I am. What of it? I think it looks nice, it makes people give me compliments and it makes everyone think I'm about twice as capable as when I had contact-lenses. I really don't see what everyone's problem is with trying to fit in - we all do it and it's fun to do it.

Nothing wrong with this sort of thing. It's really a matter of intent and degree, which is why I say it's not something you can ever make immediate accusations about. Likewise, that one guy in art class surrounded by all the girls probably is interested in the art as much as the company. I use this example deliberately. I was that one guy in art class in college, and yes it got me some attention, and yes it felt nice. However, I never tried to manipulate any of the girls into anything more than conversation. I wasn't there for them, I was there to learn how to draw.

Really, though, I'm not referencing a stereotype people aren't familiar with, am I? We all knew that jackass who just took Art and Home Ec to sleeze girls into the sack, right?