Our Little Pony

[nouseforamonkey]

I have watched 3 episodes.
Painful is an understatement.

It gets much better around episode 5 or 6.

However, in response to your question I'll reiterate that going is probably not a great way to impress your ladyfriend. It's usually very obvious when someone is at a concert or convention and not enjoying it, you hanging around being mopey or bored is very likely to ruin her fun.

 

[ThriKreen]

Well okay, so they do exist. I didn't have enough experience with cons myself to comment, I just felt that it sounded a little unbelievable to me. Apparently I was wrong, although I still kind of think a few bits of anecdotal evidence aren't proof of a widespread problem.

But still, I don't like the idea of acting like you have to create some kind of geek Inquisition to reject the eeevil wannabes. It's a public space (assuming they paid to get in or whatever else), and it's not as if they're drugging vulnerable nerds to be carried off for some kind of sick experiments. What precisely is the problem? That you feel these wannabes are so hypnotising that entire swathes of the nerd population will be swayed by their wiles? That they'll hurt your feelings by being rude about the things they're dressed up as?

I just don't think it's worth the trouble you'd create by treating every attractive woman at a convention with suspicion. And I especially don't think the guy who wrote the original post is the right guy to talk about it, since he seems to be an arrogant, judgemental prick. He can say he's not talking about 'proper' nerd girls until he's blue in the face, he still used the "out of 10" scale in the same article as saying that he's attracted to brains over looks. After implying that women are worth less if they're lower on the scale, too.

Again, you are missing the point. Wanna-bes are ok, it means the cosplaying and such "lite" interests are can be a gateway to more, for lack of a better team, hardcore nerd things.

It's not just women he's talking about, and he shouldn't have used it in the title. And he refers to cosplayers too much. But he has admitted he has talked to some cosplayers and discovered very quickly they don't care, and are there for another purpose.

We can admit that a real booth babe probably is only there for the job (model for hire), but again, that's not what he's talking about.

It's the poachers, the users, who act like vampires and have no care of the geekdom, but just want to profit either through making something already scarce even more so or for attention. They suck up an attendee pass to sell at inflated prices, which is especially bad if the event is very popular and sell out quickly (i.e. PAX, SDCC). Pick up con exclusives, again, to Ebay. And all the while they go around and insult the people that they are profiting from.

Another good example I recall in that thread (which I don't have a link to off hand), would be someone who goes to an author signing, admits he's never read any of their books (or any books for that matter), never will, doesn't care for the genre and intends on selling the autographed book on Ebay because he knows someone will pay out the nose for it.

And you are right, in that the problem is much smaller than the article seems to allude to, but they are there.

 

[Atomic]

I have watched 3 episodes.
Painful is an understatement.

It gets much better around episode 5 or 6.

However, in response to your question I'll reiterate that going is probably not a great way to impress your ladyfriend. It's usually very obvious when someone is at a concert or convention and not enjoying it, you hanging around being mopey or bored is very likely to ruin her fun.

Point noted.
But it's not the storyline, it's the setting, the characters.
This stuff was made for 3 years olds, I don't want to patronize anyone but how could anybody like this?

 

[Kargathia]

Can I just say that it's truly amazing how many people don't seem to get the joke? At all?

Indeed. It is both slightly worrisome and downright hilarious that so many people fail to grasp sarcasm this heavy.

 

[nouseforamonkey]

Point noted.
But it's not the storyline, it's the setting, the characters.
This stuff was made for 3 years olds, I don't want to patronize anyone but how could anybody like this?

~18 years of obsession with anime has predisposed me to liking ridiculous characters and bright colors. I can understand how it isn't for everyone, though.

Also, on-topic:

It is definitely hilarious how many people this went right past.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

That was pretty clever, I thought you were referring to an actual story of this happening for a second.

 

[Yal]

However, in response to your question I'll reiterate that going is probably not a great way to impress your ladyfriend. It's usually very obvious when someone is at a concert or convention and not enjoying it, you hanging around being mopey or bored is very likely to ruin her fun.

Gotta disagree here. Learning how not to be a giant dick when roped into a not-entirely-shared interest is just a basic social skill. Go and be supportive, enjoy that she's having fun. It's not like cons happen twice a week.

 

[Chicago Ted]

Snipped

After reading over the article linked, and thinking over the term "6 of 9" the more I realize how fitting the meaning is.

I feel you are completely missing the point of that article by a good mile, and so is the reason for it being linked in the comic. As stated in the article:

And be it known that I am good friends with several stunningly beautiful women who cosplay as stunningly beautiful characters from comics, sci-fi, fantasy and other genres of fandom. They are, each of them, bone fide geeks. They belong with us. Being beautiful is not a crime.

Flaunt it if you got it ? and if you're a geek, male or female, and you're strikingly handsome or stunningly beautiful, and you cosplay as a handsome or beautiful character, more power to us all. Hot geeks are hot.

What I'm talking about is the girls who have no interest or history in gaming taking nearly naked photos of themselves with game controllers draped all over their body just to play at being a "model." I get sick of wannabes who couldn't make it as car show eye candy slapping on a Batman shirt and strutting around comic book conventions instead.

While I do not attend cons myself, I do know a few cosplayers from a LARP I participate in, each of them being female. I have seen the effort that they put into their costumes in order to pull it off, and the dedication they have to the source material. They're some of the most diehard fans out there for their respective materials. And judging from the pictures I see from some cons, the effort displayed in the costuming skills of several, they are not alone.

[HEADING=1]HOWEVER.[/HEADING]

They are not the only ones who attend these events. Again, when I see pictures of cosplayers from cons, some stick out very sourly as people who have gone their only to flaunt their sex appeal. These are the 6 of 9's spoken of in the article.

To illustrate, let's show an example:

This is an attractive cosplayer.

I would be surprised if this was a real cosplayer who was a fan of comic book culture.

One of these people has obviously gone to some lengths to ensure there is some dedication and accuracy to the costume they are wearing, while the other likely threw on some underwear with blue stars, put on the skimpiest top possible, and slapped a couple pieces of fucking tinfoil to their wrists in a couple minutes.

I'll end this by saying that in my mind, there are 4 possibilities for a cosplayer:

1) Fan of Material + Extensive Work Done on Attire = Dedicated Cosplayer

2) Not Fan of Material + Extensive Work Done on Attire = Someone who loves to make costumes and dress up in them, may be a fan of other aspects but would like to costume as something else

3) Fan of Material + Little Effort Done on Costume = Someone who is a fan, but either lacks the skills, time, initiative, etc. to dedicate to dressing up to the role

4) Not a Fan of Material + Little Effort Done on Costume = Why are you here?

And while it's true that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and that the only way you'll confirm which of these 4 potential categories a person falls under is by actually talking to them and such (And don't feel the need to investigate if they are or are not a fan just for the sake of confirming suspicions, go do something else), there is no denying that there are attention whores out there, both male and female, who only do what they do to attract the attention of others. After all, there exist booth babes.

Again, I will say, I am not a con attender, I do not have firsthand experience, but what I do have are the stories I've been told by those who do, and the pictures shown of some that go. I do believe this wannabe phenomenon of 6 of 9 really does exist.

 

[el_kabong]

Oh sweet jesus. So many people not understanding...

And no, while harassment may seem awesome for us guys, just wait until it's a girl you find unattractive.

Even with attractive girls its annoying as hell if you've turned them down and they won't leave you the hell alone.

I would go a step further and say it doesn't matter if they're attractive or not. Any unwanted sexual attention is usually irritating. On separate occasions, I've had both unattractive and attractive women go too far in trying to get into my pants. Obnoxious on all levels (and usually kills any sense of attraction, even for the ones that look good). Speaking of unsolicited attention...

OT: I had to dig deep to grasp the point behind the comic. Good on ya for making me do research to get the point. In regards to the guy's article, I think it was a fair point stated lousily and failing to see the true cause. Since I can't attest to CONs (which I've never been to), I'll extrapolate to my own personal gaming community when coming to these conclusions.

I think that there is a very real minority of "gamer" and "geek" girls who fall into the a category of "attention seekers". In my own personal experience, these are usually girls who hang out with their fellow nerds in middle/high school. They develop a sort of symbiotic relationship where geek girls and boys have sort of a sexual tension where they both act like each other's training wheels when interacting with the other gender. Girls get the benefit of feeling desirable and boys get "safety net" interactions in regards to their feelings and interests.

The problem for both sides becomes when they don't move past that stage. In relation to the article, women who are in this arrested development tend to tie their sexual identity to the guys in a geek group and assume that the men, in turn, will be interested. When they aren't around 13 year old boys, they act out further to gain the attention that they are not getting simply by being there. This usually manifests as the person in question consistently drawing attention away from the game with sexual comments about themselves and/or shamelessly flirting with everyone in the group.

I hope that this post isn't flamed for me being the devil's advocate, but I can't be the only one who runs into these sorts of women in the gaming community. And, although I'm not taking a morale judgement or saying that they are less geek than I, I feel that their presence is as unwanted as "the guy who takes games way too seriously". At least, I don't want to game with them.

 

[SadakoMoose]

This is going to sound horrible in context to the very REAL problem of con harassment, but I'd kind of LIKE it if I got that sort of attention from some women.
I know that there's something wrong there, but it's how I feel. I shouldn't want to be objectified or treated like freaking sexy window dressing, but I kind of would in that case.
Maybe, because while society is telling me (as a male) that I should be out going around, doing everything in power to "get laid" and that "getting laid" should somehow be my top priority (in front of nearly everything else, including being good at my freakin' job), I'm actually pretty alone. Is it that combination of societal privilege and personal unfulfillment that leads to my feeling this way? Because I certainly HAVE the societal privilege to be sexually active. Unlike a girl, I'd almost never be shamed for being promiscuous. So then does that make my desire to be talked about and treated like a purely sexual being ok, or even understandable?
Some asshole is going to make a 50 shades of grey joke, I just know it...

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

Again, you are missing the point. Wanna-bes are ok, it means the cosplaying and such "lite" interests are can be a gateway to more, for lack of a better team, hardcore nerd things.

It's not just women he's talking about, and he shouldn't have used it in the title. And he refers to cosplayers too much. But he has admitted he has talked to some cosplayers and discovered very quickly they don't care, and are there for another purpose.

We can admit that a real booth babe probably is only there for the job (model for hire), but again, that's not what he's talking about.

It's the poachers, the users, who act like vampires and have no care of the geekdom, but just want to profit either through making something already scarce even more so or for attention. They suck up an attendee pass to sell at inflated prices, which is especially bad if the event is very popular and sell out quickly (i.e. PAX, SDCC). Pick up con exclusives, again, to Ebay. And all the while they go around and insult the people that they are profiting from.

Another good example I recall in that thread (which I don't have a link to off hand), would be someone who goes to an author signing, admits he's never read any of their books (or any books for that matter), never will, doesn't care for the genre and intends on selling the autographed book on Ebay because he knows someone will pay out the nose for it.

And you are right, in that the problem is much smaller than the article seems to allude to, but they are there.

Well then it's just a problem that exists everwhere, and is pretty shadey in a lot areas (specifically reselling tickets at inflated prices, I was under the impression there were often rules against that). So why does the originally linked article focus on A) geek stuff and B) women? Especially since the problem you just described has absolutely nothing to do with women dressing up and trying to look attractive, which is what he was bitching about.

*Snip*

But what's your point? I acknowledged that these people are real in my second post, but I still don't see what threat they represent to everyone else at the convention. I'm not calling the people who talk about them liars, I just don't see why it's such a big deal. If convention attenders do pay attention to them, is it the duty of whoever's in charge to throw them out in order to protect the oh-so-vulnerable nerds?

Are they taking up a limited supply of tickets? Maybe, though I have to wonder how much the convention meant to you if you were beaten to the punch by someone who has no interest in the subject of the convention.

And I just... I just can't wrap my head around how mind-numbingly horrible the phrase "6 of 9s" is to me. It implies that if they were really 9s, that would be okay. It implies that if they believe themselves to be 9s and he doesn't, they should realise the mediocrity of their appearance. It implies... Well, it uses the "attractiveness out of 10" system at all, which is surely reason enough to ignore it. Maybe that's me white knighting a bit too far, but it seems like a really mean spirited term to use for people who could very well be doing this because of self esteem issues.

 

[AbstractStream]

The amount of awesome in this comic is off the charts.

 

[Risingblade]

This is a bad thing? Seems pretty awesome to me...

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

"You are 6s trying to be 9s" is just a really horrible thing to say. 'I'm going to insult your appearance then I'm going to call you out for being attention seekers who are trying to feel prettier than you actually are.' I would not associate with someone who had that kind of attitude.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

This seems completely inaccurate!

Why would girls be hitting on nerds? /sarcasm.

 

[HalfTangible]

I thought you were being serious until i clicked on the petty little tit link.

You WERE being serious. Sarcastically.

 

[Darkmantle]

If "bronies" actually got treated that way, every guy in the world would pretend to be into My Little Pony.

pretend to be into something just to get subjected to sexual harassment? i doubt that highly

it's not fun for either gender

Actually the idea of getting sexually harassed by a group of women engorges my sexual organ.

Even if it was someone grossly unattractive, the ego boost still happens.

that's still doubtful you would welcome harassment... if you don't expect it and you are caught off guard you will feel bullied and put down. no one likes that, not even you.

I dunno, it might depend on the person really. I know I wouldn't have reacted like the guy in the comic, It's impossible to say for certain until you are in the scenario though.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

Oh dear god the amount of people commenting who failed to get the REALLY OBVIOUS POINT.
I wonder what would happen if someone posted "A Modest Proposal" to the Escapist...

HA. I read that! ^.^

That would be an interesting social experiment.