Yay for hipster/elitist geeks.
[Rant] Can we please stop this "is she a REAL geek lol" bullshit?
- Thread starter HowDroll
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SeraRelm
A horse god dammit!
I am taller than I think...
You're just hating on her because she's a geek girl. You're just like all the rest.
Wow people take their societal labels pretty seriously. I personally think the "geek" label is pretty stupid, and is associated with people who enforce cliches like nerd or jock. It's pretty stupid to assign a pecking order to something so trivial.
I like to refer to myself as just a dude, and usually leave it at that. I think it's silly to conform to dumb labels.
I like to refer to myself as just a dude, and usually leave it at that. I think it's silly to conform to dumb labels.
M
Magister Moonie
That it's just nice to see Blossom acting again?
I usually only label myself as a "nerd" when I'm tagging photos I take of myself in the mirror while I'm wearing Real3D movie glasses with the lenses popped out.
And I make a duck face.
LOL IM SO NERDY
And I make a duck face.
LOL IM SO NERDY 
I don't think I could fall more firmly in the geek category. The geek community is so wide and varied that I'm surprised this is still an isse.
I know personally gay geeks (duh), black geeks, female geeks, male geeks, native american geeks, etc...
It's good to see that there's been a recent backlash about the purile nature of what used to be the majority of the community.
That being said, I can KIND of see where this is coming from. Many of us geeks grew up nerdy kids (and with the anti intellectual atmosphere that the USA propogates, we were appropriately looked down on for it). There's a reason that was the stereotype. It was the thing that allowed us to have our own thing that the popular kids couldn't touch. Now, many of our staples are bleeding into mainstream culture and bringing in the same people who probably would have beat us up in high school, or in the case of pretty girls, girls who wouldn't look at us except to make fun of us.
That also being said, it needs to fucking stop. Geek culture is not the same as it used to be, and geeks need to get over it. What makes me laugh the most about this is that it builds a common ground that wasn't even there before, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Also, with the geek community becoming broader, hopefully it will stem the constant stream of misogyny, homophobia and racism that permeated the culture for quite some time.
I know personally gay geeks (duh), black geeks, female geeks, male geeks, native american geeks, etc...
It's good to see that there's been a recent backlash about the purile nature of what used to be the majority of the community.
That being said, I can KIND of see where this is coming from. Many of us geeks grew up nerdy kids (and with the anti intellectual atmosphere that the USA propogates, we were appropriately looked down on for it). There's a reason that was the stereotype. It was the thing that allowed us to have our own thing that the popular kids couldn't touch. Now, many of our staples are bleeding into mainstream culture and bringing in the same people who probably would have beat us up in high school, or in the case of pretty girls, girls who wouldn't look at us except to make fun of us.
That also being said, it needs to fucking stop. Geek culture is not the same as it used to be, and geeks need to get over it. What makes me laugh the most about this is that it builds a common ground that wasn't even there before, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
Also, with the geek community becoming broader, hopefully it will stem the constant stream of misogyny, homophobia and racism that permeated the culture for quite some time.
Why would anyone willingly associate themselves with a pejorative label to begin with? Geek is synonymous with freak. I guess I'll never understand why someone can't just use the term 'enthusiast' to define what they're passionate about. Instead you have people running around (grown men and women mind you) arguing about what makes them a bigger or proper 'geek'. Doesn't that sound utterly stupid to anyone else? That's like going around claiming to be the biggest yuppie . Why place that dumb label on yourself? It's very high school-like behavior...
I don't think there's anything wrong with the 'geek' label unless you perceive something wrong with it, which I believe you do by the sounds of it. It's a way of relating with other people and finding out if you'll possibly get along in a single word. It's only when people start treating it like a super exclusive club that is becomes a problem.
As for being a woman geek...I get some cracks about it from my husband and friends. Some doubt...but that's because they have decided a geek is someone that games for 12 hours or more a day and play Magic or some shit. My geekiness is different than there's. I know comic books and literature, I adore weird movies and animation. I like DIY things and build and create.
Sometimes there's constant doubting of my 'cred' can get annoying...but I deal. I guess the most sexism I've found in geek culture is in gaming, where any mistake is because you're female.
As for being a woman geek...I get some cracks about it from my husband and friends. Some doubt...but that's because they have decided a geek is someone that games for 12 hours or more a day and play Magic or some shit. My geekiness is different than there's. I know comic books and literature, I adore weird movies and animation. I like DIY things and build and create.
Sometimes there's constant doubting of my 'cred' can get annoying...but I deal. I guess the most sexism I've found in geek culture is in gaming, where any mistake is because you're female.
As a person who is quite frequently targeted for discrimination because of my gender, I have to say that yes, I do find it stupid. I hold no expectations that it will go away any time soon, though.
--Patrick
Lots of marginalized groups adopt the pejorative terms and co-opt them in order to take control of their image. Yankee. Gay. There are others. Further, geek may have been pejorative when and where your grew up, but it's certainly not a pejorative now in the larger culture of the US.
Also, this may inform the discussion somewhat:
GasBandit
Staff member
And once I realized how you were interpreting that, I amended it to make it clearer. Funny though how everybody else knew what I was saying.
Everybody else knew what you were saying? Necronic agreed with you and proceeded to make even broader statements about gender, and then a few people jumped in and said "yeah, I have male friends who wouldn't be cool with being treated that way, and female friends that I can joke around with." So I really don't know about that.
If you treated every woman the way you treated your male friends, you'd surely end up in the hospital or jail, but if you treated every man that way, the same applies. So I'm really not ultimately sure what the point you're trying to make is or how it's relevant to the thread.
If you treated every woman the way you treated your male friends, you'd surely end up in the hospital or jail, but if you treated every man that way, the same applies. So I'm really not ultimately sure what the point you're trying to make is or how it's relevant to the thread.
He was, just not very well.
Yeah... but I'm not sure a lot of men would be OK with being treated how he treats his male friends, either. If you did a survey, more men than women would undoubtedly get a kick out of being called a cock-guzzling whatever, but a sizable percentage of the population would not.
He's citing examples from the extreme end of the spectrum (like pointing to the tallest men in the distribution of men) to support his position of the average. It is a flawed argument to an extent. Basically he's pointing out a part of the distribution to which women won't inhabit (there are no women as tall as the tallest men) but this approach is still somewhat misleading since it doesn't acknowledge the overlap in distributions.
This requires your Bone avatar.
Say what you will, but Mayim Bialik has to be among the top 5 geekiest living actresses, possibly even in the top 3. I would be utterly shocked to find otherwise.
--Patrick
I'd say probably number 1, really. How many actresses have their Ph.D. s in neuroscience?
What the heck does education have to do with geekiness?
Actually, it can, which just goes to show how completely stupid the "geek" term is. Geek, nerd, dork, as the case may be. They're all (formerly) pejorative terms for the unpopular kids in high school, there doesn't seem to be a lot of consensus on whoch term means what - but it's not all the same.
1. Someone who is interested in "phantastic"/escapist worlds -> Phantasy, science fiction,...
2. Someone who is interested in science or engineering (Scientists, but also model builders,...)
3. Someone who has hobbies such as role playing (Live Action, tabletop,...)
4. Someone who is into "nerd culture"
5. Someone who is socially awkward [possibly "around girls", but I guess I'll get lambasted once again if I say that...I'll just point to Raj from the Big Bang Theory as an example of this stereotype]
There's obviously a lot of overlap between these groups, there's obviously also people who only qualify for some of these. Some people get called a nerd just for being into science, while they're not at all "nerdy" otherwise. Some people may be into science fiction or fantasy, but may be as dumb as a brick. Who's "nerdier"?
And some people have English as their fourth language.
I only say "top 3" because I don't know enough about other actresses to know if there's anyone else on par.
And I said "living" actresses because Hedy Lamarr is already dead.
--Patrick
GasBandit
Staff member
Depends on if we're playing a game or not. Undoubtedly bad things would happen were I to walk up on the street to random strangers and start flinging invective.
S
SeraRelm
I'm back at playing CoH since no one was playing Secret World. 
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