“Fake geek girls” are in the forefront once again. What are fake geek girls? These are the girls who pretend to be geeks only to swindle and manipulate regular geeks. They dress in costumes that they don’t understand so they can pretend to be hot. But the truth of the matter, I don’t think these “fake geek girls” really exist.
Last week, Tony Harris, a well known award winning comic book artist, ranted on his Facebook account about these “Fake geek girls”. The focus of his diatribe was on ladies who cosplay. Feel free to check out his outlandish comments about these girls not being real geeks or fans.
Of course these comments brought a firestorm of justifiable comments. Jill Pantozzi of the Mary Sue posted about it on her Tumblr page, The Bird and The Bat. Rachel Edidin of Comics Alliance addressed Harris’s comments in her article, “Geek Masculinity and the Myth of the Fake Geek Girl” and she discusses her negative experiences with male dominated geek culture. Liana K. of Gaming Excellence wrote an article, Tony Harris is Comics … And So Can You!, and had Jill post it on The Bird and The Bat. The article was about how comic geek culture is often not kind to females. The Mary Sue posted a funny but truthful comic about how some geek girls are treated. It is by tumblr user sailorsway and I reposted it below.
Here are my thoughts on this whole thing.
The word geek should not be gender specific. It should bring thoughts of the fun entertainment that geeks enjoy. Gender should not be a thought because both boys and girls enjoy geeky kool things.
I grew up being made fun of for collecting comic books and being “too much” into Star Wars. I was heckled by other kids but that was decades ago and I am way over it. I refuse to reject others just because I was rejected. I understand that being a comic geek or a science nerd or whatever label we call ourselves gave us an identity. We can embrace our past while enabling others to develop their inner geek. We should never allow our insecurity to rule our hearts.
I am only able to attend a few comic book conventions a year. My weekends are not filled with comic conventions all over the country like it is for Tom Harris. But in my experience, I have never met a cosplayer who dressed up in an attempt to manipulate me. They are there having a good time with other geeks. Most of the time, these cosplayers love for you to take their picture while they embrace their roles.
I understand how economics works. Anytime you have a group of people with expendable cash, some people of will use any means to get a piece of the money. Could some cosplayers use their costumes in an attempt to make money? Sure. But most just want to have a good time dressing up.
I know a little bit about “geek girls”. Geeky KOOL has two female contributors. Both Valerie and Tracy are geeks and females without a question. They provide great posts and perspective. I know they aren’t pretenders and are REAL geeks. On some subjects, they far exceed my knowledge and understanding. Geeky KOOL is a supporter of geeks of any gender.
Twenty years ago, my good friend Jill and I had our first real conversation. We were at a restaurant with a group of friends (including my wife) where Jill and I started talking geek. We discussed our love of science fiction and the aspects of various sci fi TV series. We conversed about all sorts of geeky fun. Within a few minutes, my wife asked me to change seats with her (she sat between me and Jill) so my wife could be involved in non-geek conversation. This started a fantastic friendship of two geeks.
Cosplay is geeky on its own. You don’t have to intimate knowledge about a particular character, mythos, or universe to dress up and pretend. Cosplay is part acting/ role playing and part costume design. Spending hours to make the perfect costume is nerdy and great. Being willing to put on the costume and get into the character is full out geektastic. I don’t really care if the person is motivated by their love for a character or that the outfit makes their legs look really good. It is geeky any way you slice it.
My eleven year old daughter is interested in cosplay. She desires to dress up a Black Widow at an upcoming Convention. In her view, Black Widow is an awesome female who can kick butt (especially kick the guys) without any super powers. She adores the fact that she shares her first name- Natasha with the Black Widow (yes- Black Widow goes by Natasha but is really Natalia). My daughter doesn’t know all of the history of Black Widow (neither do I and I have been a long time comic reader). She is interested in learning more and reading more comics with Black Widow. But even if she doesn’t learn the history, should this prevent her from dressing up at the next Con? Of course not. And it shouldn’t prevent other people from dressing up, just because they don’t know all of the history of other characters.
Newbies and young geeks are still geeks. They may not be able to name the episode Star Trek where Kirk meet Khan or Wedge’s call sign during the first Death Star run. But they may love Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Black Belt Theater anime, role player, MMRPG, or any other geeky kool entertainment. There should not be some litmus test for geeks because we all have different interests and are at different levels of geekdom.
Instead of discouraging others from joining our geeky group by a litmus test, we should be discipling newbies. We can share our knowledge and excitement with others. When we do this, we will bring more diverse people including many more females. The geek community needs to move to a big tent mentality and becoming more accepting of others who are referring to themselves as geeks. We need to drop this “fake” geek bull.
In summary, I have never met a fake geek girl. I believe they are an urban legend. There may be a bit of money to gain but the vast majority of people come to conventions to have a good time including females who are geeks. Long live the geeks of all genders.
