"Fake Nerd Girls"

This topic has been coming up a lot recently, so I figure I’d throw my two cents in about it. For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon named in the title, Geekdom has been beset by an insufferable scourge. Yes, dear reader. With the increased popularity of “geeky” cultural niches has come an increased attention from the outside world, and with it has come… the fake nerd girl.

The rant about Fake Geek Girls typically begins by complaining about “Con Girls”. Not girls trying to rob you of your life savings by investing in a Chia Pet ponzi scheme, but girls that attend conventions- typically, girls at conventions dressed up as some character or another. The refrain goes that these girls actually know nothing about whatever franchise they’ve dressed up as, and are only using the Con as a middle-of-the-year, Halloween-esque excuse to dress up in fanciful, yet always slutty, clothing. Why, you might ask?

For the attention, the geek would respond!

Because according to this particular part of the complaint, Con Girls aren’t actually hot enough to hack it as bona fide Hot Girls on the outside; they’re just banking on the stereotype of geeks being inept with women to buoy their attractiveness up a couple pegs by comparison to girls these guys would “typically” have a shot at. (This is known as being “Con Hot”, and it is not a compliment).

Now- I’ll ignore for a moment the fact that the dudes complaining about this probably have no idea how much of a “true fan” Girl X actually is or isn’t, whether or not she’s dressed up. Book, cover, yadda yadda. I want to take a look at where this argument comes from, and then expose it for what it really is.

So where does it come from? Different people might have different underlying reasons for their aversion to “fake nerd girls”, be they dressed up or not: some might believe girls are using their bodies just for personal attention (as mentioned above) or professional attention (to sell some product or other); some male geeks might believe that a more attractive girl couldn’t possibly be interested in something so traditionally anathema to sex appeal, and so any interaction with an attractive woman in the context of their niche is more an act of pity on her part (and “I don’t need your goddamned pity!”) than a true display of her interest in the subject material.

I could go on ad nauseum; the potential reasons behind the accusations of someone being a “fake” geek girl are legion, but they all boil down to the same thing. I’ll list three statements, each progressively closer to the root of the issue; keep score at home and see when you pick up on it.

1.  “These fake geek chicks are terrible! They’re not even into this stuff because they like it, they’re into it for attention. I liked this Con more before they started coming.”
2. “These people are terrible! They’re not even into this stuff. I liked this more before they started coming.” 
3. “Ugh, this is terrible. Those people aren’t even real fans. This was much cooler before it was popular.”

That’s right, my fellow geeks. If you’ve claimed that you liked being a geek before your niche of choice became as mainstream, then you’ve moved out of Geektown and into that one town that everyone in America names with equal venom- Hipsterville.

Ponder that for a moment. Roll that word around in your head. Turn thee, Geekvolio, and look upon thy Hipster-y death!

See, back in the “glory days” I think some of our brothers yearn for- the days of (and here’s my street cred) reading Unearthed Arcana around Gygax’s basement, postulating on what would one day become the THAC0 system or some shit- liking things like comics (sorry, graphic novels) or fantasy card games was decidedly unpopular. But geeks loved them anyway, and would wax poetic about their +3 Dirk of Attentionslaying to anyone with ears and a pulse. That’s what made geeks so geeky. There was no question that professing their love for their niche would get them a first class ticket to a swirly; they professed anyway. And they would try to turn you to the Geek Side too, even if your expression was something akin to a root canal patient’s without anesthesia. I should know. If I had a dollar for every time I used D&D lingo in a middle school English class, trying to sound cool? I could probably pay off my student loans.

Point is- that’s what a good geek is supposed to do. He or she is supposed to look at another person and go, “Ears? Check! Pulse? Check! HEY DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT to talk about our Shiny Lord and Savior, Malcolm Reynolds?”

(One hopes there’s at least some context to this conversation. Bringing it up as a non sequitur typically sounds about as irritating as someone who can’t stop talking about how much they bench pressed- society tends to call those people guidos, or in the root latin, goddamn fucking tools… but I digress). Point is, a good geek is supposed to be a good spokesperson for their niche, thereby increasing the number of people who dig what they dig, and bettering humanity as a whole.

These Anti-“Fake Geek Girl” dudes don’t do that. They don’t see Random Girl dressed as Tifa and think, “Y’know, I should go see if she’s played any of the other FF games”. They don’t see the shared interest as a conversation starter. They see her as a threat of some sort, as if there’s some planetary stockpile of Geekiness, and they have to hoard as much of it as they can to survive the coming football season. I suspect that some of it derives from “I liked this hobby as a form of relaxation, but now with hot girls around I can’t relax anymore, so I’ll be a twat and hope they leave.”

…This is almost always followed a few hours if not minutes later with, “God, girls always go for the assholes. Why won't one talk to me?"

And of course, some of the Anti-“Fake Geek Girl” Guys (Contest Time: Someone come up with a clever acronym for that) are just Hipsters, pure and simple.

But fuck them.

Because fuck Hipsters.

As a really quick aside- I firmly believe that anyone who’s super into something is a geek. Video games, cars, food, weight lifting, vintage issues of Cat Fancy- whatever. If you get real tooled up about something to the point where you have to bite your own tongue to keep yourself from gushing about it out of context again, welcome to Geektown, here’s your pocket protector. But nontraditional kinds of geeks- people into cars, sports, and so forth- they’ve had fangirls tag along to their various big-ticket events for decades! When was the last time you heard a car buff start bitching about all the scantily-clad women that Honda brought with them to the last bike show? Or, when was the last time you heard your local armchair quarterback complain that he doesn’t think the Cowboys cheerleaders don’t really appreciate the game?

I suppose this is all a ranty and fairly roundabout way of saying shut up and accept the company, man! Whether it’s girls, guys, whoever. The more the merrier. And if you disagree, then…

Well, I’ll say it again.

Fuck Hipsters.