bloodyrosemccoy | Geeks Versus Geeks (Reply)

gwalla linked to a great article by Dr. Nerdlove about this whole Gamergate idiocy. For a long time I've been unable to say much coherent about it, because I get paralyzed by bafflement. Like, "Is this really a productive way you want to spend your time? Is harassing random women so important?" and then I get all slack-jawed and just stare in incomprehension.

But that article helped clarify something for me--and I have to say, I can sort of understand some of it, in the context of the rise of Geek Chic.

I grew up in the last decade when geeking was still marginal. I had all sorts of interests that got ridiculed by classmates--sci-fi, fantasy, Star Wars, wizards, pirates, aliens, conlangs--hell, books in general. I didn't get bullied for it,* but I did get bothered for it. And--just as important--there was no Official Geek STUFF. If I wanted cool wizard or sprite costumes and props for my dolls, or Super Mario earrings, or the One Ruling Ring, I had to make them myself.**

And suddenly I hit college and started hearing people self-identifying as geeks and nerds. Geekery started to become cool. And it was, honestly, KIND OF WEIRD. Those people who had pointed and laughed at me for writing fantasy before now suddenly declared that they were ALWAYS fans of the Lord of the Rings, just as much as I had been. Naturally, I viewed that claim with some suspicion. And what made it more confusing was that suddenly I was being marketed to, with geek products and replicas of cool stuff I liked, which is sort of surreal if you're used to being ignored by marketing. You assume that the marketers are disingenuously catering to your interests without actually caring, which is often true, but that's often true of all marketing. But the disingenuousness in marketing means you find yourself cynically assuming that NONE of these "new geeks" REALLY shares your interests--that they, like marketers, are just full of shit--because a lot of them spent years either ignoring them or outright telling you they didn't.

And then it gets tangled. Being excluded became part of geek identity, because it's a good way to cope when you are being excluded. But at the same time we want to tell ourselves we are better than our excluders. So now, when "they" are all starting to realize that the stuff we're interested in IS PRETTY DAMN AWESOME and want to join in, we have a choice. We can let go of the part of geek identity that treasures our own marginalization, accept people who refused to accept us, and share our cool stuff--or we can laugh maniacally, yell something about how the tables have turned and now WE are the excluders, and turn into the same jerks that we were trying to get away from.

Okay, yeah, it's tempting to dole out some poetic justice. But I want to actually be better than that, like I tell myself I am. Especially since the only thing I have to give up is my outcast status. In the end, it doesn't even matter that people who laughed at the things I liked in the past are now saying they always were fans of those same things.*** It's not like it's a zero-sum--I am still allowed to enjoy Star Wars even if they also enjoy Star Wars. Even if they like all the WRONG Star Wars things, well, that's their problem.

So what I'm saying here is, I can understand that knee-jerk reaction. But I also know that we can override it. And if we do, we'll prove that geekiness not only has the coolest toys, but we also are cool people.

Who would ever have thought that geeks would be cool?

*As far as I know. I was a bit oblivious to things that, in retrospect, were attempted bullying. Obviously not bad, but still.

**Possibly this is why so many geeks are also pretty good at crafting.

***If they were, then I'm unimpressed at how they failed to admit it and made fun of me, but then I realized that if they were then they were too scared to admit it and I feel kind of sorry for them. And if they weren't always into it, then they've just figured out that my toys really ARE cool, which is a positive step. And if they're cynically bandwagoning, well, whatever.