A Geek’s Guide to Washington D.C.’s AwesomeCon
By Emma Louise Backe Awesome Con is in Washington, D.C. this weekend and I can’t wait to see the Metro…
By Emma Louise Backe Awesome Con is in Washington, D.C. this weekend and I can’t wait to see the Metro…
This is the last installment of this series. You may read the foreword to this series, As Always, it Started With…
This is the second to last installment of this series. You may read the foreword to this series, As Always, it Started With Star Trek: A Study On Geek Girls, as well as parts 1, 2 and 3.
Why did the Fake Geek Girl debate reach such intensity in 2012?
You may read the foreword to this series, As Always, it Started With Star Trek: A Study On Geek Girls, as well as parts 1 and 2.
For a little over two years now, geek culture has been tormented with a raging debate, that of the “fake” geek girl. This debate has divided geeks between those who reinforce the notion that some women pretend to be geeks in order to attract the attention of men, and those who contest it. Since late 2012, I have been analyzing this debate and following the changes it brought forth in geek culture.
You may read the foreword to this series, As Always, it Started With Star Trek: A Study On Geek Girls and the first part which offers an overview of this series and of the methodology used in this project.
In my quest to better understand the fake geek girl debate, I selected 6 rants and over 40 responses to analyse. The first of the six rants I analysed, the Idiot Nerd Girl meme, was created in 2010. Originally used to mock girls self-identifying as nerds but considered as ignorant and idiotic, it exists in hundreds of variations, which generally draw a comparison between a girl’s claim to be a geek or nerd and her alleged lack of knowledge on a specific topic, her lack of involvement in geek spaces and activities, or her physical appearance.