All posts by Nick Mizer

About Nick Mizer

Although much of my work focuses on tabletop role-playing games, I think that geek culture in general has a lot to offer for anthropological study, from understandings of modernity and consumerism to the role of the imagination and wonder in the midst of those more “serious” trends. As I explore these things, I find myself straddling the borders between anthropology, folkloristics, and performance studies.

Con-Men: Understanding the Gendered Language of the Comic Book Convention
Gender, Study of geek culture

Con-Men: Understanding the Gendered Language of the Comic Book Convention

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I can clearly remember my first time ever going to a comic book convention. It was rather late in life- I’ve been a fan of comics since I was thirteen, but I went to my first convention at the age of 34. The circumstances were pretty basic- I moved to the city of Baltimore, which has its own comic convention (called the Baltimore Comic-Con). My friend and neighbor was a much bigger comics fan than me, so he was going with his boyfriend of the time. So why not go? Experiences when I am a fish out of water are much better in a group, and if I know individuals I will feel less awkward. Additionally, the boyfriend wasn’t a comics fan at all; he could easily be used as a buffer if things got a bit overwhelming.

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Get Excited and Buy Things
Definitions of Geek

Get Excited and Buy Things

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“If geek culture is defined by “the method of consumption,” then the part of identity that deals with our access to the means of consumption, class, has a defining relationship to geek identity. That relationship is necessarily different from the relatively accidental relationships that geek identity has with race and class.”