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  #26  
Old 04-13-2012, 05:17 AM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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But yeah, why is that resentment almost always targeted at girls? There are probably at least as many poseur boys out there.
You've already got a bead on it, but I had to pipe in with: The girls are easier to target because most of the time they're dressed like sluts and if there's anything worse than being a nerd, that would be it. It is the exact phenomenon you see on the Reddit. Exactly.
Here's the other phenomenon, though, that exists in the same universe: Dudebros literally cannot wrap their heads around the notion that not everything that women do or wear is intended to give them boners.

A short while back, there were all these memes going around about how women should not wear oversized sunglasses because it is unattractive to them. I saw one dude on Pinterest post one, ordering women to stop wearing that kind of sunglasses because he didn't think they were flattering. That was a pretty popular sentiment on Reddit, too. It didn't seem to occur to any of them that women might wear sunglasses to shield their eyes from the sun's harmful rays, or that larger sunglasses would cover a larger field of vision, thus being more effective for that purpose. Females are too illogical to make decisions like that, AMIRITE?

And I don't want to do that thing where people accuse you of being a hypocrite because someone else in your demographic once said something other than what you're saying, but I will say that I've never seen a fight between the guys who call attention whore and the ones who chastise women for doing stuff that they don't think is sexy. So they do peacefully coexist in the same universe, if not the same specific individuals (I bet they do, though).

And maybe this actually comes back to the actual topic, but so I was a pretty cool punk rocker when I was a kid, I will have you know. And regularly--not once or twice, but a TOTAL SHITTON OF TIMES, creepy old men would stop and lecture me about my sartorial choices, informing me that they did not find them attractive.

Because yes, obviously, that teenaged girl got up this morning, donned her safety pins, arranged her magenta flophawk, and put on that leather jacket and Army boots in hopes that maybe, if she got lucky, some saggy old Republican peckerwood her father's age would get a boner from it. Because why else would she have left the house anyway? Or existed, for that matter? HUH? YOU CAN'T ANSWER THAT.

And, you know, maybe that really is a big part of it. There are really still a lot of brotatoes out there who honestly can't wrap their heads around women existing for reasons not directly relating to their dicks. So obviously, if a fe-male expresses interest in something, it must be she's just trolling for their sweet, sweet cock sauce.

And also, I will say that observing the universe of shitlordery out there makes me appreciate :fflove: all the more.
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  #27  
Old 04-13-2012, 06:05 AM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

Wait, females use eyes for some kind of vision? I thought they were there to smoulder lustfully when men lifted heavy things. You know, standard vertebrate sexual dimorphism, like peacock tailfeathers.

I have a speculative notion that the issue with people assuming girls are fake and boys are real is in no small part a population heuristic. There are no girls involved in geek activities, therefore if a girl appears to be involved it is probably some sort of trap. This is actually a really bad argument, but it's a very plausible unconscious heuristic.

To add complexity, I am assured by at least some women that they do on occasion dress with intent to "look attractive", but that doesn't mean that their purpose in then going about their daily lives is to attract men; it just means they like dressing like that. Pretty sure guys do the same thing.

But... I guess my assumption is that if someone I do not regularly fuck has dressed a given way, and it doesn't attract me, that it is almost certainly not my business, because people I'm not regularly having sex with rarely choose how to dress with specific intent to attract me, and the chances are that they've dressed in a way which suits their purposes. Heck, even if it does attract me, it's probably still none of my business.

If someone's clothes are really, really, unusual, I think it's probably silly for them to expect no one to comment at all, but it also strikes me as ludicrously rude for people to say it's not attractive. If I notice that someone has clearly put a lot of work into something, I will often comment, but I just comment on how much work it looks like, or how interesting it is. So far as I know, this doesn't offend people most of the time, and a lot of them seem to like that someone noticed. For instance, outside of some specialized circumstances, I've never seen anyone react negatively to friendly questions about a tattoo, or about nails that are painted in some way more elaborate than "solid color".
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  #28  
Old 04-13-2012, 03:06 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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I have a speculative notion that the issue with people assuming girls are fake and boys are real is in no small part a population heuristic. There are no girls involved in geek activities, therefore if a girl appears to be involved it is probably some sort of trap. This is actually a really bad argument, but it's a very plausible unconscious heuristic.
(skip)
Oh. I use that as a joke argument. "I'm a woman. I do [typical "guy" thing]. Therefore, [typical "guy" thing] is feminine." Ipso facto, ergo sum.
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  #29  
Old 04-13-2012, 03:23 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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Oh. I use that as a joke argument. "I'm a woman. I do [typical "guy" thing]. Therefore, [typical "guy" thing] is feminine." Ipso facto, ergo sum.
Even going so far as your name.

I know a lady who goes by Charlie so people take her more seriously in her job when she writes emails and pony express type letters to people. I lasts at least until they figure out she has lady bits. I think her name is Charlette or some other frilly form of Charles.

A real gender bender since her husband is named Chris. It was a year before I stopped referring to them by the other's name.

The three Erin/Aaron/Aron (s) on our block are one of each gender.
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Old 04-13-2012, 03:32 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

Ha! I know a couple, Dee and Francis, where Dee is the boy and Francis is the girl. :giggles:

Also I know a couple where both people are named Kim Lee (not Kimberly) and they're not even Asian!
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Old 04-13-2012, 04:14 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

At my job, being a geek is actually an important factor. We're an online retailer catering to the geek market (and we do it quite well). However, we also have a corporate half of our parent company and this situation often creates friction between what is a geek and what isn't.

There's a lot of elitism and smugness amongst some of the geeks here. And while it's certainly not gender-specific, it shares some of the same tones mentioned in the articles linked in the OP.

I can see where it comes from, though. There's such a fear here that our geek culture will be lost or corrupted by business needs, that there's a backlash. We stress our geek creds so much that it ends up making non-geek people feel like that they have to put up their own, which of course they can't. So, they end up looking like poseurs or horribly out of touch with us.

The thing is, we should never have pressured them to do that. So what if they're not geeks? Are they good at their jobs? That's all that I care about with my co-workers. I don't care if they read Game of Thrones or Twilight, I don't care if they know Kirk from Picard.

Yes, those things are important for some of the jobs here, but largely not for the corporate side of things.

It's just ugly to see a bunch of geeks look down their noses and sneer at non-geeks. As if we're now the "popular kids" and are going to treat everyone else like they treated us.
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  #32  
Old 04-13-2012, 04:18 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?



I don't think it's a new thing, though. They've always told the nerds that the jocks that beat them up today are going to be mowing their lawns tomorrow. Just World fallacy some more? I dunno.

But, yeah, I also think that's some of the "coolness" factor, now. Of course it's cool to be a geek in the information age, if it means you get to have a high-paying tech job and have money to spend on cool stuff. Money makes you cool.
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  #33  
Old 04-13-2012, 04:35 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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Ha! I know a couple, Dee and Francis, where Dee is the boy and Francis is the girl. :giggles:

Also I know a couple where both people are named Kim Lee (not Kimberly) and they're not even Asian!
I know some who's last name was the same as the first name of the guy she was marrying. His last name is also a common first name.

The wedding announcment, invitations, and program read like that "Who's on first?" skit since everyone on both sides of the family had two first names instead of last names. Like if Kim John was marrying John Cory and there was a Cory John on one side and a Kim Cory on the other. So now there were two Kim Corys a John Cory and a Cory John at the family get togethers.

As to the OP. I know a girl who was a huge programming Linux type geek. But, yeah she had boobies so it was hard not to get distracted by them while trying to admire her brain. Her ability to tech support some of the more difficult stuff could emasculate some of the sensitive types that didn't think they could be or didn't want to get beat by a girl when it can to brainy stuff.

Linux geeks are some of the worst type of geeks. They're tiered by Linux the default greatest OS ever then by Distribution, Repository, Self compiled, GUI, text fucking editor (seriously?), etc. The old school command liners who wrote TFM in Assembly so only the worthy could read it, raining down the RTFM comments from their perch above.
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  #34  
Old 04-13-2012, 05:30 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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I can see where it comes from, though. There's such a fear here that our geek culture will be lost or corrupted by business needs, that there's a backlash. We stress our geek creds so much that it ends up making non-geek people feel like that they have to put up their own, which of course they can't. So, they end up looking like poseurs or horribly out of touch with us.

The thing is, we should never have pressured them to do that. So what if they're not geeks? Are they good at their jobs? That's all that I care about with my co-workers. I don't care if they read Game of Thrones or Twilight, I don't care if they know Kirk from Picard.

Yes, those things are important for some of the jobs here, but largely not for the corporate side of things.

It's just ugly to see a bunch of geeks look down their noses and sneer at non-geeks. As if we're now the "popular kids" and are going to treat everyone else like they treated us.
See this is pertinent to my experiences..not necessarily from the business end, but from a social standpoint. I think I told the story so quick recap, I saw the Fushigi commercial, started researching, found out about contact juggling and walked smack into a big fight between old school purists and newcomers they considered poseur fad followers.

Trying to get a small handle on some of the shit my kid is into, like Star Wars, or superheroes or Transformers or video games sometimes causes me to walk all newbie into worlds I don't even understand and where my even wanting to enter is seen as suspicious by some. Ask me how my conversations usually go at the Game Stop.

Then, there's the whole "too many people liking it makes it automatically not a nerd thing" so my niece, who considers herself "weird" informed me the other day that Hunger Games is "all hype" and not worth seeing, though she never did read the books (which I suggested to her last Christmas based only on a site I found that said the series had a strong female character. I knew nothing else about it and hadn't read it yet) and hadn't seen the movie. The mere fact that a lot of people were talking about it made it just too mainstream for her weird self.

I don't even know that she is weird or quirky or counterculture, I think she is still looking for a place to belong as 14 year olds do, and is not finding a right fit so decided to try being weird or something. So she is prolly totally a poseur (and this is a kid who wall all into Twilight not even two years ago)

That's why I really appreciate you guys here. There are those who share my Disney and Harry Potter and history and stuff, and those that don't share them don't berate me about it, and there are those who will help me with learning a tiny bit about other stuff that I might need or want to know without expecting me to memorize all the facts and are happy to answer my newb questions.

I am not looking for nerd cred, I just want to enjoy what I enjoy and learn enough to communicate with my kid or other loved ones.

I love Phineas and Ferb, BTW.
Nerds of a Feather - Phineas and Ferb Wiki - Your Guide to Phineas and Ferb
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"Now we've done it, Ferb. We've brought the entire convention center to the brink of an inter-genre geek war! ”

— Phineas Flynn

Last edited by LadyShea; 04-13-2012 at 05:50 PM.
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  #35  
Old 04-13-2012, 05:43 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

The text editor wars long-predate Linux. Back before Linux even existed, I knew someone with a sig quote to the effect of:

"Why do we hide from the police, daddy?" "Because we use vi, son, and they use emacs."

The thing about the stupidity of the heuristics is that people use stupid heuristics all the time (thus my constant promotion of Kahneman's book). Mostly, as soon as you point that out, they're likely to realize that, hey, that's not even an argument. But you have to recognize what they're doing to do that, usually.
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:01 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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The mere fact that a lot of people were talking about it made it just too mainstream for her weird self.
Yeah, that's a thing.
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:22 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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See this is pertinent to my experiences..not necessarily from the business end, but from a social standpoint. I think I told the story so quick recap, I saw the Fushigi commercial, started researching, found out about contact juggling and walked smack into a big fight between old school purists and newcomers they considered poseur fad followers.
Not a nerd thing so much, but I told bey that if he ever complained about Crossfit becoming too mainstream I was going to smack him. The day our fat old asses walked into that gym was the day it stopped being cool.
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  #38  
Old 04-13-2012, 06:36 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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Ask me how my conversations usually go at the Game Stop.
Oh, oh! How do your conversations usually go at Game Stop?
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  #39  
Old 04-13-2012, 06:45 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

The idea of "It's popular so it sucks" can often be another way of trying to belong to some group. I knew that was the thing my niece was doing as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She's trying on some kind of counterculture persona, and someone she admires or wants to impress decided that Hunger Games was not cool so she adopted that attitude/opinion without bothering to find out if the popularity was warranted for herownself.
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:47 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

How counter-culture is she? Does she shop at Hot Topic?
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:47 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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The mere fact that a lot of people were talking about it made it just too mainstream for her weird self.
Yeah, that's a thing.
It totally is a thing, but it's not always silly. There really is a lot of shitty, watered down crap in the mainstream media, so it can make a certain type of sense to filter things that way.

Also, FOURTEEN. Adolescence is really hard and really weird. That's when you start trying to figure out in earnest what sort of a grownup you're going to be, and noticing a whole lot of things about the world that are nonsensical and stupid and evil. So it is very normal for a kid that age to reject things just because they are popular, and maybe try to carve out some sort of outsider persona. I'd argue that it's actually a good thing because it means she's observant. Stuff really does suck.
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:49 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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How counter-culture is she? Does she shop at Hot Topic?
Amusingly: We shopped there shortly after it became cool. :P
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:51 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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Ask me how my conversations usually go at the Game Stop.
Oh, oh! How do your conversations usually go at Game Stop?
LOL, they start off okay, because maybe I am looking for a sequel to a game I actually played or something, but after about 30 seconds GameStop dude is talking about shit I don't even and then I have to be all "Um, so if I liked Baldur's Gate like 15 years ago do you think I'll like this?"
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:53 PM
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How counter-culture is she? Does she shop at Hot Topic?
From what I can gather she is so counterculture she doesn't like or have any interest in anything at all!
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Old 04-13-2012, 06:58 PM
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Also, FOURTEEN. Adolescence is really hard and really weird. That's when you start trying to figure out in earnest what sort of a grownup you're going to be, and noticing a whole lot of things about the world that are nonsensical and stupid and evil. So it is very normal for a kid that age to reject things just because they are popular, and maybe try to carve out some sort of outsider persona. I'd argue that it's actually a good thing because it means she's observant. Stuff really does suck.
Yes, it does, but I think she should probably at least know enough about the stuff to make a reasonable determination of suckage (or at least enough to know it probably doesn't suit her tastes) rather than just assuming it sucks because other people like it. Like I said, she loved Twilight, was all over that shit, and it was so popular my 70 year old mother-in-law was a big old fan.

I understand that she's 14 and that it is a really hard and terrible age to be. You couldn't pay me to go back to middle school.

I just wish I could find anything at all that she finds enjoyable or interesting.
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Old 04-13-2012, 07:07 PM
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The mere fact that a lot of people were talking about it made it just too mainstream for her weird self.
Yeah, that's a thing.
It totally is a thing, but it's not always silly.
They've renamed it, but there used to be a page there called, "Tropes are not bad."


Quote:
There really is a lot of shitty, watered down crap in the mainstream media, so it can make a certain type of sense to filter things that way.
Well, yes. The point of that page was about things that are no longer liked because they're popular. Ultimately, it's an outgrowth of what you are talking about. A subculture tends to reject the mainstream but maybe takes it too far. Some examples they list are things that became crap to make them more popular. Others are things that were simply embraced by a wider audience. In that case, it's not so much about liking different things, but basing what one likes on what is unknown or unpopular. It's what leads to the 'anticonformist' label. Someone who has the knee jerk reaction to dislike what's popular ends up being just as much driven by mainstream marketing as the people they claim to have separated from. I say this fully aware that I spent a large part of my life doing it, btw. I suppose it's better than following trends, though it does lead to people being more concerned with what they hate than what they like.


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Also, FOURTEEN. Adolescence is really hard and really weird. That's when you start trying to figure out in earnest what sort of a grownup you're going to be, and noticing a whole lot of things about the world that are nonsensical and stupid and evil. So it is very normal for a kid that age to reject things just because they are popular, and maybe try to carve out some sort of outsider persona. I'd argue that it's actually a good thing because it means she's observant. Stuff really does suck.
Yes. The main difficulty comes in transitioning to the idea that you can take what you like from the mainstream without selling out to it.
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  #47  
Old 04-13-2012, 07:11 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

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Originally Posted by LadyShea View Post
I just wish I could find anything at all that she finds enjoyable or interesting.
If she is identifying with a particular subculture, that's going to be next to impossible. For whatever reason, subcultural people have a tendency to be far more disapproving of things that are almost-but-not-quite what they like than they are of the mainstream.
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Old 04-13-2012, 07:22 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

As far as I know, she's not actually identifying with anyone nor has she joined any subculture. She has labeled herself "weird" because she has been unable to find a place to belong...because she really has no hobbies or interests. The Hunger Games things was really odd coming from her, because books are the only thing she has ever shown interest in, and with her previous vampire romance and Harry Potter fandom I truly think she would like the series.

Even before adolescence we had a hard time finding things to do with her, except go to the bookstore. I have always worried for her. I do think she is trying on being an outsider or counterculture because of her difficulty finding people to hang out with. I wish she would just be comfortable being kind of a loner, because that seems to be what makes her happiest
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Old 04-13-2012, 07:33 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

Others have already noted how the information age has made things once uncool into cool. The nerds of the past have now become style makers and taste makers. So many counter cultures have done that historically. It kinda functions like the Dynastic Cycle of pop culture. (Minus the Mandate of Heaven, obviously, :giggle:) It is funny though, because before recently I never really considered nerds to have been counter culture, but it seems obvious they were.

I think the word "geek" has been slowly taking on the meaning that the slang word "freak" had in the past. Not as in "Hey look at the freak!" the pejorative, but as in "Hey, what's your freak?" as a noun representing a person's interest. That came into popular usage in the sixties once the Hippy culture got into full popular swing. That is also the origin of other phrases that hung around longer like "get your freak on" (though that typically used now to refer to sex exclusively, rather than other interests) as well as "Let your freak flag fly" (which I am particularly fond of.)

So now if someone is interested in X they claim to be an "X geek." That is different from the older use of "geek" to mean someone with an unusual or obsessive interest, who is usually an outsider.

I find all of this fascinating as a "word geek," because both of those nouns had past pejorative usage prior to them being used as a self identifier for something a person enjoys or is interested in. I think that switch in language and identity must be deeply ingrained into the dynamic of counter cultures becoming mainstream and how people process it.

But yeah, I find gatekeeping a pretty odious thing in this context, because typically it is those who have previously been excluded seeking to exclude others. That is far more hypocritical than a privileged elitist acting as gatekeeper.

Oh and boy to I have some Gamestop stories. I used to work there. But that is another freak for another post.
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  #50  
Old 04-13-2012, 07:43 PM
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Default Re: Springtime for Geek Girls?

For extra amusement, one sees people in MMOs who are contemptuous of the roleplayers, whom they consider "nerds". I suspect that reactions to those people are part of the "gatekeeping" thing -- people don't want someone in their nerd hangout who is hostile to nerds. On the other hand, for the most part I have found that it's a lot more effective to just cheerfully agree that, gosh, MMO players sure are nerds.
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