Classic Rant: On "Fake Geek Girls"

G+ arguments, “Fake Geek Girls”, and the Hero’s Journey of the Low-Charisma Geek



I just wanted to turn your attention to this post, which I respond to a guy who had responded in turn to a fairly clever little video made by a group of Geek Girls, protesting the fact that certain male geeks expect them to have to “prove” that they’re real geeks, plus the general idiotic behaviour some social retards get around to whenever there’s a girl present.

Now, I don’t know if I can put it more plainly than this: any woman (or man, or whatever) who sits down willingly at a table and plays and enjoys a regular RPG is by definition not a “fake geek”, whatever else you might be able to say about them. If you think otherwise, you’re just being a tool.



Nor, as the guy I was responding to suggested, do we need to in any way “accommodate” lawncrappers who feel uncomfortable around women or behave inappropriately around them (any more than the hobby needs to accommodate women who feel irrationally uncomfortable around men and thus behave inappropriately), on the basis that these poor lawncrappers were victims of bullying and social mistreatment as children and are helpless victims and statements like “you were just lucky, if you were bullied and turned out ok, it was just luck that you’re not like them”, or “they need therapy, not scorn”.



I would agree, that if you’re being “triggered” by things (which is different than, say, having your boob physically groped), you should go get help from a therapist and not expect an entire con to stop having booth babes because of it.

Likewise, if you claim you’re being “triggered” by the mere presence of women in your gaming club/con/forum/whatever into saying or doing grotesquely inappropriate things, the place to get “help” for that is from a therapist, not from the hobby.

I disagree that lawncrapper-nerds are just “helpless victims of abuse”. Most of them are just pathetic horny idiots who lack the Charisma Bonus to be able to interact with women, and then blame women for that. 

I was a low-charisma geek too once, taking pride in my intelligence and thinking that this should make everyone else love, admire, respect and obey me because I was smart, and that I shouldn’t be required to do anything else to be popular and get my way; and getting enraged and angry and upset when that didn’t happen. I was about 12.

And no, I wasn’t one of the “lucky ones who didn’t break”. That kind of thinking is bullshit. We’re not helpless victims (or merely fortunate survivors) of circumstances we have no control over; every one of us has a CHOICE of what we do. The problem is that sometimes the choices are Hard, and people are Lazy; and DON’T WANT TO CHANGE.

In my case, it was nothing to do with luck, it was just that I GOT THE FUCKING MESSAGE. I figured out that its not the rest of the world that has to change and stop “picking on me” for not knowing how to fit in, I just had to start learning how to fit in. I figured out that in this world, Charisma isn’t the dumpstat, its everything. And it was fucking hard, and took a few years, but I changed: I learned how to clean myself, dress myself, speak in public, feel confident around people (including girls! amazing!), I had to work hard and train myself in how to appreciate the nuances of culture, and how to not make everything about me or my immediate desires, and how to adapt myself to whatever environment or group I found myself in. And figuring out how in fact, yes, you can do this and still be yourself, still be an individual, still be a “nerd”, and not “betraying” anything except that part of us that’s an antisocial little shit that wants to get but not give. You know, the animal part, that has to be overcome so that we can be civilized human beings.
(and I have news for you: this isn’t a ‘nerd’ thing; its a struggle every normal human being goes through)

So don’t give me this bullshit that we have to excuse the poor lawncrappers and diaper-wearers and non-bathers and catpissmen, or treat them with kid gloves; or that “there but for the grace of spock go I” or some shit like that. Its always about what you CHOOSE.

If you’re familiar with my writing you KNOW I’m not a “Social justice warrior” and have never “white knighted” anyone in my life. So seriously, you don’t have a leg to stand on if you’re suggesting that I’m only arguing about this because its popular to do so.

I’m arguing with you about this because I’ve had a lot of women in my gaming groups, they’re all geeks, I’ve never met a girl into RPGs who was a “fake geek girl”, I think the term is bullshit, and I don’t believe that nerds have to be “eased into” the idea of somehow granting permission which is not theirs to grant for women to participate in their hobby (which they always have; I’ve had women in my gaming groups for the last 25 years).



RPGPundit

(August 7, 2013)