Geek guys no longer get the girls?

[roseveare]

I keep increasingly seeing snippets of a "nice guy/geek guy characters are bad" u-turn in fandom which to be honest, what? Because stupid me, I'm still wed to the notion that when I say a character is a nice guy that's a good thing, and I have no idea where the original meta is that this stems from or when but

Comments

[kattahj]

I think it started out as "nice guy" in the sense of "Guys who claim they're such nice guys, and still they can't get dates because women are such selfish bitches." And then that became such a shorthand that I, for one, tend to use "good man" for men who are actually good people, rather than just claiming that they are and then getting angry at women for not sleeping with them.

And there are doubtlessly some characters like that in films and on TV, who shouldn't get the girl, like the protagonist of Can't Buy Me Love who's just a horrible person and there's no reason why the girl should want him. Or Xander, in his worst moments. Guys who think the girl owes them attention

[roseveare]

I really only named it that because there used to be that slogan on everyone's LJ icon for a while. I care much less about the actual romantic relationships in any of these shows than the characters. Although didn't really watch Chuck myself, but I remember it was hugely popular. But yeah, I could very happily live with less shows being about anybody getting anyone.

I think I need to rewatch Reaper. All I mostly remember when I think of it is the (last?) episode where he's playing games against the Devil. Also, the Devil was really awesome on that show. (LOL, now there's a line.)

I kind of half remember the discussion of that first thing, that you say it started out as. But I'm just seeing this applied to characters framed in the narrative as shy, maybe-geeky, generally less socially confident and unassuming guys who don't act like that, and who don't act like they're just being nice out of expectation of a reward, with one exception in the recent DW post that sparked me thinking about this again. So it's not even related to that

[kattahj]

Also, the Devil was really awesome on that show. (LOL, now there's a line.)

I was 90% there for Ray Wise's Devil. And the romance was of the tiresome "I can't tell the girl about this weird shit I'm involved in" variety, but I can't recall any creeper behaviour.

I do think it's a good thing that some behaviours seen as romantic are now more generally put in question - like Untamed Heart where they guy follows the girl home, breaks into her bedroom to put up a Christmas tree, and so on. That shit is just creepy.

But I'm just seeing this applied to characters framed in the narrative as shy, maybe-geeky, generally less socially confident and unassuming guys who don't act like that,

Yup. I had a conversation with Selenak a while ago where she pointed out that it's like Mary Sue or queerbaiting, it's being used so widely that it's completely pointless by now.

It's increasingly all about labels and oppression, and not people, and definitely not fun. :(

I think it's definitely worth bringing up issues in a show to make it more fun -

[roseveare]

I needs me some Ray Wise devil back in my fandom. Hope I've still got the AVIs.

The can't-tell-the-partner thing is done quite interestingly in Grimm, which I think you gave up after an ep or two. It maybe stretched out a bit long. But I did like what it did for the strength of the female character in terms of giving her her own arc and having to fight for her mind.

But I think in part it's a generational shift - both in that they'll probably mellow in time, and that we might be holding on to antiquated ideas. :-)Certainly it's true that the geek as downtrodden is no longer true in the modern world

[rheasilvia]

I also suspect Nice Guy is being used in this sense here - as in, not a nice guy at all, but a self-styled Nice Guy who says "I'm such a nice guy, why won't this hot girl date me when I'm such a great friend to her by always hanging around hoping she'll sleep with me, but noooo, instead she's dating that stupid jock because she's a shallow bitch who has totally been leading me on all this time that I've been such a true friend to that worthless slutwhore

[roseveare]

Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the names, because I pulled them off the top of my head as characters that I thought fit the nice-guy-geek in the traditional (nonskeevy) interpretation without too much analysis. But I wanted to get the context of this is what we liked. This was the stuff that was out there, and it was the Geek As Hero, and it was GOOD. It's possible from this analysis that some do stray into the new consideration of the trope, but then that's time-sensitive context too. I'm pretty sure Jake is safe. And I remember Keiichi as a put-upon angstfilled comedy buttmonkey besotted with his goddess, more than anything else. The reason he's on my mind in particular is that cartoon I drew a way back which used Naudrey and the nice guy parallel in its actually-nice-guy-who-can't-get-a-girlfriend sense. But that's what's driving a lot of my annoyance here because I did that in a non-ironic sense because nobody told me "Hey, that thing that you mean, it doesn't mean what you think it means anymore." And it had time and effort put

[rheasilvia]

Yes, the waters are definitely very muddied. I haven't run into a general condemnation of geekish characters yet, but then I am generally pretty removed from fandom thse days, so I'm not surprised it's passed me by. And unfortunately it makes sense that this kind of overcompensation would occur, with fans who can't make clear distinctions more or less dogpiling on every character who fits a general profile

[roseveare]

It's not an outright stated general condemnation that I've seen anywhere, more that it's out there as a vibe? It's really weird because I feel like I've been stumbling over it on odd occasions because there are people who want to apply it to Nathan (to which I somewhat blankly replied, "but he's not a geek..." on first encounter, and on reassessment in this context it really doesn't fit -- partners first with Audrey, reciprocation, and the chasing has been to keep her with all the elements falling in on them from outside, though they've both done iffy things with the other's agency at times) and I've kind of noticed it in non-Haven things that I casually read