Growing up a girl geek and becoming a geek girl.

[seanan_mcguire]

I became a geek when I was four years old. That's when my grandmother handed me my first My Little Pony (Cotton Candy) and told me that if I liked her, I could have more. That was also the year when I first really and truly understood that Doctor Who had an ongoing storyline that could be followed and thought about, even when the TV wasn't on. I

Comments

[anderyn]

I'm in my mid-fifties, and my geekdom experience is totally unlike yours. I don't know why -- I just didn't give a fuck when I was a kid whether or not I was supposed to like something or not -- I read what I read, and I liked what I liked, and I was geeky as hell. I've been like that for all of my life -- though I never had contact with any organized fans until much much later in my life (I'd read a few Fantasy & SF columns about same in the mid-1960s, so I'd even read about Karen Anderson's terrific cosplay at a worldcon, and was totally jealous!), but I was who I was, in the wilds of redneck Ohio, until I got to college and met other geeky folks. And they never gave me any problems about being who I was -- in fact, I got into D&D the very first year it was published, and I have been a proud gamer ever since.... heck, I went into labor while gaming! It's funny, but I never felt that I had to hide what I loved or to feel different or lesser because I loved it -- I knew I was weird, so why not let it all hang out? If I don't read DC or Marvel, too bad; I still have a comics collection, so I'm still a comics geek. If I read romance as well as sf and fantasy, so what? I don't have a thing to prove to the young whippersnappers (and, anyhow, I've read all the classics, and can quote 'em to prove it -- fifty years of reading sf will do that to ya). I feel badly for the idiots who seem to think that anyone is lesser and/or "not really" a geek for just being interested in what they're interested in. I don't like most of my daughter's fandoms, but I don't grudge her them or judge that she's somehow less of a geek because I don't like them and they're more "girly" than mine. Seems stupid.

[seanan_mcguire]

I am very glad for you.