My take on the “fake geek” phenomenon.

Dec 03, 2012 20:44

Over the past week, I’ve seen a lot of posts pertaining to the “fake geek” phenomenon. More specifically, why “real geeks” are bothered by “fake geeks,” and what exactly is the difference. Honestly, the whole thing reminds me quite a bit of other sub-cultures that get co-opted. Goth rings a bell.
I think that a lot of people who don’t understand people’s objection to “fake geeks” believe that this objection is simply a matter of “we have geek cred and you don’t.” Admittedly, that’s a part of it. Fake people are annoying. Whether it be a wealthy suburbanite who acts like he’s a ghetto-thug or a pretentious hipster who only professes to like something if no one else does as a means to make themselves feel special, the artificialness of it is disturbing.

But more central to the issue, as I see it, is the origins of the term and the sub-culture. For most of us who consider themselves “legit geek,” the understanding that we were geeks did not come from simply glomping on to a fad. “Geek chic” was an oxymoron for most of us. “Geek” was not a term that carried with it the implication that you were trendy. Quite the opposite. For us, “geek” meant loser. Nerd. Outcast. It meant that you weren’t cool, you weren’t popular, you were simply a social joke. And now that we’re finally starting to reclaim the word for our own, now that the stigma has started to die, NOW the type of people who used to PUT the label on us are CLAIMING it.

“Fake geeks” never experienced what we did. They never “earned their stripes” as it were. They never had the things that they were legitimately passionate about hang like an albatross around their neck. They never lost themselves so deeply in a fantasy or sci-fi world that it became part of their identity. I guarantee they were never publicly ostracised for the content they enjoyed. They darn sure never took a legit beating because of it. They simply saw something trendy, garnered a tenuous grasp on a few buzz-words and claimed the name. It’s a little like a person who can walk and run without issue, and has never been in the military, rolling around in a wheel chair going “I’M A VETERAN! (which, as I’m typing this, is going through my head in Ralph Wiggum’s voice).

To put it simply: some of us had the “geek” label slapped on us by society, and some chose it for themselves because they saw it as a way to be trendy. To the former, there is often a sense of understandable resentment towards the latter.

Addendum: no, feminists, the "Fake Geek Girl" meme is not "ZOMG misogyny. It' has nothing to do with the geek in question being a girl, and everything to do with everything I just said above. You ladies have got to stop assuming that everything negative said about a female is said because she's a female.

fake, geek

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