The White Male Nerd & his Cult of Awesome.

[bookshop]

So this week I realized that I am not comfortable identifying with, or participating in, the SFF internet community as it exists outside of fandom.

Earlier this week, regarding Gaiman Fail, my friend Cathy & I had a conversation about the aura of worship that surrounds certain male writers like Neil Gaiman, Joss Whedon, John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow

Comments

[bookshop]

oh i'm so relieved someone agrees with me, haha. i was actually quite nervous about posting this because i was frankly scared of dismantling Guy Worship to any degree, even kind of a limited one.

[effervescent]

Thank you for this post. It brings up a lot of good points that I would have liked to have made myself as well as giving me some new ones to consider.

[copinggoggles]

I was going to make a point here about how you should probably clarify your usage of the term Nice Guy, since that is already a separate and distinct thing - but then I realised that actually? If you take the traditional definition of a Nice Guy and substitute 'attractive female friend' with 'fanbase' (and 'sex' with 'adulation'), then yeah. That's... actually bang on, and sums up a lot of the reasons Gaiman, Whedon, et al. can grate on my nerves so badly sometimes.

In re: point 1, I think there are certain female-centric Cults of Awesome - off the top of my head, Felicia Day and Summer Glau come to mind. That said, I don't think anybody can deny that even though these women are legit talented and actualfax awesome, their cult status has more than a little to do with their attractiveness - and in Felicia Day's case, that's (IMO) part of her schtick, the whole Hot Geek Chick thing. So - yeah. DO BETTER, NERD LANDSCAPE.

[bookshop]

The original version of this post, edited for length, specifically mentioned that the only girl I could think of who inhabits the cult of awesome the way the boys do is Felicia Day. (And in fact, the reason I edited this point out of my post was that I knew someone would come along and say this exact thing in comments and I'd just make it here instead, haha.) But I think she, along with Nathan Filion and Neil Patrick Hayden, are all part of the Subcult of Awesome that attaches to the Whedon entourage. Without that, I don't think you could say Felicia's Hot Geek Chick thing would have taken off the way it did. and Summer Glau i think is exactly what you said, her cult status is about her inhabiting that SEXY NERD stereotype. It doesn't seem to really be about her.

[scrabble]

The love for NPH so has nothing to do with Joss Whedon! >:O

[bookshop]

okay, NPH i'll grant you has Harold & Kumar, but being Dr Horrible certainly doesn't hurt his nerd cred!

[brimtoast]

This isn't really a response to this post per se, but I wanted to mention that your posts about these social issues (combined with a few other brilliant and articulate voices from within fandom) have totally changed the way I think about the world. I think you could ask anybody who knows me well, and they would say they've noticed the change in the past six months or so. I am so much more aware of all the subtle icky implications built into a lot of things that people do and see and read and say, things that previously I didn't think about. And noticing those things, being able to see them and react to them, makes me feel so much more powerful and clear-sighted. So I am just really really glad. And grateful. And always interested to read more and see what other things I have been overlooking because they're so deeply ingrained that I never thought to question them.

tl;dr I love you. Keep doing what you're doing, because you're changing the world. Or, at least, some peoples' worlds.

[bookshop]

that is VERY sweet of you and i'm really happy to hear you say this. <3

but i have to say that none of these posts are really even about me, because they're really still a holdover from RaceFail--an attempt to learn and dig deeper and not play ignorant/avoidant while that kind of harm is being done. i don't know if you witnessed RaceFail but i feel like so many people around me have changed, the nature of what they talk about and how we all try to think about things, has changed since it happened. for me, it was a painful, ongoing personal reckoning, and it's still ongoing, which is why i am trying to be so much more active about making these kinds of posts.

Your idolmeta rec of my fic kind of rocked my world a little, too, so thank you for that. <3

[brimtoast]

I feel like whether it's about you is not really the point, though. The more people that talk about these things, the more people it reaches, and it just happens that for me, one of the main ways these ideas reached me was through you. I am not saying you are the DIVINE ORIGIN OF SMART THOUGHTS or anything ridiculous and embarrassing like that. Just that, look, something you said affected the things I think, for the better, and isn't it cool how that worked out

[bookshop]

yesssssss, absolutely. today i had the most exhausting conversation with one of my co-workers, and it was like. idk, privilege 101 for like 90 minutes, and he was grilling me about EVERYTHING: my sexual/gender identity, queer versus bi/poly/asexuality, transitioning, privilege, racefail, cultural appropriation, and it just went on and on and omg i felt like i wasn't getting anywhere with him. but we were eating lunch, and our waitress kept obviously trying to listen to everything that i was trying to say about privilege and cultural appropriation and identity. and that made it all worth it, because i felt like even if my coworker didn't buy most of what i was saying, maybe someone else did. i feel like the more i try to critique my writing/the things i read/watch/interact with, the more i realize how much further i have to go. but i'm still so much further along than i was a year ago

[imagines]

Whoo boy. I had no idea this was going on. Now I do.

I--um. My first reaction was rather snarly and defensive. Luckily I know myself well enough to know that when I suddenly feel snarly and defensive, I am often wrong.

I don't know. I still feel kind of snarly and defensive, and also sulky and sad because I fucking worship this dude's Writing Skillz. (Which means you are pretty much writing to people like me, right?) He's had a major impact on my life; I would be very different but for his writing.

And that fact blinds me. And I know it, and yet I can't quite un-blind myself, but I think my point is... this post of yours hits home. If I weren't feeling defensive, it would mean you hadn't hit me. But you did, and I really truly thank you, because I clearly have some things I need to think about very long and hard. I shouldn't become so infatuated with someone's brain that I become grouchy upon even reading criticism of something they did.

I don't know if I can back away from the Cult of Awesome. And realising that I don't know if I

[bookshop]

well, i mean, we are *fans*, and fans get unduly excited about things, and sometimes our heroes let us down. I am in this place right now where i'm 80% convinced Gaga is the best thing to ever happen to pop music since Madonna, and 20% convinced there's nothing at all ironic or meta about her spiel, that she's fully inhabiting that role of pop goddess and that the final layer of meta is that she is completely sincere about wanting fame. so i vacillate between total adoration and total cynicism. But, you know, the cynicism is a good thing to have, because it protects us from being hurt when our idols fall or disappoint us. And they always do, you know, because no one deserves to be elevated that high. It's awful, and completely unfair to them. <3

[lizzy_someone]

If I may jump in, I empathize even though I don't really know Gaiman's writing, because I do know what it's like when someone you really, really admire says something that makes you go, "errrr, seriously now?," and it is hard, and sad! I don't know if this will help (or even how good a thing this is to do, really), but perhaps some degree of compartmentalization can be good? Like, you worship this writing, but that doesn't mean the human who produced the writing is flawless. (As none of us are, obviously.) Likewise, acknowledging and condemning someone's fail doesn't mean you can't love their writing.

For example, I loved the Ender books and still do; and I pretty much loathe the author ever since I found out about his seriously incredible levels of homophobia (like, advocating that gay people be put in jail just for doing gay things! if you did not know); and that is okay with me. The compartmentalizing, I mean. I don't think hating Gaiman is necessary (though...not my call, really), but, just...I don't know! I probably have said a

[bookshop]

yeah, my intention was definitely not to make people feel guilty about loving their favorite authors, but more just to say, hey, when we surround these guys with all our adoration, we ultimately are taking it away from ourselves.