Fake Geek Girl to the rescue
The Life and Times of a Fake Geek Girl.
I don’t know the back story of every single character from the Marvel universe, and I’m not sorry…
I am a Fake Geek Girl. Or at least, I’ve been told that I am. For those of you that don’t know, a Fake Geek Girl is a girl who pretends to be into geeky things to make men like her. Fake Geek girls say that they love gaming, or comics, or anime, or sci-fi, or any other such geekery, but have little to no knowledge of either of them. A Fake Geek girl puts on an act; she is just as she’s described- fake. Apparently she’s easy to spot, with her ironic t-shirts, thick black rimmed glasses, and second X chromosome. Now, I can’t say I’m guilty of any of the above behaviour; in fact I’m yet to meet the girl who is. I would, however, be the closest thing to what might be considered a Fake Geek in real life.
I’m a Fake Geek Girl because the first introduction I had to the world of all things geeky and nerdy was when I conned my way into the games industry to work on a Star Wars game. This was despite the fact that I was not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination. In fact and here’s my shameful little secret, I don’t even like the Star Wars movies. I haven’t read the books or watched the Clone Wars cartoons. But despite all of this, I love that game. But it’s the only part of the Star Wars universe that I’ve bought into.
I’m also a Fake Geek Girl because although I love my comics now (Neil Gaiman’s Sandman is a favourite), that hasn’t always been the case. I first found out the fella I was seeing was into comics when we moved in together. A box full of shiny colourful comics was sat in front of my shelves of real books, who were now eyeing up the fancy looking intruders with distrust. He had the complete collection of ‘Y – The Last Man’ comics, the titles of which all sound like really bad pornos from the 70’s. I looked at him sadly and shook my head. I already knew he raided in World of Warcraft two nights a week, but this was the icing on the cake. I expected him to look a bit ashamed, he should be reading proper literature, and he has a degree in English for feck sakes. Instead, he looked at me proudly, defiantly even, when I brought up the presence of these symbols of Geek Tragedy in our home. I brandished the trade paper of one called ‘Girl on Girl’ and sighed.
“It’s just a bit geeky isn’t it?” I said, hoping that he’d say ‘Yes it is! Thank goodness you’ve come into my life and shown me the light,’ and he’d go back to reading proper books that didn’t have pictures in them.
“It’s no geekier than Star Wars – besides you like books. There isn’t that much of a difference. Just try one, I said you’ll like it.” Turns out the fecker was right!
He also set me up an account on Steam (an online platform for buying and playing games) so I’d have stuff to play while he messed about pretending to be a dwarf or a wizard or whatever the f*ck online. Now, I buy games in Steam sales that I know I’ll never actually get round to playing. I have a comic collection that currently rivals his and I’ve got an idea for something I might consider cosplaying.
So I’m definitely a geeky girl. Apparently though, at least to some people, I’ll always be a fake one, and I’m OK with that. I’ve only been into all of this stuff for three or four years and I’m not going to catch up on somebody’s ten or more years of knowledge in that time. It’s a type of snobbery or elitism I guess the type you used to find around types of music or movies. It’s largely gone away in those mediums I think, because today, if you haven’t heard of a band you can listen to a large portion of their work on-line within an hour or two. The world of geekdom’s different though – you can’t play through an entire back catalogue of a game or read through every single one of the thousands of Batman comics within a matter of days.
Luckily though, this is an ok thing – there is no test you have to pass to be a geek. For Christ’s sakes if there was, most geeks I know wouldn’t pass it. So I am here to say that the fake geek girl bullshit is just that: bullshit. It doesn’t exist, and if you want to try out comics or gaming or cosplay or get into anime, you can totally do that.
I’ll be making my way to as many places and events, and trying my hand at as many geeky things around Dublin as I can. I’ll also throw up suggestions for trying out different kinds of games and comics if you want to dip a toe into this kind of thing, but have no idea where to start.
And don’t worry if you’re thinking about giving any of this a try. It’s not as intimidating as a lot of people make it all out to be; there are very few gatekeepers waiting to accost you and your Green Lantern tee-shirt and quiz you on the names of all the Green Lanterns that ever were or will be. On the off chance you do come across one (and it’s possible, because dick-heads exist in every walk of life), they’re just being weird and assholey. Give them the finger, walk on – and enjoy the thing that you’re currently falling in love with.
Lots of Love,
Fake Geek Girl.
Keep that nerdy eye out for her latest updates around the city. She prowls at night time and wears a cape! Something something dark, something!