My New Best Friend

[eilowyn]

Have you heard about Marie-Pierre Renaud? She's known as The Geek Anthropologist, and she blogs about fandom from the perspective of a cultural anthropologist. I contacted her for my paper on "Fake" Geek Girls that I'm doing for a gender and communication class (and hopefully turning into a conference paper for next year), and I've spent the last

Comments

[shipperx]

I'm still not sure what I'm going to say about shippers. I know I want to touch on how examining the UST of Kirk/Spock is just as valid as knowing grammatically correct Klingon,

All I know is that it drives me freaking nuts watching people trying so desperately to figure out the rules of magic in the Once fandom rather than just going with the shipping. Seriously, the writers handwave constantly and *magic*! But...well... it's magic. Magic people. Why are you driving yourself nuts trying to decide what makes it work. The writers actually are more focused on 'ships than on detailing exactly how magic works because...again, it's magic, people. It doesn't have to make sense. Hence: magic.

It's a show that makes an actual thing out of "True Love's Kiss" being the most powerful thing of all, that it can break any curse... and yet there are people obsessed with the mechanics of fictional magic spells.

And this is the 'rational' approach

[eilowyn]

Or "the soul" in the Buffyverse. WTF does it mean, and isn't it such a better conversation topic than who should get into Buffy's panties?

[shipperx]

Yeesh!

http://thegeekanthropologist.com/2014/03/31/the-fake-geek-girl-project-2/

Thing I notice is that these appearance rants about the 'validity' of the geek girl all relate to whether she would 'date' them (and how they physically view her).

Erm... yeah. Their issues are showing.

How in the hell is her
a) appearance
b) her greek cred
at all dependent on whether she would date these guys. She's not an object and she is not there for them.

Misogyny indeed.

Manning thinks women who pose as nerds reinforce negatives stereotypes about nerdy men as socially inapt

Hah. He may not realize it, but his 'rant' does that reinforcing all on its own. Jeez. Issues!

[eilowyn]

It all comes back to the "nice guy" trope, doesn't it?

[shipperx]

That was my first thought too and I always want to say to them that in reality... They aren't as 'nice' as they think they are!

[red_satin_doll]

That was my first thought too and I always want to say to them that in reality... They aren't as 'nice' as they think they are!

Now I'm the one who needs the like button!

I have found that in real life, the guy who insists to me what a nice guy he is? Either isn't really a nice guy, or isn't confident that he is one. truly "nice" people don't need to advertise it, they just ARE.

[xlivvielockex]

April C. Hebert at College of Southern Nevada has written some excellent work on Fake Geek Girls. The best thing about her is that she comes from that place. She was and still is a cosplayer and she was employed at the Star trek fan experience for many years. She's also pretty famous within the Star Trek community. You should drop her a line. The name of her most recent paper was "Got Boobs? You're Fake: Sexual Harassment in Cosplay at Science Fiction/Fantasy Conventions". She's seriously one of the coolest people I have ever met and smart as a whip. She could probably help you a lot with theoretical frameworks.

T

[eilowyn]

Thank you, I'll definitely look her up.