Fake geek girl

"Fake geek girl" is a pejorative term for a woman who is accused of feigning interest in geeky topics such as video games or comic books to get attention from men.[1] The topic was the subject of controversy in 2012 and 2013, when multiple articles were published supporting or condemning the concept.[2][3]

Origin

Much of the controversy surrounding the concept of fake geek girls began in March 2012, when Tara Brown published an article on the Forbes website titled "Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away".[3] In the article, she discussed the difference between geeky women as a social outcasts, and "pretentious females who have labeled themselves as a 'geek girl' [who have] figured out that guys will pay a lot of attention to them if they proclaim they are reading comics or playing video games."[1]

Joe Peacock continued this criticism to discuss booth babes and female cosplayers in a July 2012 blog post for CNN titled "Booth babes need not apply". In this article, he denounced women who pretend to be interested in geek culture to gain attention from men or play at being models.[4] Comic artist Tony Harris wrote a Facebook post in November 2012, described by The Daily Dot as a "diatribe", about female cosplayers who were not knowledgeable about the characters they were representing.[5]

Criticism of fake geek girls has given rise to other phenomena, such as the "Idiot Nerd Girl" image macro.[3][6]

Criticism

These articles prompted considerable response. Some people argued that fake geek girls did not exist, or were more rare than the criticism suggested. Kirk Hamilton wrote in Kotaku that people perceived to be fake geek girls were instead people who were interested in things to different extents.[7] Some responses describe the criticism as misogynist and as a form of gatekeeping.[3][8]

References

  1. 1 2 Brown, Tara Tiger (26 March 2012). "Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away". Forbes.
  2. ↑ Berlatsky, Noah (22 January 2013). "'Fake Geek Girls' Paranoia Is About Male Insecurity, Not Female Duplicity". The Atlantic.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Reagle, Joseph (5 August 2015). "Geek Policing: Fake Geek Girls and Contested Attention". International Journal of Communication. 9.
  4. ↑ Peacock, Joe (24 July 2012). "Booth babes need not apply". Geek Out!. CNN. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  5. ↑ Romano, Aja (13 November 2013). "Sexist rants against "fake geek girls" hit new low". The Daily Dot.
  6. ↑ Zuckerman, Esther (10 September 2012). "Taking Back a Meme: Idiot Nerd Girl". The Wire. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
  7. ↑ Hamilton, Kirk. "The Fake Threat of Fake Geek Girls". Kotaku. Retrieved 2016-02-11.
  8. ↑ Griffiths, Daniel Nye (26 July 2012). "'Fake Geek Girls': How Geek Gatekeeping Is Bad For Business". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-02-11.
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