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Fake Geek Girl
I think she'd actually be an interesting person to hang out with, considering people's main grievances with her are over petty nerd trivia. She reminds me of Roger Ebert's legendary "Your Movie Sucks" line in response to Rob Schneider insulting Patrick Goldstein for being a supposed nobody despite all his awards. I can totally imagine Fake Geek Girl saying something similar to Ebert's snarky response in the linked review.
Comments
To me, it's just a genderflipped version of the newbie who picks up and praises something for superficial elements, shoves his newfound passion in the face of everyone and excessively identifies himself with what only amounts to a hobby. Of course, who is and isn't a poser has always been an obnoxious wankfest no matter what the subculture(I realize the above-it-all attitude is also part of this nonsense), and here it comes with a healthy dose of boys-only club(aside from a legitimate complaint that a segment of girl gamers put story over gameplay to an excess à la Gone Home).
Only ever met one fake geek girl in my life(only watched Fullmetal for the hot dudes, wanted a body pillow, fetishized Asian dudes) and I'm sure that behaviour would be just as creepy if it was a guy.
I see that "legitimate complaint" as totally illegitimate because people want different things out of games.
Which turns out to be a gender-independent set of traits anyway.
^^Same. One should not neglect the importance of story in games, or else you get Metroid: Other M. I also hear that it's the one reason Rule of Rose is worth seeing. Games are merely an interactive medium, what you do with it is up to you.
^And experience-independent. I've observed that much of the hardcore competitive gamer community acts the same way.
And the point is that "poser" is a meaningless statement anyway. For all you know, Fake Geek Girl could be highly experienced in computer programming and a well-respected member of the high school science guild (or equivalent credentials in university or the working world), yet not knowing who Metroid is makes her a phony. Also, much of the time, it is a "Your Movie Sucks" case of the Dunning-Kruger effect such as Destructoid Editor vs Felicia Day.
Is it ever "Fake Geek Boy"? I think I've only seen that as some sort of satirical commentary thing.
They just call those "posers".
It's actually really sad that we have to get to shitty gender politics while gatekeeping. And while nobody should gatekeep, the whole thing just reeks of "No Girls Allowed" clubhouse nonsense that we were supposed to outgrow after being ten years old.
Brogamer would be the Fake Geek Boy equivalent. Same negative gender stereotype(only plays games full of violence and macho, caring about surface over content, multiplayers are a giant wankfest of useless competitiveness) that is in danger of dominating the market to the detriment of other groups(and infitismally bigger than the female equivalent). The paranoid fanboy's caricature segment of dudette developers/gamers who plead for accessibility by dumbing down, want to 'feminize' games by getting rid of the violence aspect entirely(gender essentialism à la Sarkeesian) and want inclusivity by reducing minorities to props or scoring games by how progressive they are(look at Borderhouse Blog's spotlight on female developer stuff such as Misogyny Island) does exist, small as it is, and it's gaining traction(see GDC speech). It's backwards second-wave tripe, full of patronizing double standards and gender binarism.
I can expand with more examples, if need be.
Honestly, you sound like that paranoid fanboy. Aside from your strawman interpretations which make it sound more negative than it actually is, all those things would be beneficial for games. Not every game needs to be about violence like most of them are now, and focusing on creation rather than destruction would improve gaming's image as a whole. Accessibility a la the Wiimote makes games more fun by removing the fake difficulty of a game's learning curve and focusing on real difficulty or the experience. While I'm not a fan of tokenism, more focus on non-white / Asian characters would be great and the video game community should be mindful of how everyone else views us by considering progressiveness. And indie game promoters have their fair share of stupidity not limited to gender; Destructoid promoted Unemployment Quest despite that being an obviously lazy effort with only the base RPG Maker materials.
Mostly, I am irritated by the collective nerd community for doing little to dispel the "Comic Book Guy" stereotype by being more self-aware, and instead constantly reinforcing that mentality. It's even dumber because women like Ada Lovelace and Mary Shelly were instrumental in the formation of what nerds love today.
By the way, I've noticed this attitude trend in several of your posts, coupled with the tendency to reduce group perspectives to caricatures.
>implying I even play videogames anymore
>caricature segment=/=all of the socially-minded indie scene
I do not take beef with medium diversification, provided it does not venture into sexist stereotypes. Violence as inherently masculine and creativity as feminine is tripe. Good con harassment policies, better online gaming blocking and policing and grants for marginalized folks to study the relevant programmes will improve the image of the gamer world and make it more inclusive, not barfing out talking points in a videogame dress that only preach to the choir of second-wave artifacts.
Accessibility(especially with regards to handicapped folks) is good. Anything that functions as a pick-up-and-play gateway is sweet. Girlfriend Mode nonsense and complaining that controllers are not built for the size of female mitts is idiotic. Dudettes often verge towards RPGs, some of the most complex games out there-they don't need simplification of core mechanics at all.
Inserting chicks or PoCs that verge towards neither palette swap nor towards model minority monoculture should be encouraged, and mostly happens automatically if you write them as a character first and ideological benchmark second(Aika and Fina in Skies of Aracadia come to mind).
And that other indie developers make the same mistakes is irrelevant-that's a bit of derail since we weren't talking about them. I'll happily release my inner /v/ on ideology vehicles of any brand if the topic comes up.
I'd rather let my arguments stand on their own merits, but I don't think anybody here would parse that as me saying I'm neutral/objective/rational while the rest is not.
On the group perspectives thing, I'm gonna take a leaf out of the Tumblr book of tricks and say that when I speak about a specific caricature, I'm talking about the people who behave like that caricature, not the people who get lumped into that category by association unfairly.
How to be a "geek girl":
Growing up, I had several female friends who were into video games, and sometimes at friendly get-togethers I'd play games (e.g. Smash series) with them. I never had an issue with them being female; what mattered was that we were a bunch of friends having fun together.
So the whole female fan shaming bullshit just seems quite out of left field for me.
From the sound of it, you have these dweebs who were more or less shunned by the opposite sex (and not just the opposite sex as a whole. The desirable subsection of the opposite sex) and totally ignored back in high school. Bonus points if they see said girls get heartbroken over getting involved with what they deem to be "The Assholes" and these nerds essentially sour grape over it and go "ya shoulda dated a nerd".
Now they see girls that resemble the girls that shunned them in high school, only now they're either cosplaying, taking pictures of themselves with a controller or maybe even only having an entry level understanding of some game or comic or whatever.
And these embittered, jaded nerds, instead of being overjoyed that they at least have a chance to find some common ground, however slight with said women, decide to instead do everything in their power to make these girls feel just as alienated and ostracized as they felt then.
They couldn't just... y'know, make freaking friends with them and co-op on a game and often, or even *gasp* ask them out? If them being a little airheaded about your favorite hobby is such a problem, you could just like, educate them a little while you're with them, right?
Edit: And of course, I realize it's just not that simple, either. Nerd culture is much more diverse than it's given credit for, as I'm sure we all know. American superhero comics do not embody comics as a whole, and neither does AAA gaming represent gaming as a whole. Just because someone says they like anime doesn't mean they'll like Fist of the North Star, and just because someone claims to love video games doesn't mean they'll like the Mystery Dungeon series.
But that's okay. Diversity n shit. It's just too bad this authenticity crap is such a big hang up to these territorial loners.
Any time I see someone cute playing the same games as me, I'm just glad someone who I find attractive shares the same interest.
Some of my BEMANI-playing friends and I make jokes about finding or becoming a "qt bemani bf/gf".
Of course, I realize same interest and attractiveness alone don't make a good romantic partner, but a common passion is a good way to root a relationship, romantic or otherwise.