Rambled Musings on the Nerd Question
In response more to Liz’s tumblr post: http://lizlet.tumblr.com/post/6769273233/bullet-points-about-being-a-girl-and-a-nerd-at-the than the actual question of the co-opting of geek culture by the mainstream (meaning that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with hot girls pretending to like comics, or liking them, or putting out into their PR that they have a “geeky” edge. It’s a fad, it’s a fluke, it’ll probably be like saying they like puppies and rainbows eventually. Because truly geeky boys, I hate to tell you this, but those girls are still not going to sleep with you unless they really are geeky. And attracted to geeky. I’m just sayin’.)
I see a lot of defending the titles of “nerd”, “geek”, etc, and I think a lot of it comes from the idea that those of us who were hugely out of the mainstream as children and adolescents, and particularly those of us who eventually found joy in genre, in enthusiasms, in other people with like-minded interests and then learned how to relate to the whole world through those experiences, are a little pissed off that a characteristic that made our lives harder, is now becoming part of a throw-away PR ride.
I was not a particular sci-fi geek as a kid. Sure, I loved Star Wars, Star Trek, science fiction stories. But I dug mysteries, movies, horror, music. I basically just loved the things I loved with a slightly obsessive passion, in part because they made more sense to me than people. And my own “nerdiness” was a product of an over-developed sense of responsibility couple with a pathological fear of getting into trouble. My rebellions, when they happened, were pure and rage-based or wrapped around decisions made by other people that seemed completely stupid. I was political because I didn’t understand stupid. And I was far more political as a teenager because my sense of right and wrong, black and white was hugely defined. As defined as my commitment to living in a world in my head, instead of trying to figure out why I had such a hard time living in the real world.
I got older, I got smarter, I got friendlier, and I got less sensitive to hurts, less shy, less afraid of fundamentally fucking up, of being too tall, too smart, too aggressive, too scared. My interests got “geekier” in public, but I also grew less afraid of sharing my interests with other people. Suddenly, telling someone I dug “The X-Files”, or was pretty sure that I was going to turn inside out from the sound of The Pixies didn’t seem like I was bearing my tits to the free world. It felt like that thing we all do to relate to each other. I stopped giving a fuck about people’s opinions, started listening to what they actually wanted and what they wanted to communicate. I started valuing time spent talking about what I loved.
Here’s the thing though. I never had a dichotomy of girlness vs. geekiness. I know this is unusual, but my own social issues were never about that war of identity. I never saw an alienation of it. Sure, I get that it’s there, and as an adult am far more aware of the issues, but I had a peculiarly gender-blinded awareness of things in part because the stuff I fixated on HAD women at the heart of it. And… well, my shyness, snobbiness, difficulty relating to my peers had nothing to do with my femininty and everything to do with my fear. So I can’t way in on defending my girl geek status. But I can say that the things I learned to do and do better are things that everyone with a rocky adolescence faces, girl, boy or anywhere in between.
And what we do is get better at fitting in and better at not giving a flying fuck when we don’t. And the idea that things that got us through are being co-opted by a culture that told us we weren’t good enough because of our flaws or our strengths makes most of us want to punch someone out. We worked to have a dual identity. We get the whole Superman/Batman/Secret superhero thing because our lives have been a series of learning to wear the suit for the world, and having the big red S on underneath. Our lives have been dichotomy and duality and the idea of handing the symbols of that over to people who wear one shirt for their whole identity burns like fuck.
