As much I hate the term “fake geek”, I still think there are some times where you just need to call someone out on knowing jack and shit about certain comics, video games, books, and movies, and making massive mistakes when it comes to the history of those things.
You don’t even have to read or watch every single thing related to it. Just do some basic research on the topic. It’s not “elitist” to look up an article on Wikipedia or any of the numerous fan articles or fan videos on the topic. At that point, you’re just justifying being a lazy piece of crap who only got into certain parts of pop culture because it’s “trendy”, and who refuses to move out of their comfort zone to explore the history and various incarnations of pop culture icons.
I think the “fake geek” phenomenon is portrayed as this backlash against fans with cognitive issues, attractive fans, female fans, fans who just don’t know everything, fans who just aren’t that good at the medium or at quickfire trivia, etc… but in reality, I have only really gotten backlash for that sort of thing from 12 year-olds on Halo almost a decade ago, from really obnoxious asshats, or as a joke/not meant maliciously/out of frustration at something else entirely. Like, if somebody in a game yells “How could you forget where the fucking dodge button is!? Have you ever played this game before!?” they’re not actually saying that I’m a fake fan, they’re just pissed that we potentially lost the game – they’re not even mad at me or my disability, they’re just invested in the game… and I was too, and I probably swore a bunch too.
The actual problem of “fake fans” is people like Anita and a plethora of Tumblr users, who don’t play the games, don’t watch the full shows, and just take things completely out of context to bash the thing/character/creator, and then call the actual fans who say “Hey, in context, this is actually…” a bunch of neckbeards, losers, gamer dudes, etc. People like those who use “gamer” as a pejorative, while claiming to love games and play games and understand games and have an informed opinion on games… all while not knowing the most basic info about said games. People who take a ten second clip from a show completely out of context, to claim that it’s either a display of or commentary against toxic masculinity/feminism/trans rights, when it’s not about that at all.
Then there’s the people who “profit off” (financially, socially, or otherwise) the thing while not really caring about it – technically the above also fit into this category. People like those who reblog pictures of Harley and Poison Ivy claiming that they’re the perfect couple, while sending hate and constant criticism towards people that like Harley and Joker – newsflash, they’ve both been portrayed as bad, and they can both be imagined as good, it’s fiction. People who do Twitch streams with their tits out, and then get caught forgetting to turn the camera off and saying that they hate the game and that all of their fans are gross losers.
The people we dislike are the people who genuinely contribute nothing but negativity, disdain, and their own attention seeking… barely covering up their facade, as they try to convince other fans that they care about the content itself and not just about getting reblogs from the fandom and stirring shit. Heck, I’d include the Voltron and Steven Universe fans who are completely unable to understand the basic messages of compassion that both shows are full of, and instead spend their time sending hate to the cast and crew – y’all are fake fans.
And that’s how most geeks, nerds, gamers, etc, that I know feel – yeah, we might make “fake fan/geek” jokes amongst ourselves (which then get marketed by actual fake geeks trying to appeal to the geek audience by having some actor on a show cite some obscure fact about Star Trek, as though they’re trying to prove that this really is a show by geeks for geeks that totally gets our “disdain for normies” (disdain that’s actually non-existent outside of a few casual jokes and some bitterness about being bullied), when all it really proves is that they can read Wikipedia). But in reality we don’t actually care how much you know about the thing, aside from a bit of banter and an excuse to show off how much we know (or talk about it with you and have a fun conversation)… what we care about is whether you’re an asshole who’s trying to profit off of our interests, while really looking down upon us for them, whether you’re going to treat us and the creators like shit, whether you’re trying to use us or our interests for nefarious purposes, and so on.
~ Vape
Thank you for elaborating on what I meant.
Besides everything said above, people say it’s “cool” to be a “nerd/geek” nowadays, but when you bring up stuff like Poison Ivy being a rapist who wants to commit genocide against humans, is and not an “environmentalist hero”, or how Harley’s “abuse survivor” cred is sort of dampened by the fact that she fucked her way through college, she tortured her boyfriend in college for an “experiment”, and that she murdered children with explosives disguised as video games (all things which DC themselves try to whitewash), or how HYDRA isn’t specifically a Nazi organization (canonically, they we’re originally started as a conspiracy of aliens, and their “modern” incarnation was revived by Japanese imperialists who worked with the Nazis, but had their own agenda in world conquest, before becoming a generic terrorist organization that’s similar to COBRA from G.I. Joe), you’re called a “misogynist”, an “abuse apologist”, and a “Nazi apologist”, in that order. All because you’re correcting people who should supposedly know better, and sometimes this extends to even the writers and artists of the comics, who rant at you and block you on social media for even daring to question them.
As I said before, most of these things could easily be found via a search engine or Wikipedia, but a lot of so-called “fans” and even writers are too lazy to do even the tiniest bit of research on the characters they supposedly love, and when they inform them, they mock you and take it as a personal attack. They sometimes even mock you by calling you a “nerd” even though supposedly “nerds are cool now”.
Often when that happens, I’m reminded of this bit from Red Letter Media; “It’s cool to say you’re a nerd, but it’s still not cool to be a nerd” (need proof? Just look at how many people think you’re one of those otaku weirdos just because you like anime and may or may not have an anime icon).
was on board til this last addition. the “newsflash” above wrt ‘fans can reimagine these fictions’ was right, so this new response where its like ‘being a nerd is about total pedantry, these characters can’t be reimagined so its cool to trigger survivors who identify with them by pointing out that they’re bad people, also when you harass creators on twitter that’s just nerd culture’ like………calm down
sewing is one of those skills everyone with the ability should know IMO. i’ve known too many people who just throw out perfectly servicable clothing and bedding because of tears or buttons that have fallen off and these can be fixed at home. sewing’s not hard either.
fuck minimalism. if you dont have trinkets and knickknacks on every surface you’re not doing it right.
the point of this post is not about junk or collectables!!!! its about the 7 bottles i own for no reason other than i think they look neat!!! its about the glass i found on the beach and pocketed because its pretty!! hell is an endless white expanse with a single white chair and white table with a single succulent on it!!!!!
when someone says “fiction isnt reality” they dont mean “fictional works have absolutely no impact on those who consume it and how it can affect their views on certain groups of people or events” they literally just mean “hey im well aware that certain themes in fiction can affect events in real life but just cause someone is ok with certain themes in fiction doesnt mean theyre ok with them happening in real life, and we should probably take measures to make sure nobody interprets this as meaning its okay in real life”
ifesbob 