"Nerd" Girls

And now for topics that are a little more interesting to talk about! To begin, let's go back to 2010. Remember that "idiot nerd girl" meme? This one?

Haha... no.

The internet has actually started a campaign around this meme calling out nerd elitists for making fun of nerd girls for not being "nerdy enough". I do agree that some girls just aren't real nerds. Some actually do pretend to be into "nerdy things" to impress others or appear more attractive to men (attractive smart guys with ray-bans to be exact). However, women who are genuinely interested in "dorky" things still get a whole lot of flack from territorial guy nerds. It is assumed that because you are a woman and/or (usually and) attractive, you must not be a "real" nerd.

Personally, I do have an interest in nerd culture. I have been labelled by others as a dork, geek, dweeb, and other such things. If it were up to me, I would have an enormous collection of comic books and video games, but that's money that I don't have, so the most I can do is appreciate from afar and stick with what I do have. I get high marks in school and read a lot and, like I've always been, I'm a bit of a socially inept loner (in case you haven't noticed the whole hardly ever talking in class thing). Yet I still avoid the "nerd" label and talking about nerdy things on the internet. Why? I'm scared to death that I will be attacked because I made the horrible mistake of being born with breasts.

According to this, I am indeed a nerd.

 I see this all the time all over the internet, particularly in lovely little havens like Reddit, Facebook and 4Chan. I also see it in real life sometimes. I've noticed that when a guy claims to be a nerd, everybody leaves him alone. Yet, when a female declares the nerd title, she gets jumped on and torn apart for not knowing every single tiny little insignificant detail about whatever is being discussed. Women are required to be experts, even though the vast majority of men probably don't have much more expertise than the average nerd girl does.

Such insults are often followed by kitchen jokes. Kitchen jokes are a favourite among guys on the internet (between the ages of 11 and 22). The sexism of kitchen jokes has never bothered me so much as the lack of originality. That joke is overdone and overused and just isn't clever at all. It wasn't funny in 2008 and sure isn't funny now and I don't understand why people continue to drag it out but whatever! Enough of that!

Basically, if you're a female and you say that you're a nerd, but your collection of nerd memorabilia isn't sufficient enough for some guy on the internet, you're not a real nerd. You're a stupid slut looking for attention. These dudes seriously believe that the only reason that women would ever show any interest in anything not considered "feminine" is to be more appealing to them. Here we go again with the inflated egos and sense of entitlement. (And a bit of narcissism too in some cases.)

The nerd girl hate is particularly rampant during conventions.

I'm sure we're all familiar with events like ComicCon. Various little sub-cultures have their own conventions, such as the bronies (like me, but "brony" is another label that I still shy away from because of the stigma) that do BroNYCon. It's hard to find a convention that doesn't have people dressed up as their favourite character. As illustrated in the comic above, a lot of time and effort can be put into making an accurate costume, but women who do this are still dismissed. They are called pathetic sluts/whores for looking like the comic book characters that nerds cherish so dearly. What the heck?

It's true that some girls do wear certain symbols from certain shows that they don't actually watch. They choose to participate in the "superficial" part of nerd culture. Example:

And there we go. Why is it okay for guys to enjoy "superficial" aspects of other cultures? How come guys who don't even play baseball are allowed to wear baseball caps? How come guys who don't play basketball are allowed to wear Converse? How come guys who don't skate are allowed to wear Vans? Why is it so bad when a girl who doesn't watch or read Batman wears a shirt with the Batman logo on it?

Maybe nerd culture would be much more respectable if the in-fighting and sexism would be taken care of. Instead of uniting under our common interests, we antagonize each other based on what genitals we were born with. Video games and comic books will get their own separate blog posts because I think it's worth it to go a little more in-depth with those.

Until then, just like what you like! Ignore the people who try shame you for not liking things the same way they do, and I advise you do the same thing if, like me, you are guilty of accusing people of not being legit. Nobody's perfect, but people can change.

-Carli_V