POSEURS: AN APPRECIATION

There’s been a lot of talk about this post by John Scalzi, which was a response to this post by Joe Peacock, both of which have to do with who constitutes a “real” geek.

To summarize:

Peacock resents booth babes who aren’t “real” geeks turning up at trade shows. Scalzi says True Geekdom is about sharing our love of geek things, and welcoming all who appreciate geek stuff, so leave the booth babes alone.

A number of self-proclaimed geeks (many of whom are quick to qualify their opinion by pointing out that they not only hate Peacock’s columns in general) have nonetheless backed Peacock’s basic point: Geekdom is a way of life, and doing cosplay for money or liking the new Avengers film cos it’s trendy doesn’t make you a “real” geek, and we’d just as soon you stay away from us.

Some of the justification for this POV seems based in the idea that real geeks have earned their geekness by (1) liking geek stuff before it was cool and (2) getting picked on and beat up in high school for liking it.

Believe me, I can sympathize. But in the end, I don’t really buy the concept that yr not a real geek unless you’ve been uncool enough to suffer for it.

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Am I geek enough for you,

This is dF