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On being the fake geek girl
May. 27th, 2021 08:40 pmI was thinking the other day about the whole fake geek girl trope, and did not want to google it to see its origins because I am sure the origins are unpleasant but it did make me ponder times in my life where I've professed knowledge of some geeky thing to feel part of a conversation.
For example, pre-covid days when we all worked in offices, occasionally we would have team building exercises. And sometimes those would be in office but more often we'd go out and do lunch + a "fun" activity. Management would assign us to tables or teams rather than have us pick our own so we could really bond with people they wanted us to bond with.
So I was at a table with 3 other people for lunch pre-activity. 2 of them were close friends/roommates outside work and one had recruited the other. I don't think they were originally assigned to the same table but they were rebels and switched seats around. All 4 of us were the same department but the department had about 30 people and I only interacted with a few of those regularly, so while I generally knew the people at the table enough to say hi that was about it.
Anyway, it was fairly awkward (for me, I don't know about the others). Person 1 and 2 who again were friends were having their own conversation, I was intently studying the menu to avoid the awkwardness of staring at the two of them while not participating and Person 3 was just as intently studying their phone.
This happened shortly after Terry Pratchett's death, and Person 1/2 in the course of their conversation brought up Discworld. I looked up at this and said, in a momentary lull in their conversation, oh what's your favorite Discworld series? I like the Guards! Guards! books.
Now, at the time, the only Terry Pratchett I had read was Good Omens, and actually Good Omens was the reason I hadn't read anything else, because everyone had hyped up that book so much and while I hadn't disliked it, I hadn't really connected with it either. There were a lot of religious jokes that I'm sure flew over my head not being Christian/Catholic/whatever, and I honestly struggled a bit to finish it. It would be a while before I picked up any other Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett books.
But I HAD read a long and fairly comprehensive tumblr post about the Guards! Guards! series and so had a basic understanding of the world. Also, I wanted to not be in a silent bubble at this table, so when I saw a chance to participate in the conversation I jumped on it. And we actually had quite a pleasant discussion about that series. I did later get assigned to work on a project with the two of them (they refused to be assigned to different teams - joined at the hip), and having that previous interaction did, I think, make it an easier team transition.
Another example, back in college, I joined an anime club (lol). It was a pretty good time - the group would vote on something to watch, we'd get a classroom with a projector and watch whatever was voted on for a few hours a week, and there were always snacks.
My roommate at the time was pretty into video games - she had all the final fantasies that were out, devil may cry, and others that I don't remember. I sometimes watched her play but more often just asked for summaries of the plot because this roommate was also the one that got me into fandon and gave me basic knowledge about the world so I could read fanfic (mainly ffvii).
So at anime club once I was hanging out by the snack area eating, one of my favorite activities, and the group I'm in starts talking about ffvii, a game I've never played but read many fics in. And I throw my opinions in about characters, plot, etc because, again, I wanted to be social with the people around me.
Is it so terrible to have a conversation about a topic that maybe you don't know much about, but the other people clearly are passionate about? Yeah, maybe those college kids thought I had actually played ffvii or my coworkers thought I read Night Watch and Men At Arms and not a tumblr post, but did it hurt anyone? Why is being a fake geek girl so terrible? We're humans. We like to connect with others. Sometimes we fake it for social capital.
For example, pre-covid days when we all worked in offices, occasionally we would have team building exercises. And sometimes those would be in office but more often we'd go out and do lunch + a "fun" activity. Management would assign us to tables or teams rather than have us pick our own so we could really bond with people they wanted us to bond with.
So I was at a table with 3 other people for lunch pre-activity. 2 of them were close friends/roommates outside work and one had recruited the other. I don't think they were originally assigned to the same table but they were rebels and switched seats around. All 4 of us were the same department but the department had about 30 people and I only interacted with a few of those regularly, so while I generally knew the people at the table enough to say hi that was about it.
Anyway, it was fairly awkward (for me, I don't know about the others). Person 1 and 2 who again were friends were having their own conversation, I was intently studying the menu to avoid the awkwardness of staring at the two of them while not participating and Person 3 was just as intently studying their phone.
This happened shortly after Terry Pratchett's death, and Person 1/2 in the course of their conversation brought up Discworld. I looked up at this and said, in a momentary lull in their conversation, oh what's your favorite Discworld series? I like the Guards! Guards! books.
Now, at the time, the only Terry Pratchett I had read was Good Omens, and actually Good Omens was the reason I hadn't read anything else, because everyone had hyped up that book so much and while I hadn't disliked it, I hadn't really connected with it either. There were a lot of religious jokes that I'm sure flew over my head not being Christian/Catholic/whatever, and I honestly struggled a bit to finish it. It would be a while before I picked up any other Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett books.
But I HAD read a long and fairly comprehensive tumblr post about the Guards! Guards! series and so had a basic understanding of the world. Also, I wanted to not be in a silent bubble at this table, so when I saw a chance to participate in the conversation I jumped on it. And we actually had quite a pleasant discussion about that series. I did later get assigned to work on a project with the two of them (they refused to be assigned to different teams - joined at the hip), and having that previous interaction did, I think, make it an easier team transition.
Another example, back in college, I joined an anime club (lol). It was a pretty good time - the group would vote on something to watch, we'd get a classroom with a projector and watch whatever was voted on for a few hours a week, and there were always snacks.
My roommate at the time was pretty into video games - she had all the final fantasies that were out, devil may cry, and others that I don't remember. I sometimes watched her play but more often just asked for summaries of the plot because this roommate was also the one that got me into fandon and gave me basic knowledge about the world so I could read fanfic (mainly ffvii).
So at anime club once I was hanging out by the snack area eating, one of my favorite activities, and the group I'm in starts talking about ffvii, a game I've never played but read many fics in. And I throw my opinions in about characters, plot, etc because, again, I wanted to be social with the people around me.
Is it so terrible to have a conversation about a topic that maybe you don't know much about, but the other people clearly are passionate about? Yeah, maybe those college kids thought I had actually played ffvii or my coworkers thought I read Night Watch and Men At Arms and not a tumblr post, but did it hurt anyone? Why is being a fake geek girl so terrible? We're humans. We like to connect with others. Sometimes we fake it for social capital.
