Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
True story: I really like Pink.
Truly. It’s not a sarcastic statement and I’m not even trying to be funny. I genuinely think she kicks ass.
There’s nothing more judgy and shitty than when you’re sitting in the bar and a song comes on that you just love so you begin to hum, maybe even belt out the lyrics karaoke style, until, you realize that your social circle doesn’t approve of certain things, AKA pop music. Suddenly, you have to watch just how earnestly you sing lest you become the target of unkind chuckles.
We’re all drawn to different things for different reasons. With music, it may be a lyric or a guitar riff. It’s not necessarily something you can explain in a blog post. For me, that’s always what drew my heart to geek culture in the first place.
And this applies to a lot of shit. It isn’t just music.
I have been acting like a superior jerk about Fifty Shades of Grey. I will wholeheartedly admit that now. There’s really no good reason for it. In my mind, I’ve justified it because “there’s other great books to read,” but just because it’s not my taste doesn’t mean it isn’t helping someone else. I call a great book, “literary therapy,” and perhaps the Grey books are just a different variety. Whatever your prescription, right?
But let me bring this back to music. If you were to run through the tunes on my iPhone, you’d find a bizarre mix of people and taste. Beyonce next to Bob Dylan. Vince Guaraldi next to The White Stripes. One area of life where my obsessive mind has a wider starting point is music. My reading tastes, movie preferences and design leanings can be so narrow. It’s probably a positive sign that my mind is a bit broader in an area or two.
And come on, you have to admit when you’re driving home from work and you hear that refrain… “I’ve had a shit day…” it all feels better.
I have such a love-hate relationship with fashion. On the one hand, I appreciate it as an art form. On the other, I hate laundry. Yes, it’s really that simple.
Anyway, I’m thoroughly obsessed with the fact that the fall 2012 Givenchy line is clearly inspired by Game of Thrones. Lord, there’s even a pseudo-Direwolf in there!
Game of Givenchy
Big props to Miss Moss and @krisatomic for seeing the similarities. Each of the pieces is absolutely beautiful. I’m not sure about the eye-shade things, but I’ll leave it to you to figure out what they represent.
Onward! To more fashion news!
Prada goes steampunk
I’ve said this before: “nerd culture IS our culture” - and this seems like more proof of that. Two major fashion houses clearly drawing inspiration from geek worlds. In this case, it’s Prada’s newest menswear collection. You can see the photos over at When Geeks Wed - and I’ll tell you now, the poses kind of gave me a serious chuckle. I swore I was going to see a man wearing a monocle twirling a faux mustache.
I don’t even want to post this… BUT…
Nerd dads less sexist if they have daughters?
Let me say this first: I don’t agree with all of this. I don’t agree with many of the commenters. Do I think we have a bit of a sexism problem in geek culture? Yes. Do I think we have a bit of a sexism problem in our culture, in general. Yes. Do I think Reddit should be the basis of research or journalism on nerd dads? No.
Here’s the reason I share this: why must we paint such broad strokes about people? And why has the Internet turned into such an echo chamber for negativity?
I was reading Get off my Internets the other day and while I understand some of what the creator was trying to point out in the beginning, it has evolved into the equivalent of gossiping high schoolers picking on one another. And Jezebel, a site which I used to love, is constantly snarking on celebrities who aren’t “feminist enough” - it’s exhausting.
It just makes me sad. There’s a lot of good in the world. Scientists discovered the Higgs Boson, Benedict Cumberbatch is going to be on the Simpsons and Comic Con is next week.
And it’s FRIDAY.
Alright, I’ll just sit and dwell on positivity and let you tell me if I’m overreacting to all the haterade.
In the meantime, I wrote this stuff for other places on the interwebs. Go give them hits if you like.
How to take top-notch fireworks photos
Office design inspiration from Wes Anderson films
Tech art with a vintage twist
Being what you do
It’s my greatest shame (of the year, anyway) that I’ve never seen a single minute of Doctor Who. Not the original series. Not the 2005 remake. As a wannabe anglophile and full-fledged geek with an irrational love of the Tardis (it doesn’t matter that I don’t understand what it does, it’s just so cool looking!), this is a major point of embarrassment.
It seems that every time I open a web browser or visit Tumblr, I’m exposed to inside jokes about the Doctor, the Tardis and the joy of the series.
I want to shed light on something that it’s taking me a long time to realize. Geeks need to accept that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to know all details of all corners of geek culture. Remember that big kerfuffle over the “fake geek girl” phenom earlier this month? At the time, I was so focused on what makes you a geek vs. what doesn’t make you a geek that I missed one very important detail…
Geeks obsess over the things we love, but it would be so lame if all geeks loved all the same things. In a lifetime, we can’t see EVERY movie, play EVERY game, read EVERY comic. It’s just impossible. But when we pool our random knowledge, we create a community that has something wonderful to discuss over a beer.
I have my own repertoire of geek knowledge. I’m a gadget head. A dystopia freak. A documentary obsessive. Potter-head. Katniss devotee. Game of Thrones lover. LEGO fan. The list is rather endless, but I can’t bother feeling bad about the fact that I don’t love first person shooters or WOW, because getting into the nitty gritty of something that I don’t totally love would be completely counter to the point of being a geek in the first place. Love of the material should be first, not a feeling of obligation.
It’s all about prioritizing right? So, I’ve decided that Doctor Who is my next thing. I’ve already conquered many parts of geek culture, but I’m excited to take on this series. I hope I love it as much as many of you do.
So tell me… Do you have secret geek shame over some property? Have you never seen Star Wars? Or never read Watchmen? Or maybe we can start to watch Doctor Who together?
Last week was a banner week for having meta discussions about geek culture. First, Tara Tiger Brown wrote this piece in Forbes called Dear Fake Geek Girls: Please Go Away and The Mary Sue rebutted. Kotaku called the “fake geek girl” a “fake threat” and Twitter was abuzz with the pros and cons of “accepting all people showing an interest in geek culture” and “shunning anyone who is a self-proclaimed geek.”
I didn’t think there was anything to add to the conversation really, so I didn’t say anything last week. Now, with the benefit of a weekend’s worth of drinking and chatting with friends, I’ve come to realize that I have a different opinion on the issue that is worth discussing.
I don’t believe that most people CHOOSE to be a geek. I think you sort of find it out by accident. Or your interests end up merging with this identity. Here’s what I mean:
Most geeks become geeks because of what they liked, read, played, watched or experienced in their formative years. It’s hard for me to know this with any amount of certainty because it’s been a LONG time since high school, but my guess is that the vast majority of people who ID as “geek” do so because their interests somehow put them outside of the social norm. For example, as a dystopian fiction lover and the only person on my block with the internet in the late 90s who wanted to learn HTML, I was a “nerd” and an outcast. I didn’t have the benefit of message boards and blogs to help me find friends who had the same interest.
Today, I’m highly employable because I have those foundational internet skills and as it turns out, dystopian fiction is having a real moment with the release of The Hunger Games.
So where does the “fake” geek pop up? Well, typically they see a movie or read a book that falls into geek culture and discover what we have to offer. They may not have lived through high school as a geek, but their interests match up at this point in time.
Why is this happening? Much of “geek” culture is out the in open more so than ever before. Batman is one of the biggest movie phenoms of the decade. Game of Thrones is the most hotly anticipated HBO series this spring.
Pop culture, by and large, is geek culture at this point in history.
The downside is that there are millions of casual fans of these properties. The upside is that the things we love are getting more attention.
There was one commenter on The Mary Sue who really stuck with me, because he pointed out another, equally important social upside. James Strocel of Rain Geek said:
“Here’s what you do when you encounter a "Fake” Geek Girl or Guy: Humor them. Sure, we all like being King Geek of Nerd Mountain, but we should, under no circumstances mistake what the “fake” geeks are trying to do: They are trying to make friends.“
This is exactly right. Don’t mistake friendliness for fakeness. I was able to find a few friends in high school, but most of my nerd friends are from the web or from college.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that I’m SO HAPPY I didn’t change when I was 16 and had the choice to pretend to be someone else. I truly took hold of my passions and owned them. I live a life that is built on a foundation of what TRULY makes me happy.
Simon Pegg said it best. I feel liberated by the fact that I love the things I love with zero restrictions. I live it out loud and I’m not that interested in the validation of others. Sure, people tell me all the time that it’s not very "grown up,” but ultimately, I accept that this isn’t the lifestyle for them. But it’s working out great for me.
It all comes down to acceptance. Both of yourself and others.