Geek and Gamer Girls Are Unquestionably Cool

A group of geek and gamer women calling themselves Team Unicorn released a video parody in praise of women like them. It’s called (appropriately enough): “G33K and G4m3r Girls Song“.

Amazingly, some complained that the women were just posers–which they aren’t. They are truly geek and gamer girls out in the wilds of the real world. Amazingly, no complaints have been made questioning the male “dancers” geek cred. So…what’s the problem? Ironically, it seems to be that they don’t fit into some people’s stereotype. I’d hoped that we would have gotten past this given the pain shown in the (as Wil Wheaton humorously described it) documentary, Revenge of the Nerds.

On a more personal level, it got me thinking. I’ve known a lot of female-type people who fit into the geek/gamer realm. Even going back to the late 60s, when a fellow 3rd grade classmate and I would walk together on our way home. More often than not, we’d role play Star Trek. In the interest of fairness, she and I would have to alternate being Spock, who we both enjoyed playing. Since that time, I’ve known many many many geek/gamer chicks.

In college, being in MSTA (the Maryland Star Trek Association) and also hanging with SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) peeps, I was surrounded by a plethora of women who weren’t shy about their geek cred. They were short, tall, heavy, thin, shy, boisterous, classically nerdy, and drop-dead gorgeous (yeah, smartypants, all at once). Here’s the thing, you see: it didn’t matter. They had brains. We shared interests. And that’s all that really mattered. (In the interest of full disclosure: I like non-geek girls just as much. Vive la something.)

Now that we live in a time when geek is chic, I see my share of posers: people professing their geekiness because it’s fashionable and not necessarily because they embrace it. This confuses some people, I think, when the broader quilt of feminine geekitude is put on display. They make assumptions about what it means to truly be geek. Me…I’m really happy that women like those in Team Unicorn (Michele Boyd, Rileah Vanderbilt, Milynn Sarley, Clare Grant), and many others among us, are no longer unseen behind avatars of misplaced assumptions.