The Geek Beat: The Touchiness of Geek Cred

I know the feeling, but to a certain extent, I feel a sort of relief about it, too - when I realized that there was FINALLY enough stuff playing to my interests that I didn't have to see all of it, because even if it looked like crap, "Mann & Machine" was the only sci-fi show on the air.

I mean, right now, I'm ignoring "Prince Caspian". There's other ways to get my grand effects-filled action. And "Lost"; screw it. And if someone wants to give me crap about that, I can just say, hey, there's finally enough that we don't have to obsess over everything like we may not get any more, enjoy that.

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You haven't read Cowboys & Aliens!!! And you call yourself a geek. psh. :)

I actually was walking through a comic store about a year ago and it was only a buck. That's the only reason I read it.

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Finally! Someone willing to come forward and say what a ridiculous waste of self-important shite BSG is. It annoys me more than Lost and that's saying something. Cowboys and Aliens was read by me for the exact same reason as Robert-I found it in a bargain basement. As for the rabid X-Philes, I have to confess I am one. Only for the purposes of drumming up publicity for the new film though and even then I want to share the love, not squander it!

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"It really is ridiculous. One doesn't have to prove themselves to be a sports fan."

Sure you do, with the occasional rabid sports fan, especially if you're a guy -- it's a sad element of any subculture. I think your friend hit it right on the head, though, with his or her analysis; ultimately, it's a sign of insecurity -- I might fear I'm lame for reason A, but I'm way better than this person for reason B!

It's definitely annoying, but there is an upside: It's an easy-to-recognize filter for determining if a person's worth talking to:
"Oh, it's not cool that I can't diagram the molecular structure of adamantium? Too bad -- oh, hey, look, time for me to find someone who's not an asshat!"

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"It really is ridiculous."

And that about sums up this topic nicely.

Also, I disagree that you cannot be a 'casual geek'. In fact, I would argue that I am one. The reason you perceive someone being able to be a 'casual sports fan' but not a 'casual geek' has much to do with where you are when you make this observation. Try going to a baseball card show, for example, and I would imagine the 'casual sports fan' would feel much the same way you did at your first Star Trek convention. At work, colleges can strike up the superficial 'they're going all the way' conversations to the cows come home.

The 'online community' has been, up to this point, one giant baseball card convention for the 'geek'. Fortunately, as Jason aptly noted, there is so much product aimed at geeks now no one can reasonably be expected to have been exposed to it all. And thank God for that because the whole Geek Cred concept, much like this Cowboys and Aliens comic you 'made' me flip through is lame. :)

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Hello, my name is Moo, and I....

I think most anime is stupid.

*hides face*

DONT LOOK AT ME, I'M HIDEOUS!

heheheh, the concept of geek cred may be ridiculous, Paul, but it's also true. At the movie forum I frequent, which is one of the kinder and gentler boards, I think, you'd be shocked at how many "oh you haven't read x and you haven't seen y....well your opinion can't POSSIBLY matter..." Yes, it's less apparent around the watercooler, but in the realm of the internet it seems that one must be "all or nothing" or be flamed.

I'm not really complaining, though. It's driven me to see a lot of stuff and read a lot of stuff I might not have otherwise seen or read. And that can't be anything but good...even if I didn't necessarily love the subject matter.

Not anime though...that's where i draw the line.

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Don't read Watchmen for geek cred. Don't even read it because the movie is coming out. Read it because it's amazing. But do it soon orpeople will just think your doing it because the movie is coming out, then you'll end up losing geek cred. Maybe just secretly read it and pretend you read it a long time ago.

The reason I got hooked on BSG is because I was able to watch straight through the first two seasons, but ever since then I occasionally get bored with it (but NEVER admit that).

Also, I have NEVER owned a NES, SNES, played WOW, or seen more than two episodes of the original Star Trek. It feels good to finally say that.

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this is one of the reasons i stayed in the geek closet so long. the hard core geeks made me feel too ill-informed to even consider myself a geek, which i am. i am a causal geek, but a geek nevertheless. just ask me about Doctor Who, the 4400, or Jasper Fforde. i could go on for hours. however, i'm not into anime, comics, BSG, and various other things. i have nothing against them or the people who watch them but they're just not my thing. i try to tell people i'm a causal geek when talking so they don't expect me to know alot. so far it's worked.

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Hello,

I'm a movie geek:
But I hate J-horror, French films, Superman Returns, the original Batman movies, 300, the revised Star Wars flicks, the latest Star Wars flicks, the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and the X-men films

I'm a Sci-Fi geek:
But I hate Lost, Stargate, X-files, Heroes 2nd season, and Star Trek (enjoy BSG though) ^_^

I'm an Anime geek:
But I hate Dragonball Z, One Piece, Sailor Moon, most Shonen, most Shoujo, Inuyasha, anything from 4kids, and anything else aimed at 12 year olds

I'm a Gamer geek:
But I hate GTA, Gran Turismo, Madden, Counter-Strike, Diablo, Forza, Tekken, Pokemon, most JRPGs, and World of Warcraft

And you know what? I don't care what people say. I enjoy what I enjoy.

Be proud of your geekness. ^_^

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Where are you in Colorado?? I promise not to stalk - I'm from Wyoming/Montana/Colorado footprint...

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Do I have to know every stinking line from "Menagerie" to be a real Trekker? Must I be fluent in Klingonese? And God forbid I didn't dress up when I went to comicon last year.

People kill me taking entertainment too seriously.

I had almost every issue of Wolverine and was damn proud of my collection. I used to go to comic conventions and was a regular at a local comic shop where I was known as the "Wolverine chick." Times got hard when I graduated college and I had to sell my entire comic collection to make ends meet before I joined the Army. After that my friends that I used to go to conventions with treated me really crappy.

Goes to show you that sometimes people take things a bit too seriously.

I love comics, but hey, I love to eat too. It doesn't mean that I'm not a "true fan."

But after thinking about it a bit more I can understand it. Life's hard, plain and simple. Maybe they just have that crappy of a life that the only thing they can call real is their escapism. That's why it becomes so important and such a protected thing.

Or

After growing up ostracized they feel the need to ostracize others.

To heck with 'em. I'm not ashamed I lie 300 for all the lean beef either. Rock on with your bad self, sister.

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Buffy, the 2nd best TV series ever? NO WAY!

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Elizabeth,
I thank you for this post. I'm not only a geek, but a self-proclaimed CineManiac (so says my blog) and I feel this same way both as a geek, and a movie lover.
I've never read Watchman, I absolutely Loathe Anime, I haven't read anything Marvel or DC in years (not for lack of being intrigued, just don't want to invest the time) (and I got tired of BSG during it's first season, but have since become a huge fan), and I've never been able to cite episode titles and numbers.
I've also never seen a Kubrick film, hate Scarface, can't stand Lost in Translation, and put on a blank stare when my other movie loving buddies mention almost any movie made during the 70s. But I love the classics (Hitchcock, Screwball comedies) and modern fare, and I absolutely LOVE the popcorn blockbuster of the summer.
Despite all these things I'm still a geek and a CineManiac and anyone who thinks otherwise can get over their snobby selves.

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"Finally! Someone willing to come forward and say what a ridiculous waste of self-important shite BSG is."

Actually, that's not what she said.

In fact, she said she "certainly respect[s] it as a high quality show", something that is synonymous neither with "waste" nor "shite".

But your remark helps underscore the flip side of what Elisabeth is talking about. On the one hand, as she rightly points out, you have certain people claiming that one's geek cred is stunted if you don't like X, Y, or Z.

But on the other hand, you have people like yourself who (I'd argue) assume that anything that doesn't happen to work for them, anything that they simply don't like must therefore actually just be bad, or (if you prefer) shite.

It's perhaps the most useless form of criticism, because it asserts that anything and everything that you personally are not into is necessarily therefore of poor quality.

Out here in the real, more nuanced world, things can be of high quality and yet still not liked by everyone -- and, in fact, the reasons those people dislike these things can be perfectly legitimate without, nonetheless, impugning the quality of those things.

I can't, of course, speak for you, but in my experience of people making similar statements, they always seem to me to be afraid of someone thinking they are stupid. So rather than saying "yeah, that's quality, but it just doesn't work for me", they have to lash out and say "man that show is crap".

(The reality, of course, is that not liking something of quality doesn't mean one is stupid. It just means that one has an opinion.)

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No surprise here that you feel insecure about your geek cred. You take every opportunity you can to shout from the rooftops that you are a geek. Instead of constantly telling your audience that you are, in fact, a geek, why not just celebrate the geeky things you like? Every time you put in the "I'm a geek" or "sorry for being geeky" lines, it detracts from your geek cred, to the point where I long ago stopped giving you any. Stop saying you are a geek, and just be one.

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