A Treatise on Female Geekery

Back in my day...

Isn't that a terrible way to start a story?  I don't care; this story warrants it.

Back in my day, it was definitely not cool to be a geek.  It wasn't cool to like Star Wars more than Saved by the Bell, or arcade games more than Beverly Hills, 90210.  You didn't dress up as Captain Kirk for Halloween; you dressed as a sexy nurse, or a sexy ninja, or a sexy nun.  Your Friday nights were spent partying at the football game, not hunched around a coffee table in your parents' basement, rolling a strangely-shaped die.

And yet, in that harsh, anti-geek environment, a few of us managed to thrive.  Maybe it was because we weren't that popular anyway.  Maybe it was being geeks that made us not-that-popular.  I don't know.  Frankly, I don't care.  After my parents' divorce, some of the happiest times I had were hanging out with my geek friends, being geeky and doing geeky things and dreaming geeky dreams.

We geek chicks banded together, the few of us that there were in high school, and quietly read our comic books, designed Jedi costumes, and wrote our own fanfics.  Now, we're the ones blowing people's minds with incredible art at Renaissance fairs, dabbling in miniatures, and writing, writing, writing.  And if no one ever remembers us, who cares?  We left a legacy.  We were Geek Girls before it was cool.  We were HIPSTER fangirls!

I don't know when it became cool to be a sci-fi fangirl.  Maybe when sci-fi got tall, leggy, British, and developed incredible cheekbones and brooding personality quirks.  I think that's funny, you know; I'm as big a fan of the BBC as anyone (I watched Are You Being Served? while I was still too young to understand all the innuendo), but I think it's funny that suddenly the concept of the "fangirl" came into play with the onset of Pinterest, facebook...with Tom Hiddleston/Benedict Cumberbatch/David Tennant/Matt Smith as the objects of fangirl admiration/adoration/obsession.

Wait a minute, here, chickens.

A real Geek Girl is not a fan only of the dazzling blue eyes, nor the spectacularly whimsical hair, nor the oh-so-delicious accent of the actor!  Not that there's a problem with that...but a true Science Fiction devotee, an honest-to-goodness advocate of the wonders, joys, and creativity that come with unleashing your innner geek...

...she ultimately prefers the TARDIS itself over the Doctor.

He's just a fantastic special feature.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we used to love science fiction for its own sake.  Of course there was the aspect of romance...it's even more epic and intoxicating if you're sweeping past solar systems and unknown planets while you're being wined and dined.  We all admit that.  But the teensy little percentage of hipster that's in me wants to ask a lot of so-called fangirls what they would think of Sherlock if, say, Simon Pegg were playing the lead role instead of Mr. Cumberbatch?  Pegg's a charming, clever, geeky boy himself...but alas, he lacks the proper cheekbones for the part.

True Geek Girls, I know you're out there still!  You'll sit on your bedroom floor, leafing through the lastest issue of The New Avengers and patching together your own Princess Leia outfit (not the slave Leia outfit, but the take-charge princess-in-command camo-friendly Forest Moon of Endor Leia outfit, of course), dreaming of somehow making it to ComiCon (again, while wearing a smart, savvy and not-too-embarrassingly sexy costume), writing your own graphic novels, majoring in physics and art, being as postmodern and progressive as you want to be while still acting like a lady.

That's what it's about, girls.

Not cheekbones.

 

*Disclaimer: Yes, I am also a huge fan of all the actors mentioned above.  But just FYI, I don't think any of them can pull off posing with a child's pink bicycle.  Please prove me wrong.  That would be stinkin' cool.