Being a Geek, Being an Angry Geek, and Being a Tiresome Assclown

You know, I am quite proud to be a geek. I grew up a geek, with my glasses and my Star Trek novelizations tucked under one arm, and yeah, I got bullied for it, but it didn’t stop me. And these days being labelled a geek isn’t the insult it once was – we rule the cinema listings and reading comics is cool now – and yes, I am proud to be a geek.

I see being a geek as being filled with enthusiasm for something. Loving a thing so much – loving a story, essentially – that you want to know all the details of it, that you spend time discussing it and pondering the history of that story and its future. You surround yourself with stuff that takes you to that story in an instant; this is why my desk currently features action figures of Garrus, Marcus Fenix, Duncan from Dragon Age, and The Chamberlain from The Dark Crystal. It’s why above my desk there is artwork from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and the Discworld books.

I love being a geek, and I consider other geeks to be an extended family. My people, if you will.

Which is why I’m filled with dismay when fandom seems to tip over into trolling. Yes, we’ve all had our moments of being horribly disappointed with where the story you love is going. Anyone who knew me a few years ago knows all about my extreme upset over the end of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. I threw the book across the room, I wrote essays on how outraged I was. I had, in short, a tantrum of silly proportions. I didn’t like Prometheus either, and spent days afterwards listing all the many ways in which it didn’t make sense. But...

But at no point did I seek out the creators of those things to hurl abuse at them. Why not? Because that’s not what being a geek is about. If I can have a moment to be a little bit soft? Being a geek is about love, not hate.

Currently we have a situation where Steven Moffat has left twitter, due, apparently, to the amount of angry abuse hurled at him over the Dinosaurs on a Spaceship episode of Doctor Who. And this isn’t the first incident of fandom throwing its toys out of the pram in an unpleasant manner. If you follow Bioware on facebook (and I’ve mentioned this before) then you will know that any post is blanketed in comments about how fucking shitty the end of Mass Effect 3 was, and how Bioware are shit, and how they should all die in a fire because of it. Or the weird section of Supernatural fandom that reserves a special kind of hatred for the actor’s wives. I mean, come on. If we’re adult enough to operate a keyboard and enjoy the nuances of fiction, then we’re too adult for this nonsense.

There’s nothing wrong with being disappointed or even angry. Of course not. Rant about it all you like. Sometimes we get angry because we love something so much - my anger over the end of the Dark Tower was all about how much love I'd put into the series. But there is a line that once crossed means you are actually behaving like a pissy little child with poopy pants. A pissy little brat that enjoys bitching about something and spreading misery, more than they ever enjoyed the story. I didn’t spend secondary school being bullied for that to be part of being a geek, thank you very much.

So, you know what? To me, these people aren’t geeks. I take that label, the label that means so much to me, away from them, and instead give them the title of Tiresome Assclowns. Geekdom is better than that.

Possibly Pointless Mini-Sulk

We watched Fanboys at the weekend; an enjoyable little film about a group of friends who set off on a road trip to steal a rough cut of the Phantom Menace some six months before it is due to come out (not knowing, of course, exactly how crap it is going to be). Hit and miss in places maybe, but there were enough geeky references to keep me happy and the beardy Hutch was entertaining enough on his own, as a sort of poor man’s Jack Black. I laughed a lot and even felt a little sad at the poignant ending.

There was one bit that did annoy me however, and it’s taken a couple of days to figure out why.

At one point their female geek friend has to rescue them from their own stupidity, and she comes into conflict with Windows, the bespectacled object of her affections. When she starts doing stuff he doesn’t understand, i.e. behaving like an emotional human being, he essentially tells her, “Look, you can’t pull this girl stuff and still want to be one of the boys”.

At first I thought I was annoyed at the character, and then I realised that was sort of the point. He was being a berk. And then I thought I was annoyed at the film, in a knee jerk reaction sort of way- “how dare you say I can’t be a girl and be friends with boys!”

But I think it was actually more complicated than that. What aggravated me, I believe, was the inference that by being a geek, she was attempting to be one of the boys.

Which is all wrong.

The majority of my friends are male, and all of them are geeks. I didn’t start reading 2000AD when I was kid so that one day, just maybe, I could hang out with blokes and know what they’re talking about. I don’t spend way too much time being Commander Shepard on the Xbox so that men will be impressed by my fairly amazing biotic slam, and I don’t know all the words to Ghostbusters because boys dig chicks that do (and I don’t think they do). I am a geek because that is what I enjoy, and I am friends with people who enjoy the same things- as it happens, most of them are male, but I’m sure this is just because I don’t know very many ladygeeks. And I know you’re out there, ladies!

Being a geek isn’t a “boy thing”. It’s a “people with intelligence and taste” thing. ;)

The Most Important Question in Geekdom :o

Today I must ask you the most important question in geekdom. Are you ready? Okay. Brace yourself.

Place the following science-fiction franchises in order of greatness:

Star Trek

Star Wars

Doctor Who

You might be able to guess my own preferences by the order in which I have already placed them, but here are some points to consider.

All three have been hugely influential to the field. All three have die-hard fans who are able to quote reams of dialogue, episode names, and inside leg measurements of lead actors. All three are pretty bloody brilliant, in my opinion.

All three have also had their dodgy moments. I grew up with the TNG crew and learnt to love the Original series of Star Trek, but gawd help me I am still to this day violently bored within minutes of most DS9 episodes, and I never felt like Enterprise was really Star Trek (Voyager is a sort of guilty pleasure; yes there was a lot of dreck but when it’s on I find myself strangely drawn to it…).

Star Wars- well, do I need to tell you where the crap set in? Jar Jar Binks and midichlorians and jedi moppets. The original trilogy gave us three of the best films ever made, and had an immeasurable impact on cinema and science-fiction in general. The prequels gave us boredom, disappointment and enough cringing to cause cramp.

As someone quite wise and possibly drunk pointed out to me a while ago, at its worst Doctor Who is a “bit silly”. At its best, it is some of the most thought provoking science-fiction we have on our telly. I don’t have the connection to Who that most fans will have, since I only saw two episodes of the McCoy Doctor growing up, and they scared the wotsits out of me, but I am a fan of the newer incarnations, which have done a fantastic job of creating future geeks in the children brave enough to watch it. Who has been going for so long that of course it has it’s weak moments, that for my mind largely involve female companions in questionable clothes running along bumpy quarries, and having witnessed the episode that is Delta and the Bannermen, I’m amazed anyone ever watched it again.

But yes. Three of the greats- I ask you, which is the greatest?