In
June of 2012, Ryan Perez, a contributor to gaming news website, Destructoid,
issued the following tweet, “Could you be considered nothing more than a
glorified booth babe? You don't seem to add anything creative to the medium.” (Baker,
2012, para. 2) The comment was leveled at Felicia Day, an actress in various
mainstream television shows and producer of several game-centered web series.
Perez’s comment was issued in the midst of a long-running debate amongst
members of the geek fandom on the issue of the “fake geek girl.” The two
factions in this debate included those seeking to protect the geek fandom from
whom they perceive to be imposters—namely,
women who were only interested in games and geek culture for the
attention they could garner—and those who argued this view was misogynistic and
exclusionary. Though both sides unilaterally agreed that Perez’s comment was
inappropriate and misdirected, the comment was indicative of the very issue
being debated. However, the Fake Gamer Girl representation is only possible in
its contrast to another stereotype, the Gamer Girl. Through non-adherence to
this representation, the concept of the Fake Gamer Girl is created.
The term “gamer” is a contested
term. Frequently considered a sub-sect of the geek or nerd subculture,
originally this group was commonly stereotyped to be social pariahs or outcasts
and the group most typically assumed to be oppressed by the more popular jocks.
The label geek was initially an insult to those in this group and identified
them as being socially inept and as those who did not comply with hegemonic
masculinity. With few exceptions, the geek was white and male. (Kendall, 2011,
p.506) Today, gaming does not have nearly the social sigma it once had. Rather,
with over half of all Americans playing video games (“Essential Facts,” 2013,
p. 2), there is a need amongst the community to define membership to the group.
This tends to fall along what is commonly referred to as the “hardcore”/“casual”
line, dependent on the individual gamer’s dedication in time and involvement
with games, and the type of games played. In the hierarchy of games, casual,
mobile, or Facebook games rank lower than those that require a console or a
dedicated game PC to play, and those who play the latter often take offense to
those “casual players” that claim membership to their group. Because the term,
“gamer,” is amorphous and vaguely defined, those who feel they have more right
to the title are active in guarding entry into the group and identifying those
whom they assess to have less claim to membership. According to Dr. Andrea
Letamendi, these individuals find it necessary to identify and exclude
imposters due to the misinterpreted sense of ownership of this title, and their
resentment of the changing culture in their community. (2012, para. 16-17) Since
one of the most common stereotypes of geeks is that they are male, those who
are not often have their authenticity to the group questioned.
In this environment, the Gamer Girl
category is established. This stereotype paints the image of a woman less
concerned with appearance and social graces than she is with games. Like her
other gamers, she is often quirky and socially awkward, but she must be
considered highly skilled in all genres of gaming and a “hardcore gamer”. She
is considered a tomboy nearly by necessity, as gaming is conceptualized as a
male hobby and playing in team-based competitive gameplay requires camaraderie
and cooperation. As such, she frequently falls into the “one-of-the-guys”
category. Due to the requirements to be categorized in this stereotype, the Gamer
Girl is, by definition, masculinized. In essence, to be a true gamer girl, you
must be good at games and bad at being a girl.
Therefore, women who play games are often
subjected to insults revolving around their assumed lacks in their femininity.
Fat, Ugly, or Slutty is a website exemplifies this through their collection of insults
focused at women while gaming. The website curators explain their experiences
as, “Every message is the same. I’m always either fat and ugly, or a slut.” (“About,”
n.d.) Women gaming online often hear insults along this vein. Since they
fulfill the requirement of being skilled at games, the inference is either that
they are unattractive, or that they have honed their skills in order to attract
the attention and interest of the males they are sure to be surrounded by in
that space.
By contrast, any woman seen to care
about her appearance, or is considered attractive, immediately has her
authenticity as a geek questioned and is thus categorized as an imposter type,
the Fake Gamer Girl. The inference is that any girl who is pretty enough to
garner the attention of men would not need to play games to acquire one. This concept
requires acceptance of the idea that women are only interested in games for the
express purpose of heterosexual male attention. Joe Peacock, a geek culture
writer for CNN, goes into detail about how he perceives this behavior. “They
decide to put on a ‘hot’ costume, parade around a group of boys notorious for
being outcasts that don't get attention from girls, and feel like a celebrity.
They're a ‘6’ in the ‘real world’, but when they put on a Batman shirt and head
to the local fandom convention du jour, they instantly become a ‘9’. They're
poachers. They're a pox on our culture. As a guy, I find it repugnant that… I
am supposed to feel honored that a pretty girl is in my presence.” (2012, para.
10-11)
In both stereotypes, the Gamer Girl and
the Fake Gamer Girl, women are compared to and measured up against male gamers.
It is not enough for a Gamer Girl to play games, she must excel at them, and
frequently win over her male competition. The Fake Gamer Girl is assumed to
only be pursuing the hobby for male attention. In both of these situations,
male gamers are considered normative or the unmarked type of gamer. The
implication in both instances is that women do not play games except in
extraordinary conditions. Women who do not exemplify great skill or women who
display feminine traits have their authenticity questioned—they are not
masculine enough to be considered in-group—and thus are subjected to
microaggressions and threats. Dr. Letamendi addresses this issue among the
closely- related comics fandom, “... [microaggressions] reinforce the
stereotypes, the deluded beliefs that women lack comics knowledge, that women
who affiliate with geekdom shouldn’t look feminine/pretty/sexy, and that male
members of the community are responsible for our membership” (2012, para. 4).
The issue is complicated by the
implication that the Gamer Girl is a heterosexual woman, seeking the attention
of a heterosexual male audience. Lesbians accused of being a Fake Gamer Girl
likely receive additional, compounded marginalization due to their sexual
orientation that is not experienced by their heterosexual counterparts. The
Gamer Girl trope and the Fake Gamer Girl accusation completely preclude the
possibility of male attention being unimportant or unnecessary. Either the
Gamer Girl wants to be one of the guys, or the Fake Gamer Girl wants the
attention of the guys. The notion that a female gamer could be indifferent to
guys is unexplored and unconsidered.
Just like with other feminist
issues, we can find many instances of patriarchal bargaining (Ryan, 2013). Some
female gamers who identify as Gamer Girls will identify other women who claim
interest in games and assign them as Fake Gamer Girls. By aligning themselves
with the unquestioned in-group men who subscribe to this notion, these women
are authenticating and solidifying their own gamer status. These comments have
a wider unintentional effect—a female gamer confirming the existence of the Fake
Gamer Girl acts as validation of the existence of the type as a reality. A
female gamer who “outs” another member of her gender for inauthenticity acts as
anecdotal proof that there are women who do engage in this sort of behavior.
The more common the accusation, the more real the “threat” to the community
becomes, and the perception of frequency of this occurrence increases.
As gaming becomes more prevalent,
the number of those who consider themselves Gamers increases. This is
considered a threat to the communities by those who self-identify as
gatekeepers to the culture. A group that was traditionally overwhelmingly male,
the increase in female gamers is treated with suspicion. Those who are
considered authentic gamers are awarded with in-group membership and
categorized as Gamer Girls, whereas those who are not are scorned as Fake Gamer
Girls. The application of one title over another is based on to the degree of
which masculine gamer traits are embraced. True Gamer Girls shun commonly
associated feminine traits such as social competence and physical beauty.
Additionally, she must display skill and game knowledge equal to or better than
the most skilled of her male counterparts. Failure to live up to both of these
expectations results in assignation to the Fake Gamer Girl category, an
imposter who only plays games for male attention. Unlike her male counterparts,
she cannot be considered a gamer for simply liking a game, and preferring to
spend her free time doing so. The binary this implies is striking: either a
woman acts as paragon for all gamers, or she is a fraud. Her choice is between
authenticity or beauty, obsession or exclusion. And it’s largely no choice at
all.
Works Cited
Baker,
K. (2013, Jul 3). The Fight Against Misogyny in Gaming Enlists Some Big Names. Jezebel. Retrieved from: http://jezebel.com/5922961/the-fight-against-misogynism-in-gaming-enlists-some-big-names
Kendall,
L. (2011). “White and Nerdy”: Computers, Race, and the Nerd Stereotype. The Journal of Popular Culture, 44.
Retrieved from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/doi/10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00846.x/abstract
Letamendi,
A. (2012, Dec 21). The Psychology of the Fake Geek Girl: Why We’re Threatened
By Falsified Fandom. The Mary Sue.
Retrieved from: http://www.themarysue.com/psychology-of-the-fake-geek-girl/
Peacock,
J. (2012, Jul 24). Booth babes need not apply. CNN. Retrieved from: http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/24/booth-babes-need-not-apply/
Ryan,
T. (2013, Jun 17). Theories of Violence
in Pop Culture. Lecture.
Entertainment
Software Association. (2013). Essential
Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry. Retrieved from: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2013.pdf
Fat, Ugly or Slutty.
(n.d.). About. Retrieved from: http://fatuglyorslutty.com/about/June 21, 2013
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