A Geek Girl’s Video Guide to Surviving the Holidays

Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

Are you dreading going to Thanksgiving Dinner and having your cousins make fun of your Star Wars shirt? Or visiting a new-to-you comic shop on Black Friday and getting asked for your comic credentials? Over the holidays, there’s an excellent chance most of us will run into friction at dinners, parties, sales, and so forth. If you identify as a woman and you’re active in SF/F/H — whether that’s writing, watching, reading, gaming, cosplaying, etc. — you may be bracing yourself for some light ribbing from Snarky Older Brother, deliberate misunderstandings from Not-So-Well-Meaning Coworker, or downright derision from There’s-A-Reason-You’re-Distant Cousin. We will encounter people who have no idea how to treat (or talk to) geeks or geek girls who like anime, cosplay, steampunk, comic books, superhero films, space flicks, horror, and/or attending cons, makerspaces, workshops, Renaissance Festivals, etc. We’re constantly questioned by relatives, coworkers, even random people on the metro.

Well, thank goodness we have the Internet! And a bunch of creative souls who put their stuff on it. I keep a list of Youtube videos that I return to every so often that were posted as responses to the sentiments we encounter almost all the time. Here’s a list to keep them handy — comfort for you or reference for someone else, as we go forth to defend our favorite fandoms or character pairings at the holiday table or get into fights over game controllers and personal Star Wars movie rankings.

Let’s start with the most accessible summation of what it means to be a geek and a woman: Buzzfeed/As/Is’s “If Geek Girls Acted Like Geek Guys” (see below) came out five years ago, but it is, unfortunately, timeless. I’m lucky to live in a city where I have a choice of comic book shops, and where I used to live, the local comic book shop was woman-owned. Also, I’m friends with a lot of geek guys who don’t question my geekiness; our nerd arguments don’t really do anything except exhaust our spousal units. So most of the scenarios in this video never happened to me at the comic book shop. Of course, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen to other women. 

Okay, so the behavior highlighted in the previous video isn’t relegated to comic book shops. It can happen at cons, D&D game nights, in the library, at the mall, or basically anywhere people don’t understand you or who think your liking the same stuff is a detriment in some way. So sure, I was safe at the comic shop, but I have been in those conversations where I’m being tested to see if I know my science fiction. Or people really do believe I only like X because my brother or boyfriend/husband liked X and literally cannot entertain the idea I might have liked X from the start. (For the record, I got both an ex-boyfriend and my husband hooked on The X-Files.) I’ve also been in those conversations where people think my love of science fiction is a total character flaw.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  See also “Struggles Only Geek Girls Understand,” again by Buzzfeed/As/Is:

I’ll be honest — I don’t know that much about gaming besides hearing about it in conversations with friends and family members who do play, but I did read Zoe Quinn’s book, and I did watch most of Anita Sarkeesian‘s “Tropes v. Women in Video Games” series. So “Nerd Talk: Gamer Girl Struggles” by PrettyBrown&Nerdy hits a lot of points in a short time. “Female gamers will be in the chat, but we will leave our headphones on mute. Because the moment our voices come on to that headset, we might as well just prepare for ‘abuse central.’” This one’s a little more serious, but I’m including it because people should know the behavior detailed within is not okay.

CollegeHumor’s “Are You Nerdy Enough?” reminds me that being nerdy isn’t relegated to science fiction interests. People get to like what they want and obsess over those likes. I’m not necessarily a fan of Barbie dolls, for example, but I am obsessed with 30Rock and Brooklyn 99. No one — especially men — gets to dictate what is and is not nerdy. If Barbie dolls or trolls are your deal, go for it!

These videos are funny, but they do highlight some horrible and depressing stuff. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people have to fight so hard to love the things they love. So why do I still like SF? Because I can’t turn it off. It’s nowhere near as simple as “I liked broccoli when I was a kid and now I hate it.” In 40+ years, my tastes haven’t changed. I didn’t “grow out of sci-fi” (another sentiment I’ve heard — SF is for the “younger set, you should stick to classics when you’re older.” Barf). And I don’t want to change my tastes, because it allows me to enjoy things like this:

And this:

Science fiction contains 90% of all my real and fictional role models, from Julie Parrish and Dana Scully to Chrisjen Avasarala and Jessica Jones; from Octavia Butler and Kristin Beyer to Jeanette Epps and Martha Wells. And so many more besides. Science fiction is fun, it’s ground-breaking, it’s wondrous, hopeful, illuminating, and kick-ass; it’s a lot of things, and often it’s all of those things at the same time. I can’t talk about all the nuances here, but the science fiction world I know and love is the one that aims higher and does better. It includes — and strives to include — stories about people, especially women, who are messy, flawed, complicated, badass, compassionate — and timeless.

And none of us have anything to prove to anyone. Go forth and enjoy your holidays, ya’ll.