Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire

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Growing up a girl geek and becoming a geek girl.

I became a geek when I was four years old. That's when my grandmother handed me my first My Little Pony (Cotton Candy) and told me that if I liked her, I could have more. That was also the year when I first really and truly understood that Doctor Who had an ongoing storyline that could be followed and thought about, even when the TV wasn't on. I don't remember much about the year when I was four, but I remember those two moments of epiphany.

But wait, some people would have said (and did say), as recently as three years ago: being into My Little Pony doesn't make you a geek. It makes you a girl. And to them I said, every time, that if being into My Little Pony didn't make me a geek, then they had to turn in their Transformers street cred. Science fiction and fantasy got tickets to the geek-out party, and if teleporting unicorns who live on the other side of the rainbow and fight darkness with magic and thumbs doesn't count as fantasy in your world, you are not relevant to my interests. You don't gotta like it. You do gotta admit that not only the boys' cartoons of the 1980s contained the seeds of geekdom.

He-Man? She-Ra. Both were epic fantasy adventures. The Care Bears were basically friendly aliens who just wanted us to stop blowing shit up all the damn time. The Littles lived inside your walls. How is any of this not genre? But if you asked the boys in my neighborhood, it was girly, and hence it wasn't good enough. I saw proto-geek after proto-geek give up and drop out after she'd been told, yet again, that Transformers were serious and My Little Pony was stupid. I very quickly found myself in the unenviable position of being the only girl geek in my neighborhood.

I played with the boys pretty much exclusively (after I'd beaten respect for My Little Pony through their thick skulls), at least until we got to middle school, and my being a nerd became a problem. (Note: I'm using "geek" to mean "obsessed with geeky things and very open about liking them" and "nerd" to mean "thick glasses, read constantly, did math for fun.") The boys scattered. The girls, who had been socialized that geeks were icky, wanted nothing to do with me. I nested in my interests, and waited for the world to be fair.

Then, like a shining beacon: high school. Access to conventions. Access to that new miracle, the internet. I was no longer going to be a girl geek. I was just going to be a geek! I could be interested in ANYTHING I wanted, FOREVER, and my people would understand me, because they'd been through the same thing! FOREVER!

...only My Little Pony wasn't really fantasy, because it was "too pink," and Amethyst Princess of Gemworld wasn't a real comic book, and I had to be lying when I said I loved Warren Magazines because girls don't like horror, and Stephen King? Ugh so lame. In order to be a geek, I had to conform to the shape that others defined for my geekiness, hiding the things I really loved behind a veneer of Star Trek and learning the names of all the members of the Justice League (even though I had zero fucks to give). During that period, I guess I was a "fake geek girl" in some ways, because the people I perceived as having power over me had informed me, in no uncertain terms, that loving the things I genuinely loved, following my true geeky passion down the dark corridors it so temptingly offered, would mean I wasn't a geek.

It would just mean that I was lonely.

I learned to fake it. I can name multiple incarnations of the Flash, even though I am not and never have been a DC girl. No one who's ever asked me to do this has been able to explain the entire Summers family tree, but I've known since I was fourteen that if I confused Wally West with Barry Allen, I would be decried as a faker who didn't really like comics. I learned to quote Monty Python without ever seeing the show, and made at least a stab at all the big popular epic fantasy series of the day. My geek cred was unquestioned.

And it got better. I discovered fanfic, where people were a lot more willing to tolerate whatever I wanted to get excited about, as long as I didn't expect them to read my novel-length fixfic for a Disney Channel Original Movie. My Little Ponies became "retro" and "vintage," and my collection was suddenly "ironic" in the eyes of the people I allowed to judge me. I learned to roll my eyes at moments of judgement that would previously have reduced me to snotty tears. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I stopped giving two fucks about what other people thought of my geekiness. I stopped trying to be a gender-neutral geek and became a geek girl.

But you know what? I wish I hadn't been forced to go through that particular evolution. I wish I'd been able to walk in and say "My Little Pony is as good as Transformers" without needing a sudden surge in male My Little Pony fandom to make that opinion acceptable. (I love all My Little Pony fans. Friendship is magic. But as a girl who grew up with Megan and Firefly, it really does feel a lot like "okay, girls, we've finally decided your sparkly unicorns are cool, so they qualify for membership in the genre now.")

I've been watching the "fake geek girl" mess go around, and it feels like middle school. It feels like people going "your passions don't match my passions, ergo your passions must be invalid." And I say fuck. That. Noise. Geeks like things. That's why we exist. If what someone likes is costuming, or Twilight, or SETI, or looking for Bigfoot, why the fuck should I care? If you like something enough to shape your life around it, you're a geek. Period. You do not need to prove anything. Ever.

I look at geek culture now, and we're primed to allow a whole generation of little girls to grow up without that horrible middle stage that I had to live through. But they can only have that freedom if we stop pretending that unicorns are inferior to robots, or that girls can't like zombies, or that boys can't like talking bears with hearts on their stomachs.

Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go to Target and buy some Monster High dolls, which I will unbox, redress, and play with, like a boss.

LIKE A GEEK BOSS.
Tags: contemplation, cranky blonde is cranky, from mars, geekiness, so the marilyn
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shanejayell

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

shanejayell

4 years ago

archangelbeth

November 27 2012, 19:28:21 UTC 4 years ago Edited:  November 27 2012, 19:29:13 UTC

...I would willingly read your novel-length fixfic for a Disney Channel Original Movie. Just so's you know. O:>

Edit: And whilst that icon is originally a somewhat bitter phrase, I say we can read it as "we're here, we're pink geeks, get used to it" in triumph as well.
I fixed all the problems with Halloweentown! I did I did! I was so proud of myself.

I love Girl Genius.

tikiera

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

tikiera

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

dormouse_in_tea

4 years ago

Deleted comment

dragonsally

4 years ago

Deleted comment

I tend to agree. Also, my specific flavor of geekiness should in no way be used as a barometer for yours. Why, I bet you can't even name fifteen G1 Ponies! And THAT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

Deleted comment

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

marsdejahthoris

4 years ago

vixyish

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

marsdejahthoris

4 years ago

*Claps*

You summed it up beautifully. You really did. :)

Also? I really want to read that fixfic. :)
Thank you!

And I'm still fond of it lo these many years later.
Thank you, my fabulous friend.

The details of my experience are different, but I fundamentally recognize so much of this.
Love you always.
I love you so!
I love you too.
I have mixed feelings about the whole bronies thing for similar reasons. Apparently it's only cool if boys show up and give their stamp of approval, and otherwise it's icky and cootie-covered and girly. Where "things female people like" always ends up meaning childish and inferior and stupid and pointless and...sigh. But I do get my sparkly teleporting unicorns, so I should probably not stress too much about what other people like--or don't like--about them. I don't want to be the person who goes out and tells other people that they're liking My Little Pony in the wrong way.

That said, now that I have more confidence (yay adulthood!), there is a certain freeing sensation in knowing that my chesticles ever prevent me from being a True Geek in the eyes of people who actually think there is an ideal True Geek standard that they can rate other people against. I can't meet their standards because of a stupid reason, so, y'know. Screw their standards. I've got a whole shelf of ponies, and many more shelves of sf&f books, and they can't stop me.
I remember being incredibly frustrated that, during the FiM launch and runup thereto, I couldn't persuade people that this was a show worth watching, that the idea of multiple sides of multiple axes of gender expression couched in cute little ponies was happening and happening right. But the boys happened round, and boom. In retrospect, I found myself needing to use them as persuasive leverage (in that brief, shining moment before it all went to hell).

I felt horrible, and quietly so: why is my word not enough for others to trust this? And I kept a lot of it hidden, because some of it was backfiring, and some of it held portent.

But you saw that; you know.

fadethecat

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

marlowe1

4 years ago

fadethecat

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

fadethecat

4 years ago

hurrah for you! (and i agree with all of this, although i am a latecomer geek who might not possibly be a 'real' geek except my friends are convinced i am)

also, i want to read "my novel-length fixfic for a Disney Channel Original Movie" (having watched Halloweentown and Halloweentown 2)
Marnie was supposed to end up with Luke, dammit.

taldragon

4 years ago

Deleted comment

ElfQuest taught me how to write. Three cheers for the Quest!
I hereby declare this post to be TRUTH.
I am approved by Polter-Cow!

My life is complete.

spectralbovine

4 years ago

The fake geek girl stuff has been pissing me off SO MUCH lately. Why does anyone even care? If someone is legitimately "faking" being geeky just to fit in with a geeky crowd for some reason then I feel sorry that they think they have to do that, but I have doubts that there is any large number of people who are actually doing this. I don't care if some women just cosplay as video game characters because they like the challenge of the costume or they think it looks cool and they don't actually like video games. I don't care if some women might only play World of Warcraft and ignore all other aspects of geekdom. Why are these things supposed to make me upset? Well, I guess the implication also is not that other geek girls should be upset (we don't exist), it is that geek boys should be upset for some unfathomable reason. Boys get a free pass into geekdom, but girls need to prove they deserve admission. So dumb.
Especially as none of these things are perceived as a problem, except for fen who lack a Y chromosome. Sigh.

pickledginger

4 years ago

caper_est

4 years ago

pickledginger

4 years ago

Deleted comment

I'm in my mid-fifties, and my geekdom experience is totally unlike yours. I don't know why -- I just didn't give a fuck when I was a kid whether or not I was supposed to like something or not -- I read what I read, and I liked what I liked, and I was geeky as hell. I've been like that for all of my life -- though I never had contact with any organized fans until much much later in my life (I'd read a few Fantasy & SF columns about same in the mid-1960s, so I'd even read about Karen Anderson's terrific cosplay at a worldcon, and was totally jealous!), but I was who I was, in the wilds of redneck Ohio, until I got to college and met other geeky folks. And they never gave me any problems about being who I was -- in fact, I got into D&D the very first year it was published, and I have been a proud gamer ever since.... heck, I went into labor while gaming! It's funny, but I never felt that I had to hide what I loved or to feel different or lesser because I loved it -- I knew I was weird, so why not let it all hang out? If I don't read DC or Marvel, too bad; I still have a comics collection, so I'm still a comics geek. If I read romance as well as sf and fantasy, so what? I don't have a thing to prove to the young whippersnappers (and, anyhow, I've read all the classics, and can quote 'em to prove it -- fifty years of reading sf will do that to ya). I feel badly for the idiots who seem to think that anyone is lesser and/or "not really" a geek for just being interested in what they're interested in. I don't like most of my daughter's fandoms, but I don't grudge her them or judge that she's somehow less of a geek because I don't like them and they're more "girly" than mine. Seems stupid.
I am very glad for you.
Walgreens is carrying a knockoff Monster HIgh set of dolls in their xmas toy selection this year. There are 4 of them. They come in coffin shaped boxes.

You wouldn't remember how much those cost would you? My youngest sister is a huge MH fan, but the official products are so expensive....

And then I can fight her for whatever ones I like better from the set myself. I was just going to watch the show to see what she was raving about so much, it's not my fault I ended up finding it cute.

martianmooncrab

4 years ago

selene

4 years ago

martianmooncrab

4 years ago

weds

4 years ago

selene

4 years ago

weds

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

I've believed for a long while that you can be geeky without being into Sci-Fi or techy stuff. You can be a geek of dance, music, art, or anything else that excites your passion. You said as much yourself, and I wholly agree with you about it. Props for mentioning SETI, which I was obsessed about for a while.
Geeks love shit.

Welcome to the clan, all who love shit and are willing to play nicely.
Yay for geeking out! And yay for unicorns who fight darkness with magic. (I loved any Saturday morning cartoon or book where characters had ~adventures~, especially female characters, double-especially if there was a girl geek for me to want to be like.)
Damn straight.

Where's my talking Pegasus?!

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Yes!

ravenclawed

November 27 2012, 19:53:30 UTC 4 years ago Edited:  November 27 2012, 19:53:47 UTC

Cotton Candy was my first too. :)

I love this post. People shouldn't be judged on their flavor of geekdom. I may tease Twilighters on their love for sparkly vampires, but their devotion isn't any less real or valid than mine to Lord of the Rings or BBC Sherlock.
The only ones that I think less of, in any fandom/geekery, are those who ignore all other fandoms because they have the One True Source of Geek.

And by the way, I read this post to my husband, and halfway through, paused to admire your turn of phrase at him. I started as a book geek, can you tell?

To be honest, I never really put the work in to the other areas of geekdom. I like the books, not the film, in nearly all cases where the book came first (Jane Austen being an exception).

H

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

I actually did pretty well through my childhood because I was a nerd among nerds, and geek wasn't something I needed cred for. I just enjoyed things a person can enjoy and never really thought about whether I was enjoying the right things. That kind of stuff somewhat maddeningly changed when I hit adulthood and became less mature about these things (and others). I'm still trying to figure out how that happened.

These days, I feel a lot of pressure to geek out on ALL THE THINGS or else I'm not a legitimate geek. I've had to tell myself multiple times a week: You geek out over movies, TV shows, and books, and you write things you geek out over and hope other people will join you in the geeking of. But just because you don't read comic books or play video games, due to a pressing need to sleep, doesn't mean you have to turn in your geek card. Enjoy the things you can enjoy - it's supposed to be fun.
Ugh. There isn't TIME to geek out on ALL THE THINGS. I would die trying.
*unironic applause*
*unironic bow*
"...Amethyst Princess of Gemworld wasn't a real comic book..."

WHAAAAAT?!

Excuse me. I need to go sit in my Time-Out Corner and be all grumpy.

Rassafrassin' mrglfrbltz unprintable unprintable...
I fully understand.
That is the best description of systemic sexism I can remember seeing.
Thank you.
I learned to quote Monty Python without ever seeing the show

I need to confess to being utterly delighted that I'm not the only person who did this.
I am also someone who learned most of the Monty Python routines without seeing them.
I've "failed my saving throw" in conversation 1000000 times, but sat through only a half-dozen RPG sessons in high school.
I dressed up as a Jedi for the theater re-release with my friends, but hadn't actually seen all of Empire Strikes Back at that time.

I owned Amethyst Princess of Gemworld comics. (I love where her grandma stops the Angel of Death!) I had popples! I memorized Deryni Rising the year after it came out in paperback. Pbhttt.

Also, I don't know what a "fake geek girl" is, but hey, if she wants to play Star Trek Catan with us, she's still welcome.

the_xtina

4 years ago

ckd

4 years ago

the_xtina

4 years ago

reedrover

4 years ago

julieandrews

4 years ago

reedrover

4 years ago

pickledginger

4 years ago

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

YOU WIN SO MUCH!!! I wish I had this manifesto when I was in high school. Also, I wish I knew you in high school and we could have embraced each other's love for the "girly" geeky things (I had Faeries.)
That would have been AWESOME.
Yay for geek bosses, of all varieties.
Yes.
Yes. Oh, yes ~ and thank you for once again writing a post that resonates so strongly for me. I've often felt lost in a sort of no-woman's land where I'm too geeky for a certain faux-hipster crowd and yet not geeky enough for the Real Geek Crowd. I rarely watch television ~ no time! ~ and so I have missed out on most of the programs that spark devoted geek fans. Though I have collections, hobbies, and interests that might qualify me, I resent being treated as if I have to meet certain criteria in order to be accepted as a geek. I would much rather just like what I like, to whatever degree of enthusiasm I'm in the mood for, while getting to know other people who also have interesting hobbies, collections, and ideas they are passionate about.

(I'm giving my daughter a set of Monster High dolls for Christmas ~ my girl, who has NEVER shown any interest AT ALL in any sort of doll, saw you mention them in a post a long while back, became intrigued, and is now SO EXCITED that there are "cool and creepy" dolls to play with. "They're like... anti-Barbies!" she says. Heh.)
Barbie could be the anti-Barbie, too. She was much braver than Ken when they were both POWs ...

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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