And, for my 700th post... well, I'm doing this, I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Rjy5yW1gQ&feature=youtu.be

I don't even know what to say about this.

I'm a geek. I'm not proud of it, I'm not ashamed of it. I watched the music video, and what struck me was the one girl holding up the sign saying "Get over yourself".

It's good advice for nearly everyone. Especially everyone in that video.

People are dying from shit in our drinking water. People are being beaten on the streets because they are gay. People don't have anything to eat, or homes to live in, or jobs. Right now, somewhere, a few thousand kids are being tortured or molested, most of them by adults they should be able to trust not to do that. 

And now I'm supposed to be all concerned because some of my fellow geeks feel disrespected by others of my fellow geeks on the basis of their gender?

I mean, seriously. Can we all just get over ourselves?

I don't even know what a 'geek' is any more. I am snobby about it to this extent: I still feel that if you don't read for pleasure, if what you are 'geeky' about does not include written material of some sort, then you're not really a geek. Sorry. That's just me being old fashioned. But the printed word requires the use of the imagination in a way that video games, TV shows, movies, and other visual entertainment media do not. And I think that, whatever a geek is, imagination has to be a vital, essential part of it. So if you're a 'geek' because you play video games and love superhero movies and TV shows but you can't get through a page of Tolkien without going to sleep, or putting it down and picking up a remote control... no, sorry. To my mind, you're not a geek. Sorry if that hurts your feelings, but that's where I draw the line.

Having said that, let me say something else: a large part of what validates the geek tag or the geek experience for me is emotional pain. Feelings of social unworthiness, of not being accepted, of not being liked or wanted. A geek, in my experience, is someone who turns to their imagination -- books, roleplaying games, drawing, painting, writing -- because mainstream real life, with all those good looking smooth talking cool folks, have thoroughly and hurtfully rejected them. 

I'm sure this can happen for female human beings as well as for male human beings, but I will say that in my opinion, it happens less often to ATTRACTIVE female human beings than it does to any male human being. And most if not all of the girls in that video were attractive. 

So if I doubt anything about the validity of their geek status/experience, it is in that I doubt that they have been rejected quite as generally, specifically, thoroughly, painfully, and cruelly as most male geeks have. 

But beyond that, I simply question the validity and significance of this as a social issue. Even presuming that 'geek' has somehow become a coveted social status that we homely fat bully magnets must defend at all costs from the incursion of lame wannabe geeks who haven't paid their dues... and maybe it has, when apparently ANYone, literate or not, can claim that status for themselves now... honestly, why do you care?

Now, I personally can name every single member of the JSA, JLA, and Legion of Superheroes, off the top of my head with no research, and all their secret identities, and for most of them, their Significant Others, too. Plus, had I had telekinetic powers my senior year I guarantee you, the site of my high school would be a salted, cindered, cratered vacant lot from which the more psychically sensitive would still be able to hear the screams of the departed victims of my humiliated rage. 

So, yes, I am a geek. I am. No doubt about it. I'm not proud of it, I'm not ashamed of it, but it is absolutely a label and a status that I have earned through pain and toil. 

But if I don't think YOU are really a geek... whoever you are, and I probably don't, if you just play video games and especially if you got dates in high school... then, really, why do you care? Why is this important?

Go make some sandwiches and pass them out to homeless people. Make a music video about THAT. 

And get over yourself.