FAKE GEEK GIRL: Analyzing (and gamifying) gendered fan gatekeeping

Fan cultures, or fandoms, have attracted academic and cultural focus for the unique ways in which their members express and maintain community, as well as how members of fandoms view their identities in relation to their participation and membership in such communities. Fandoms are self-managed and somewhat decentralized communities that develop around the existence of another piece of creative work, such as a TV show or film series. Participants in fandom contribute to and sustain the community through the sharing of creative works based upon the source material. This supports the assessment made by Jenkins et al. (2016) of fandoms as a form of participatory culture-- or a sphere in which there are relatively low barriers to artistic expression and engagement, and where members believe their contributions matter and care what others think about them.

For many, being a fan is an integral piece of personal identity, which is arguably at least somewhat related to the social ostracism faced by fans in relation to dominant culture. Historically, fans have been marginalized in both academic and cultural circles not only for their perceived social ineptitude, but for their own personal choices that supposedly lead to such outcomes. Jenkins (2000) cites specific behaviors associated with fans, such as memorizing trivia and collecting memorabilia. The implication seems to be that these behaviors exist outside of societal norms, and as such, those who partake in them or dedicate effort towards them fail to meet normal expectations of behavior and become socially outcast or ostracized. Another source of marginalization for the stereotypical fan is their perceived lack of traditional and normative masculinity, which is compensated for through other achievements such as a mastery of knowledge or technology. This idea dates back to the earliest online communities such as the forum BlueSky, which was heavily populated by men who self-identified as nerds and held modified expectations of masculinity for themselves and others (Kendall, 2002). Since then, digital spaces have been largely viewed and treated as boys’ clubs, even after women began entering such spaces in large numbers.

"While more than one way to be a man has made its way into mainstream discourse, the same flexibility does not quite exist for women."

Misogyny against women who identify as fans, both within and outside of their fan communities, is also not a new phenomenon. In describing the marginalization of fans, Jenkins (2000) writes that in both academic and cultural contexts, fans are characterized as “‘kooks’ obsessed with trivia, celebrities, and collectibles”, citing a Newsweek cover story about Star Trek fans written in 1986 (p. 470). As made evident later in the article, this already degrading approach to covering fans is only intensified when the lens is focused on female fans, who the writer describes as “a lot of overweight women, a lot of divorced and single women”. It seems as though while male fans have come to be widely legitimized and even accepted as some kind of borderline social group with alternative expressions of masculinity, female fans do not get the same treatment. Rather, they are in some ways stripped of their feminine status by being labeled as unattractive and unable to maintain a romantic relationship. While more than one way to be a man has made its way into mainstream discourse, the same flexibility does not quite exist for women.

Women who find themselves interested in perceived “geeky” objects face an uphill battle for respectful and equitable treatment as fans— that is, once they have been cautiously accepted by others in their community as “legitimate” fans. Fandom has long been equated with masculine identity, leaving female fans in a tricky position as they are expected to assimilate with male-oriented fan behaviors. Part of the backlash towards female fans, or the assumption by others in their communities that they are ‘fake’, comes from the different ways that women may express their fandom from men. For example, since perceived geeky areas such as science fiction and video games are viewed to be more male- than female-oriented objects of interest, women who do take interest in such objects may find themselves dissatisfied with media for reasons that men might be less inclined to think of, such as a lack of proper representation of women, or a work’s mistreatment of female perspectives. As such, women and members of other marginalized groups often have more cause to diverge from canonical narratives through creative works such as fan art or fanfiction (Coppa, 2017). While men also partake in these avenues of fan expression, traditional perceptions of masculine fan behavior often place an emphasis on adhering to canonical structure, such as memorizing trivia or collecting officially licensed merchandise. Thus, when women create fan works that challenge or alter canon, the offense taken by gatekeeping men may be twofold— perceived as both an attack on the original work itself through the alteration, as well as on the fans who have never felt perturbed by the so-called injustice or unfairness it perpetuates.

Another root of the rejection of women from geeky spaces is the idea that women’s entrances into a previously male-dominated field represent that field’s movement towards the cultural mainstream, and indicate that membership in that field has lost or has begun to lose its original meaning as a result. As geeky phenomena and communities inevitably become more accessible through the internet and more popular as a result, a growing sentiment has emerged that these communities contain deceitful interlopers who only feign interest for personal gain or cultural capital. As a minority group in geeky spaces, women are natural targets for this particular kind of criticism. Hill (2016) describes how female fans of metal music face disparate treatment at the hands of their male counterparts, often involving the “persistent ‘testing’ of women fans’ knowledge and taste” (p. 85). Knowledge, or a lack of, is a hallmark of testing women fans’ perceived legitimacy in the eyes of fellow men. Knowledge was a recurring player in the ‘idiot nerd girl’ image macro meme that widely circulated the internet in 2010 and 2011, which typically would feature an enthusiastic claim of geekdom followed by a punchline which pointed out a lack of knowledge.

Particularly, the gaming world has long been a battleground for the legitimacy of women’s roles in ‘geeky’ communities. As a field historically dominated by and catered towards men, pushes from women and other marginalized groups entering the industry to make games and gaming culture more welcoming and inclusive have not always been warmly welcomed. Perhaps the most stark example of this is ‘Gamergate’, or an explosion of hostility towards women in the games industry that was sparked in 2014 after an online attack on female game developer Zoë Quinn. After Quinn’s independent visual novel game Depression Quest was released to modest acclaim online, an ex-partner of hers made a slanderous online post in which he baselessly accused her of providing sexual favors to journalists in exchange for positive reviews of her game. In light of the accusations, many male gamers took to online platforms to widely harass, dox, and threaten Quinn along with other women who came to her defense. Since the claims regarding Quinn and the journalist who reviewed her game are unproven, Gamergate is generally viewed today as an reactionary expression of misogyny towards women in the gaming industry, rather than a righteous response to a breach of ethics (Condis, 2018). However, the cultural effects of Gamergate have been felt since in the spread of alt-right, anti-"PC" ideology in fields spanning from popular culture to politics.

Given the terse relationship between feminist thought and gaming culture, I felt that a video game would be an ideal medium to tell a story of misogyny within fan culture, and specifically geek culture. The title of the game, Fake Geek Girl, pays homage to Suzanne Scott’s book Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry, from which much of the theoretical background of this analysis is based. Scott (2019) discusses the ‘fake geek girl’ discourse as a reaction on the part of male geeks to the perceived mainstreaming of their subculture, much like Gamergate. However, the threat of the ‘fake geek girl’ differs from the perceived threat in Gamergate in the fact that it is deliberately gendered, rather than disguised as some gender-neutral moral scourge. Implied in the ‘fake geek girl’ trope is the idea that women and girls’ fan expressions are either performative and deceitful, or simply inadequate when compared to expressions made by men. Scott views the ‘fake geek girl’ accusation as a form of boundary policing that strips away the authority and agency of female fans and places the responsibility on men, the dominant group, to judge them. She notes that “accusations of “fakeness” can always be applied without grounds, and “proving oneself” becomes an ongoing challenge, and one that is ultimately impossible to achieve” (p. 99).

Fake Geek Girl is a short and very simple platforming-style game where the player controls a nameless female character, meant to represent a woman discovering geek culture for the first time. The player is tasked with guiding the character around to collect items to explore different interests, and to ultimately traverse to the end of the game. Each collectible item is meant to reflect some aspect of fan culture and participation, such as a comic book, a convention ticket, and a handheld video game console. Collecting one of these items plays a reinforcing sound, and displays a text message to the player that is related to the item. However, there's a twist-- rather than a positively reinforcing message like what would be typically expected after successfully completing a task, each message is a dramatized reflection of the discouragement, doubt, and disrespect that female fans often contend with when navigating male-dominated spaces. The messages range from overtly misogynistic, such as the suggestion that women should not be superheroes, to more subtle forms of fan gatekeeping, such as the unprovoked testing of knowledge described by authors like Hill (2016). They are also meant to reflect the range of anxieties that male fans often feel about female participation as highlighted by Scott, including concerns of the culture becoming too mainstream, of female fans being too 'casual' or inadequately informed, and of female fans feigning 'geekiness' for attention from men or to gain cultural capital (2019). The messages are obviously anecdotal and not formed based on any empirical research, but rather are meant to demonstrate how male-dominated fan communities can exert misogyny and discriminate against female participants both overtly as well as through varying degrees of microaggression.

The repeated mechanic of collecting an item and then viewing a demeaning message is also intentional, in order to illustrate how frustrating and demoralizing the rejection from one’s chosen community can feel. The player is stripped of a voice or agency through their character, as they have no way to respond or combat the criticisms levied at them. The only choice they have is to “try again” and continue to navigate the level searching for items, hoping for an achievement impressive enough that the game’s judgemental UI will finally decide they are worthy and leave them alone. Though the game is easily completable, the satisfaction of a true ‘win’ is purposefully absent to remind the player of the binds placed on women in fandoms, and of the ways they often fail to be viewed as real or authentic fans despite jumping through literal hoops to conform to male expectations. Somewhat ironically, it is a gamified experience of gendered gatekeeping, an experience which is not very pleasant at all.

Both aesthetically and in terms of gameplay, Fake Geek Girl resembles simple arcade games that were also based on item collection and level navigation. However, it subverts the traditional expectations of such games by placing the player in an adversarial position against the game itself, rather than against obstacles or enemies within the game. As the player attempts to progress, the game continually rejects, dismisses, and belittles this progress with misogyny at the heart of the attacks. In the face of such unfair criticism, the player character must trudge forward and continue playing, much like female fans must in real life when they are misjudged and devalued in communities they are continually trying to gain acceptance in.

The backlash of male gamers against female newcomers and participants during Gamergate and beyond was partially rooted in some male gamers’ overtly misogynistic aversion to women joining their industry, but also stemmed from more general anxieties about what women as gamers and game developers could mean for the future of the industry as this traditionally male audience became increasingly diverse. Dan Golding equated the increased diversity of those who identified as gamers to a loss of privilege for the young white men who once held almost exclusive claim to this title, in an attempt to explain their intense vitriol. Their identity, he claimed, had been rendered "culturally irrelevant" due to broader changes in the social landscape. Many of these gamers also feared that games themselves would change, as more unique games began to enter the public eye and garner positive attention. Like Depression Quest, these games took on nontraditional forms and dealt with topics previously unexplored such as mental health concerns and LGBTQ+ relationships. This increased sensitivity and inclusivity is a hard turn from normative masculine expectations that are present in traditional gaming like competition, aggression, and the rejection of more sensitive emotions. And among male gamers, there was an intense preoccupation with the idea that the introduction and mainstreaming of these new, nontraditional and more casual kinds of games (and the influx of women who might want to play them) would soften and wash away their masculine identities they’ve worked hard to establish.

While gaming culture overall has seen a significant shift towards increased inclusivity and away from the preservation of white male habitus in the years following Gamergate, gaming continues to be widely viewed as a predominantly male interest. In contemporary gaming fandom, there’s now a sort of ideological divide between those who favor more the traditional and male-centric view of gaming, and those who do not. While the games industry continues to support traditional and male-oriented games such as Call Of Duty and Fortnite due to their continued popularity, independent and less traditional games have also made their way into the mainstream, and often will be specifically promoted by console giants like Sony and Nintendo. Additionally, prominent game developers have made giant leaps in terms of proper representation of marginalized groups, with an increased focus on heightened character customization options (such as the addition of Black hairstyles in Nintendo's community simulator Animal Crossing: New Horizons) as well as more diverse main characters in narrative-based games (like the major character Ellie in Naughty Dog’s apocalyptic series The Last of Us, who is a gay woman). While these changes have been embraced by a majority of the gaming community, they also continue to be criticized and mocked by more fringe gamers who resist social change in the industry.

With its unassuming appearance and surprise feminist spin, Fake Geek Girl is meant to be a subversive take on the experience of being a woman in geek culture, and being faced with actual instances of gendered discrimination and gatekeeping. While the game and its narrative are dramatized, these experiences are not uncommon among women who identify as fans, especially those who dare to venture into heavily male-dominated fields such as gaming and demand their perspectives be recognized and respected. As battles and scandals such as Gamergate continuously unfold in the public eye, women and members of other marginalized groups have been able to see for themselves just how prevalent misogyny still is in digital spheres-- but also, how exposing such rhetoric helps to build a support system and defeat it.

Although far less serious and less developed, Fake Geek Girl is meant to resemble one of these nontraditional, independent games that have been denounced and belittled by traditional and male-experience-centric players for bringing about new kinds of gaming experiences. Here, the experience is not contained exclusively in the gameplay itself-- but in the questions or concerns it brings about within the player, and the ways it makes them feel. Greater representation in gaming has only broadened the industry's potential and expanded the things it can achieve, and the best stories yet may be waiting to be told in a young woman picking up a controller for the first time, or browsing the internet right now. Fan communities are predicated on free expression and creation, and so it's important for those in privileged positions to ensure that freedom extends to people of all genders and all walks of life.

academic references

• Condis, M. (2018). Gaming Masculinity: Trolls, Fake Geeks, and the Gendered Battle for Online Culture. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

• Coppa, F. (2017). The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age. University of Michigan Press.

• Hill, R. L. (2016). Gender, metal and the media : Women fans and the gendered experience of music.

• Jenkins, H. (2000). Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching. In H. Newcomb (ed.), Television: The Critical View, pp. 470-494. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Jenkins, H., Ito, M., and boyd, d. (2016). Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

• Kendall, L. (2002). Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online. University of California Press.

• Reagle, J. (2015). Geek Policing: Fake Geek Girls and Contested Attention. International Journal of Communication, 2862+.

• Scott, S. (2019). Interrogating the Fake Geek Girl: The Spreadable Misogyny of Contemporary Fan Culture. In Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry. New York: NYU Press, pp. 76-108.