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| Why all the rage? Photo: Vera Kratochvil publicdomainpictures.net |
Okay, I get it. Years ago there wasn’t a crazy, popular amount of women making geek cool all over the internet, so now that it’s finally happening, some ladies are getting all defensive about it. Sometimes it happens in a particular niche, other times over general geekery.
I’m telling you: there’s room for everyone on the internet. So some guys didn’t give value to what we were saying and some companies grossly underestimated our consumer power. Now that this has changed, some are accusing others of jumping on some sort of virtual bandwagon to success.
Sources say culture has become more accepting of female geeks, and that’s the reason why more ladies are loud and proud about geekiness. I have observed a few other reasons:
- It’s more socially acceptable for women to dress flamboyantly (in general, or in a cosplay) than male counterparts.
- Many women didn’t wait for the entertainment industry to carve out a niche for them – they made their own
- Big corporations realized how much money they were missing out by not catering to half their potential audience
So why are these territorial ‘I was into this first!’ contests continuing in the female geek community? I mean, you probably weren’t the first person to like whatever you like, and I’m sure you’re not the last. And plus, I’m kind of ‘old’ as far as fan girls go. I remember when Geocities first came out. I remember coding websites entirely by hand–not for fun or to learn how to do it, but because a little text document was all you had. There wasn’t a contest to see who could be the most elite. We were revolutionary and back then we were still teased for being geeks.
And now that a nice chunk of “The Avengers” audience happened to be female and more people get news online and from apps than they do from newspapers, we should harness this momentum and celebrate it. Write stuff, post your cosplay pictures, and write your own comic book.
“There isn’t anything for me” or “Whats-her-name stole my topic” isn’t an excuse anymore. It can’t be ‘your thing,’ ladies (even though there is still a lot of headway to be made). There’s room for everyone on the internet, so let’s spend less time fighting over things and more time making new stuff.
