Geek Girls Unite

Why Fangirls, Bookworms, Indie Chicks, and Other Misfits Will Inherit the Earth

Leslie Simon

• Publisher: It Book
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780062002730
• eBook ISBN: 9780062099020
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: History of Art
• Index: History

Chapter One
Fangirl Geek

Are you able to tell the difference between Badtz-Maru and Chi Chai Monchan?* Back slowly away from the Sanrio store, rifle through your bag for some sort of writing implement, and test your fangirl geek knowledge!

1. Director George Lucas made a very controversial change to a scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, where Greedo comes to the Mos Eisley Cantina to collect the bounty on Han Solo’s head. In the 1997 Special Edition version, Greedo fires his blaster at Solo first and misses, and then Solo retaliates by shooting Greedo. However, in the 1977 original film, Solo shoots Greedo without the Rodian bounty hunter ever firing a shot. Fans upset with the change can often be found uttering the phrase:

A. “Greedo shot first.”

B. “A bird in the Han is worth two in the Bossk.”

C. “Han shot first.”

2. In Dr. Who, the longest-running sci-fi drama in history, the doctor travels through time on his spacecraft, which is called the TARDIS. What is TARDIS an acronym for?

A. Taking Apart Rational Distance If Stimulated.

B. You really shouldn’t say the word “tardis.” It’s not very politically correct. They preferred to be called “special” or “challenged.”

C. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.

3. Which of the following Neil Gaiman books has not been made into a movie?

A. Stardust.

B. Coraline.

C. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish.

4. What is the Honor System in World of Warcraft?

A. A code of practice based on trust and honesty.

B. Don’t you mean Honor Society? They’re a pop-rock band on the Jonas Brothers’ record label, Jonas Records. Duh.

C. It allows WoW players to gain Honor Points, which are earned through Battlegrounds and World Outdoor PvP and are based on PvP kills and battles. Players can then spend said Honor Points on special rewards, like equipment and weapons.

5. In 1988, comic book artist Jamie Hewlett debuted the Tank Girl series, which centered around a foul-mouthed, drug- addled female outlaw with a multimillion-dollar bounty on her Mohawked head. Though she spent most of her time running around postapocalyptic Australia (and then postapocalyptic Britain) with her boyfriend Booga, a mutant kangaroo, she would go on to become an anarchist antiheroine. Hewlett was involved with the comic until 1996, after which he started the first “virtual band” made of comic book characters. That band is called:

A. Wolfmother.

B. The Monkeys.

C. Gorillaz.*

ANSWER KEY

Mostly As: Your gumption is greatly admired, but you’re going to have to do a lot more than watch Coraline in 3-D to be considered a true fangirl geek. Don’t worry, though. By the end of this chapter, you’ll be bursting with fangirl wisdom.

Mostly Bs: Sorry, Heidi Montag, but just because your body is 70 percent synthetic material doesn’t mean you have anything in common with the kind of plastic used to make designer toys for Kidrobot and Tokidoki. In fact, don’t you have to attend the opening of an envelope right about now? I won’t be offended if you have to excuse yourself. In fact, I insist.

Mostly Cs: Major props, mademoiselle. You’re a bona fide fangirl geek!

CHARACTER SKETCH

There comes a time in almost every girl’s life when she outgrows her toys. Her collection of American Girl dolls and accessories disappears from her bedside table and begins a mass migration to the attic, along with her Bratz, Barbies, and all their teeny-tiny high heels with them. She asks for the Project Runway Make-up Artist Studio Box for her next birthday. She stops playing Super Mario Bros. on her Nintendo DS in favor of watching the Jonas Brothers in Camp Rock, and before you know it, she’s one pack of Justin Bieber Silly Bandz away from becoming a dreaded tween.

“Being fangirly isn’t just a content love of the subject, it’s a consuming obsession that can only be satiated by constant listening, viewing, thinking about, and writing fan fiction of the obsessed object.”

Zoe Yeaton
Tyrone, PA

The thing that separates the fangirl from the average girl is that she never really outgrows her toys. Instead, her girlhood obsession* becomes more serious and intense with age. For fangirls, collecting Hello Kitty cookware, rocking along to Jem & the Holograms, or reading about Archie Andrews is more than just a hobby; it’s an unfettered source of happiness—and why would anyone want to put an end to their happiness just because they’ve reached an arbitrary age ceiling? That just seems cruel and inhumane.

The teenage years can be tough on the fangirl, though. Clothes and boys excite her classmates, while she’s more stoked by a marathon screening of Dexter. Her peers can’t wait for the weekend so they can go to school dances or drink Boone’s Farm behind the bleachers, but her favorite day of the week is Wednesday because that’s when all the new comics come out. For these reasons, fangirls often rank somewhere between the euphonium player in the marching band and the drama club lighting designer on the high school popularity totem pole. It’s no wonder that most fangirls have a hard time relating to their contemporaries and often choose to participate in online communities rather than partake in real-world socialization. After all, by creating an avatar, fangirls are free to be whoever they are—or whoever they want to be—without the fear of mockery, misunderstanding, or the impending threat of being shoved into a locker.

“I’d describe a fangirl as someone who prays to Joss Whedon, kisses her Edward Cullen action figure good night, and meets her soul mate at Comic-Con. She’s strange in the best ways and awkward to the core.”

Kendra Beltran
Cabazon, CA

“Never be ashamed! There’s some who’ll hold it against you, but they’re not worth bothering with.”

—author J. K. Rowling

SAY WHAT? THE FANGIRL LEXICON

It would be tough to bond with a fangirl geek without mastering the proper syntax. After all, you don’t want to tweet something like ROTFL* when you really meant to type RTFM.* That would be embarrassing. In order to save yourself from a future FML* moment, I’ve compiled a glossary of essential fangirl terms so you can mingle seamlessly with the manga masses.

Anime (n.) Abbreviation for “Japanese animation.” The drawing style is typified by panel layouts, exclamatory dialogue, and characters that have exaggerated features and lip-synch worse than Ashlee Simpson.

Avatar (n.) A computer-generated representation of a gamer.

Cosplay (n.) Abbreviation for “costume play,” as when a fan dresses up like her favorite movie, comic book, and/or anime character for a convention, to go LARPing (see below), or, for those with less of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One - Fangirl Geek
• Chapter Two - Literary Geek
• Chapter Three - Film Geek
• Chapter Four - Music Geek
• Chapter Five - Funny-Girl Geek
• Chapter Six - Domestic Goddess Geek
• Chapter Seven - Miscellaneous Geek
• Geek Girls Unite
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Also by Leslie Simon
• Copyright
• About the Publisher
• Footnotes