Being a woman on the internet is …interesting. Navigating the seemingly endless unsolicited dick-pics slid into my DMs is one thing; I can safely assume every woman with any sort of presence online has experienced the dreaded “Other”-inbox messages from random strangers.

But then you have a whole new can of worms: Being a geeky girl on the internet. For whatever reason, dudebros think it appropriate to question my “geekness” whenever I mention a fandom I’m a part of, or worse yet – mention a fandom they’re a part of, and therefore are naturally superior in all knowledge about said fandom compared to me – a mere woman… Whether or not that is actually true doesn’t even matter: They are dudes, therefore they are ~better at being geeky~ by default.

Hilariosity ensues whenever these dudes are younger than myself, though.

I was born in 1984, which makes me roughly the same age as the OG Nintendo NES (right smack inbetween the releases of the Japanese Famicom console and the North American NES console – 1983 and 1985 respectively. The European NES console came a year later, in 1986).

Some of my earliest memories include fiddling with the family computer, which ran MS DOS and used ​5 ¹⁄₄-inch, and ​3 ¹⁄₂-inch floppy disks, and playing Space Invaders for hours on end. I was about 3 or 4 years old, and had taught myself to load the game from floppy. I grew up reading Donald Duck comics, as those were readily available to me in my native language, Norwegian, and DC and Marvel comics weren’t as available here at the time. By the time I was 6 years old, the Norwegian Broadcast Company (NRK) had started airing the original Batman and Robin TV-series from the 60s starring Adam West and Burt Ward. I was hooked from the first na-na na-na na-na.

When I was about 13 years old, in 1998, my household got an internet connection, and of course a serious upgrade of the computer along the way. I gorged on Doom, Diablo, and most notably Duke Nukem 3D, and spent more time online than most of my peers – I found likeminded people, and began long-lasting friendships with people I had never met in person. I delved into forums and message boards devoted to various fandoms, most notably Buffy the Vampire Slayer, wrote lengthy LiveJournal-posts, and talked to my friends via IRC (Internet Relay Chat) about the meaning of life and all in it (…42).

Suffice it to say that I have lived in geekdom for quite some time now.

And yet… if and when I assert my geekiness online, the inevitable happens: Some dude – often younger than myself – starts grilling me about the fandom or topic I’ve mentioned interest in. If I don’t regurgitate his exact knowledge of the thing, I’m deemed a “fake geek girl” and ridiculed for it. Happens every time – without fail. I don’t claim to know everything about every single fandom I’m a part of, because that would be a seriously monstrous task to undertake, but that does not make me any less of a geek than you.

It’s ridiculous, and annoying, and shit that happens way too often: Geeky dudes whining about there not being any girls in their fandom, and when a girl does enter their precious fandom – they do everything they can to ensure she never returns. All the while claiming they’re “not like other dudes” and they “totes love geek girls”, mind you.

You don’t get to decide whether or not I’m a “real” geek. I just am. Fuckin’ deal with it.

This post is meant to clarify any and all future potential confusion regarding the terms “nerd” and “geek” – and by extension, what I actually mean when I use them.

Two things to note: English is my second language, and while I do fancy myself rather proficient – I may veer into uncharted territory at times regarding the etymology and semantics of given words. Also; I grew up in the time before The Internet was a thing, so I might have a slightly different (hot?) take on these terms than those who grow up today.

With the disclaimers out of the way, let’s get into it. When I use the terms “geek” and “nerd” I assign specific meaning to each of them, and I rarely – if ever – use them interchangeably, like many do. To me, they represent two different concepts, but there are sometimes bits of either that overlap the other – I’ll get to that.

Exhibit A – The Nerd
When I describe myself as ‘a nerd’ I mean that in the academic sense of the word. Book-smart, one of them readers, did well in school, and so on. Upon encountering the word “nerd” in the wild, I tend to picture a person who excels in their specific field of academic pursuit, e.g. the “#LanguageNerd” in the title of this post. In other words, someone who have an above average interest and/or knack for a given academic subject, and who will dive head-first into the nitty-gritty bits of said subject with reckless abandon.

Exhibit B – The Geek
While I for the most part reserve the term “nerd” for academia, I use the term “geek” for nearly everything else: Hardcore fans of a franchise approach their interest with similar reckless abandon as the nerds, but the interest itself is more based in pop-culture than “nerd-culture”, e.g. “Star Trek rules!” A geek would, however, be above average interested in ~the thing~ thus setting the geek apart from Muggles* in that sense.

Not everyone who watched Game of Thrones is a geek, and not all geeks watched Game of Thrones, for that matter (though I suspect most of us did).

You can, of course, be both a geek and a nerd about the same thing – it’s only a matter of how deep you delve into the thing; taking a very academic approach to a pop-culture phenomenon (such as Game of Thrones) would be a distinctly nerdy thing to do, even if the phenomenon itself sits firmly in what I consider to be geeky territory. The question in that setting then becomes; is the nerdy approach to something like a widely popular geeky TV-show nerdy based on the show itself or the approach as such? An in-depth linguistic analysis of the Dothraki language in Game of Thrones would be a nerdy thing to do to a distinctly geeky pop-culture phenomenon; but are you then a Dothraki-nerd or a Game of Thrones-geek? My (simple) answer is both.

This is an example of where the terms “nerd” and “geek” stay distinct or conflate depending on how you look at the whole: A #LanguageNerd’s approach to Game of Thrones‘ Dothraki language is an academic (and therefore nerdy) approach to a pop-culture ~thing~, but the #LanguageNerd can just as easily be considered a geek for choosing the pop-culture ~thing~ to write their linguistics paper on, as the ~thing~ is well within geeky territory, being based on a Fantasy book-series. There are several examples like this, so for simplicity’s sake – I’ll stick to my nerdy=academic and geeky=pop-culture idea. That way you’ll hopefully be a bit less confused when I categorize and tag future blog posts with the terms.

Make no mistake – I consider myself to be both a ‘nerd’ and a ‘geek’. My interests span far and wide, and include both academic subjects (such as Language and Science), and pop-culture things like movies and TV-shows based in geeky origins (like Game of Thrones). I’ve always been interested in geeky things, and I have been the class nerd throughout my academic life.

This blog is a celebration of that; the weird and quirky things I love: The geeky, the nerdy, and altogether awesome.

*Muggles: Term made popular through the Harry Potter books, and later movies, to describe non-magical people. See also: “normies”