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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 7651463" data-attributes="member: 11760">The fake game girl thing is also an outgrowth of the fact that the geeks have won. When I was in high school in the 1980s, the girls I swooned for wouldn't have been caught dead reading a vampire novel (which would have meant Anne Rice at that point) or a giant series of fantasy novels (the Wheel of Time, most likely) and would be baffled if they thought anyone their age still cared about superheroes.But today, those same girls, now women, watch and discuss every episode of True Blood and Game of Thrones and go with their girlfriends to drool over Captain America and Thor. (In my case, my wife prefers Iron Man's smart ass commentary.)Whenever you have any group suddenly expand in size -- in this case, geek culture going mainstream -- there are always members of the earlier members of said groups trying to push some or all of the newbies back out. This happens with interest groups, political groups, cultural groups and so on. Given the nature of some of these OG geeks, it's wrapped up in sexism this time, possibly because telling a handsome guy with good posture and fashion sense that he's not a real geek raises the spectre of long-ago school yard fights for some of these would-be badasses, and it's easier for them to yell at women instead.</blockquote>