Geek Identity and the Danger of Insular Subcultures

 It is no secret that many areas of ‘geek culture’ house varying amounts of misogyny, racism, and a general disdain for those whose identity deviates from the perceived norm of straight, white, cis male. In Chapter 1 of Toxic Geek Masculinity, Anastasia Salter and Bridget Blodgett expand on many of the reasons for this, laying the groundwork for a discussion on the artifacts of modern geek culture, the harmful assumptions built into them, and the ways these artifacts feed into continued marginalization of identities outside of the perceived norm.

One of the first results of a google image search for gamer. Most images, like this one, portray that perceived norm of a white man.

Geeks were, at one point, a cultural out-group. The term was used in an insulting fashion to refer to people who engaged with things like computers, games or comics. This created a group of people who felt attacked on all sides for enjoying hobbies. Media reinforced this, portraying geeks as socially inept or otherwise disadvantaged among the non-geeks. One of the most popular ways in which this occurred was through presenting conflicts between ‘geeks’ and ‘jocks’. Binaries like this combined with the existing ostracism to create a very insular culture. Ideas within these circles were often shared in spaces where only other members of the subculture would have access, and these ideas lacked outside viewpoints, serving only to reinforce the isolation felt by members of the culture. At some point, the term geek became something one would claim. To be a geek, well still existing on the margins of what was considered ‘normal’ was something to be proud of in their eyes. Things like the geek purity test would crystalize this feeling into a solid form, and provide a template for how the geek identity would be treated by geeks going forward. These purity tests were often incredibly skewed towards masculine traits and interpretations and the cultural conception of a geek reinforced this, often portraying geeks as white and male. This meant those who existed within the geek space, but beyond the stereotypes would often be left without a means to elevate their voices and become a seen part of the identity.

Salter and Blodgett talk about the mainstreaming of nerd culture. Eventually, with the integration of technology into everyday life, things like movies, games and other parts of what used to be ‘geek culture’ gradually became the norm. Geek culture, however, would not integrate itself. The culture was formed around ostracism and created an identity for itself built around separating themselves from other cultures. Even with the acceptance of geek activities into the norm, the culture wasn’t willing to accept the norm into itself. This blended with the established binaries and the lack of voice for members of non-white, non-male groups within to create a group which refused to allow anyone who deviated from the perceived norm without passing walls of purity tests, and even then, they had to exist within contexts that were acceptable to the masculine viewpoint of that perceived norm.

Perhaps as a continued holdover from that opposition to out-groups, geek culture is incredibly resistant to change. This has manifested within the culture in several ways, with some members identifying themselves in opposition to movements like feminism, seeing the push for a more inclusive geek culture as one which seeks to destroy that space. Furthermore, events like gamergate, one of the most recent crystallizations of the hatred that the culture holds for other identities, have ties to incredibly harmful places on the internet where the worst parts of toxic masculinity have had time to fester. These places in turn are deeply rooted in racism and misogyny, and some even have ties to political ideologies like fascism. This has created a close tie between a specific subset of geek culture and these ideas.