Skepticism

AI: San Diego ComicCon starts today! Gimme Geek Pride!

 

Today is the first day of San Diego ComicCon.  I love ComicCon, mostly because now that it’s so big, it’s endlessly fascinating to watch just how many folks happily let their geek flags fly. And what flags! It’s a wonder and a delight to sit in the Sails Pavilion and admire all the hard work people put into showing off the things they love and how they love them. [As an aside, my savvy, skeptical friend Lee works hard all year on SDCC, and I’m always so proud to see what he hath wrought. Yes, in my mind, it’s all mostly his doing.]

I’ve asked a similar question in the past, but it’s worth doubling down:

What geek flags do you fly? What’s your geek thing? (Thing? Thang? Is it ‘geek thang’?) Tell me what you love.

 

The Afternoon Inquisition (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Skepchick community. Look for it to appear Tuesdays and Thursdays at 3pm ET.

 

A.real.girl

A B Kovacs is the Director of Døøm at Empty Set Entertainment, a publishing company she co-founded with critical thinker and fiction author Scott Sigler. She considers herself a “Creative Adjacent” — helping creative people be more productive and prolific by managing the logistics of Making for the masses. She's a science nerd, a rabid movie geek, and an unrepentantly voracious reader. She doesn't like chocolate all that much.

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33 Comments

  1. In the past, my big Geek Flag was Doctor Who, which I have been a fan of for almost 25 years. As a woman, it was geeky to be a sci-fi/fantasy fan in general. I added to that by being a fan of a show that was rather obscure and looked down on even by other sci-fi fans for its cheap special effects.

    Now that Doctor Who, since its reboot in 2005, has become hugely popular and even gained legions of female fans, does it even count as geeky anymore? I almost feel like a “hipster” geek. I liked Doctor Who before it was cool, I read Game of Thrones when it was first published…

    1. Let’s not get drawn down that rabbit hole…the main difference, if you will, between hipsters and geeks is irony vs sincerity. If you’re sincerely passionate about something nerdy (even if it’s now popular) I think that’s enough.

  2. Man, I am a terrible geek. I don’t really have one BIG thing. I mean, I *LOVE* Star Trek, but I wouldn’t call myself a Trekkie; that takes far too much effort. (This is how I feel about most of “fandom” in fact.)

    I play D&D but not super regular and I’m still really new at it, and probably terrible.

    I’m a huge Book Geek, except that I don’t really read fantasy or sci-fi. I’m more into American Contemporary Fiction, and memoirs, than I am what is normally considered Geek Reading.

    I love video games but I never seem to play them because I always get distracted.

    I’m just too … lazy to really get into fandoms like some people do.

    And I have never, ever, ever gotten the appeal of fanfiction. At all. I don’t get it.

    1. Fanfic never made sense to me either. “Shipping” seems to be a big part of how many newer female fans relate to Doctor Who (mainly 10th Doctor and Rose), and it can be a bit off-putting.

      1. And most of it is soooo baaaad.

        Did you know that “50 Shades of Suck” is based on a (probably shitty) Twilight fanfic? Yikes.

      2. And man, some people take writing fanfic SO SERIOUSLY. And then they are terrible at it.

        Also, I’d prefer to read something not based on an already-existing world and not written by the original writer. It’s just not my thing, I guess.

        1. exactly how i feel, marilove. as a professional writer ( ie, my primary salary for a decade of my life in the past; still making not unsubstantial checks), i say, if you’re going to use your imagination, use it to create the whole world, not just new dialogue.

          i actually dislike professional “continuations” of established characters by authors who didn’t create them (bourne, bond, etc.) but the publishing world feels differently, i suppose.

          as to my geek flag, i loved sci-fi in my youth and still check out good sci-fi tv and movies. my first doctor was john pertwee, and i thought tom baker was the best doctor, til i saw david tennant, upon which i knew he was the best doctor. then i saw matt smith.

          tho for books now i read detective & legal thrillers; i try to stay on top of what’s happening in the world of comic books (sorry, i refuse to call them graphic novels; you kids get off my lawn!) and on top of science in general.

          but if ‘geek’ means passion about a subject, then i would hope (but, alas, sincerely doubt) that everyone is a geek of some kind or another.

    2. The only terrible geeks are the ones that try and make other people feel bad about their particular thing, or participate in “geekier than thou” pissing matches. If you’re not super-obsessed with things to the point you’re stalking Nathan Fillion or sinking your life savings into set-used props from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, you’re probably doing it ok :)

      1. If I met Nathion Fillion I’d PEE MY PANTS.

        I’m also a huge Comedy Geek, so there’s that; I’ve seen far more live comedy shows than concerts. :D

        I just like a lot of nerdy stuff, I guess, but I’m not particularly passionate about any one thing.

        Except the internet. GO INTERNET!

      2. Also, I do have a couple items of Star Trek stuff around my apartment. Not a lot, though. Just two books on my coffee table and some Burger King glasses. lol

        1. I have a killer tricorder app on my droid.

          And all atmospheric conditions are within acceptable class M standards.

  3. I saw on Mary sue that there was going to be a Firefly reunion. I wish I could go! I also like Legend of Korra, video games, super hero cartoons from the 90s

  4. I’m a Star Trek fan but I consider Deep Space Nine the best Trek there is, not TNG or TOS. Not surprisingly I love the re-imagined BSG.

    I don’t read nearly as much fantasy literature as I should but I love world-building and I geek out on science and language both in the real-world and in fantasy worlds.

    I play WoW (and am familiar with a lot of the lore) and games in general (also playing Quantum Conundrum and Diablo lately).

    Lately though I kind of geek out on philosophy/atheism thanks to regular visits to a bunch of blogs. I guess it depends on what has my attention during that cycle.

  5. lately i’d say my big geeky type thing is geek and sundry on youtube. Felicia is awesome. tabletop is good and so is sword and laser.

  6. When I started High School, I was just a poindexter. Then I joined the computer club and became a nerd. It wasn’t until I discovered D&D that I became a geek.

    The whole scene was very embarrassing for my older brother who was a jock. His primal urge to beat me up often came in conflict with his primal urge to protect me. I was the only geek in my sophmore class who could walk through the locker room with impunity like some sort of geek Daniel. My brother would then discretely beat me up in private.

    1. I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

      1. Beyond a critical point, within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question, however, is not how many can possibly survive, but rather what sort of existence is possible for those that do survive.

        I’m feelin’ the Dune Geek Love.

      1. Speaking of continuations & Dune, I have to mention the terrible things done to the Dune universe by Brian Herbert. Yes, it’s a tragedy that Frank Herbert died before he finished his story (I liked the way Chapterhouse ended; Herbert was a thinker who knew the value of open-ended systems. I know a lot of people who hated, too.), but for his kid to cash in on that work in the shoddy way he did just drives me crazy. A writer would need a lot of gall to attempt to play at that level. To half-ass it the way he did, gahhh….

        Contrast the massive effort Christopher Tolkien has made to document (illuminate?) his father’s work. The Lost Tales volumes are Tolkien Geek crack at it’s finest.

  7. My geeky thing is video games, I play shitloads of video games. Not popular games though, I tend to seek out esoteric type games that offer unique stories and experiences. Basically, I don’t play sports games or FPSs. I own more DS games than anything else; the DS is the best “console” I’ve ever owned.

    I don’t even know if I could name a favorite game, I’ve played so many. One DS series that I really love is the Phoenix Wright series, there’s some excellent storytelling there. But if you go purely on hours played, I’ve played Guild Wars more than any game ever, over 4000 hours. It took 4 years to reach that though.

    I also like anime, although I feel like it didn’t grow up with me. A lot of it feels like things I’ve seen before. After that I moved on to manga, which offers less mainstream stories, and I still like to read it, but when the world economy tanked, it seemed like the releases over here slowed to a trickle.

    It feels hipster of me to say this, but I don’t really “get” Doctor Who, or Battlestar Galactica or superhero comics. I did however, grow up watching Star Trek TNG and I love DS9, but I still think Babylon 5 surpasses all of those.

  8. BattleTech/MechWarrior

    Found the box set at WaldenBooks when I was a kid. The cover art did it; a giant human-shaped robot you could drive & blow stuff up with (design it from the ground up! Multiplayer! Death From Above!). I read the books, built models, argued passionately for my favorite models/factions (Phoenix Hawk/Cranston Snord’s Irregulars). The three week’s of summer afternoons at Kohl’s Hobby Shop in Tampa fighting The Galtor Campaign are some of my fondest memories of pre-puberty childhood.

    Then came Girls, and I just didn’t have the time anymore (also, hard as it may be to believe, a lot of junior high girls aren’t really that into giant robots & particle projection cannons. Crazy, I know…)

    Star Trek, Robotech (American version), & military history, also, too.

  9. A short list of my Geek guilty pleasures:
    Sherlock from BBC – If you love Steve Moffat and Dr. Who.
    Firefly
    Battle Star Galactica
    Coen Bros. Movies
    Yo Gabba Gabba
    The Magnificent Butcher – a most horrible kung fu movie.

  10. Also forgot two that date back to when I was a kid:
    Reading the encyclopedia
    and Dungeons and Dragons Manuals.

  11. I was a little disappointed in the GAME OF THRONES panel, which was what I was most interested in this year.

    Firstly, no new footage. Secondly, only about six of the cast showed up. And thirdly, George R.R. Martin was somewhat… odd as a moderator. Lots of awkward silences, flat jokes and booby references.

    Still, season three should be pure epicness.

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