[{"_1":2,"_29":-5,"_30":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4},"routes/__layout/tag.$name",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"tagName","subcultures","posts",[9],{"_10":11,"_12":13,"_14":15,"_16":17,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":23,"_24":-5,"_25":26,"_27":28},"id",1364,"title","Awful Gays vs. Awful Nerds","excerpt","A fun comparison of \"awful gays\" and \"awful nerds\" with my friend Isaac, mapping the worst stereotypes of both subcultures side by side. Turns out misogyny, relationship failures, and Goth high school phases transcend orientation and interests alike.","body","

Isaac and I were chatting about our respective subcultures, geeks and gays*, and we noted that both groups have a bad reputation in certain quarters. In both cases, the bad reputation stems from a tiny minority who take some parts of the lifestyle** to unnecessary and irritating extremes, while neglecting some of the better parts. I call the homosexual variant of this breed \"awful gays\" (a term borrowed from Matt Lock), so we decided to call the other side awful nerds.\n\n

Twenty minutes in a Google spreadsheet later, we had hammered out a pretty good list of direct and indirect parallels between these two aggravating groups. If a couple of these sound like you, don't worry: we all have a little awful inside of us. But if all of these sound like you, you should probably take action, preferably something that involves me never meeting you.\n\n\n

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Awful Gays	Awful Nerds
Affected lisp	Affected lack of social skills
Wears makeup	Wears a pocket protector
Plucks eyebrows	Doesn't shave (but probably should)
Has never had a relationship	Has never had a relationship
Has a little dog	Has an epic mount
Wears clothing appropriate for somebody 5 years younger	Spends an inordinate amount of time outfitting his WoW characters
Everything he knows about gays he learned from Bravo	everything he knows about computers he learned from Slashdot comments
Is a total slut	Doesn't leave the house
Achieves nothing	Achieves nothing
Has no real fashion sense	Can't code
Is misogynistic	Is misogynistic
Will buy anything rainbow-coloured	Will buy anything from ThinkGeek
Speaks in shebonics	Speaks Klingon
Reads celebrity gossip rags	reads Popular Science
\"I am so over that bar.\"	\"This site used to be interesting, but now it's as bad as Digg.\"
Endlessly talks about vaginas, often mentioning fish	Hates Windows, but has never used anything else
Spends entire life at gay clubs	Spends entire life on WoW
Is a hairdresser	Works at Circuit City
Dances. Often, and badly.	Plays chess. Often, and badly.
Endlessly rewatches Queer as Folk	Endessly rewatches Star Trek
Wears too-tight pants	Wears too-tight pants
Makes outsiders hate gays	Makes outsiders hate nerds
Was a Goth in high school	Was a Goth in high school
Pretends any topic of which he is ignorant is beneath him	Speaks with feigned knowledgeability on any topic, including politics, popular culture, and romance
Aspires to be: Nathan Lane	Aspires to be Eric S Raymond
Religious affiliation: Buddhism, Kabbalah, \"spiritual, but not religious\", Scientology	Religious affiliation (pick one): Jedi, Tolkienian, Matrix Accolyte, NeoPagan, Scientology

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I don't think I'm going to make a poster out of this one...\n\n

* though I fall into both, hence the community site for gay geeks that I run.

\n\n

** insert usual caveat about there being no such thing as a \"gay lifestyle\", it not being a choice and there being a number of styles to choose from. Likewise, there are lots of types of geekery. Just go with us here.

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Posts tagged “subcultures”