To promote her new Youtube channel
Geek and Sundry, Felicia Day and
the members of webseries The Guild have released their
third music video. I watched it, danced along to it, laughed and bought it on
iTunes. But then something weird happened. The more I listened to it,
the less I liked it. Nothing to do with the video itself (which
admittedly isn't as funny as the first two) or the music (which is the
third style they have explored).
The idea that geek is 'in' and that we've been flooded with a volley
of faux-gamers in hipster glasses
is not new. Neither is the backlash
against these perceived intruders by the 'real geeks'. The
proliferation of geek litmus tests and evaluations of newcomers has
been around for a while now, as a way of protecting the subculture,
which has been a safe haven for underdogs and rejects for so long.
What I take objection to is the way geeks are clutching at the
umbrella of 'cool' as it floats on by. You see, I dislike the word
'cool'. A lot. The way this song, sung by a group of geek icons, has
embraced the word is what's left me a little disappointed and sad.
At school I was a nerd. I didn't like sports or fashion, I liked
reading and learning. I had glasses and braces and no clue what to do
around boys. I was bullied, teased and ridiculed by the other kids in
my classes. I was not in any way 'cool'. So what I began to associate
with the word 'cool' was obviously not very positive, and what I began
to associate with myself and the things that I liked was decidedly
'un-cool'.
It took me years, but I embraced that. I embraced myself and the
things that I liked and the things that I was good at. And suddenly I
became glad I hadn't tried harder to be 'cool'. By staying true to
myself, my passions and quirks and by not bullying or mocking other
'uncool' kids, I had become a better and happier person. To me, 'cool'
is about the pressure to conform to an ever-changing ideal. To be
constantly censoring yourself lest something 'un-cool' slip. It's a
state of constant judgement of yourself and those around you. It
sounds exhausting!
As much as I'm glad that reading, gaming, fandom and other 'nerdy',
geekish pursuits have become more socially acceptable - even with the
added difficulties of sorting through those who are genuine and those
who are faking it - my issue with 'cool' is that there's always an
'un-cool'. Competition. Judgement. Exclusion. Do those things sound
good to you? Do those things sound like they belong in a community
that was a home for the socially ostracised?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not so stuck to my high horse that I wouldn't
love to make those bullies understand exactly what they did and how
they hurt me back at school. But jumping onto the bandwagon of cool is
not the way to do it. Not only will there be a backlash once geek is
no longer 'chic', but many people will be left with those horrible
cool-people attributes of scoffing and back-stabbing and
geekier-than-thou-ing. Who wants that? I don't think that being 'cool'
is worth the time and energy that is required to maintain. Not worth
damaging other people's emotional well-being and not worth the
confusion it causes about your own identity. 'Cool' is just a
collection of habits and values that changes so often.
To be clear, I'm not actually disappointed in Felicia Day. She is an
absolute inspiration to me. She pursued her dreams to act even after
being told she was not "beautiful enough" for Hollywood (which is
total BS, I'm glad she's not fake-beautiful like most Hollywood
actresses) . She's an amazingly talented writer, a genuinely wonderful
person, and she understands what it's like to be socially outcast and
misunderstood. She's made friends and connections in the entertainment
industry and pioneered the webseries movement, changing the landscape
of entertainment and social media alike. Lonelygirl15, eat your heart
out, Felicia is real and she's here to stay.
In one of the
many panels (this train of thought starts around 8:30 if you're not keen on watching the whole panel) on The Guild, Felicia talked about how internet friendships allow you
to bypass the visual trappings of society to make friends with people
as intellectuals and personalities - to make connections you might
have missed in real life. That's reflected in the storyline and
characters of The Guild and is one of my other favourite things about
the geek community - overcoming social boundaries. After all that hard
work, I hate to see 'coolness' becoming a preoccupation for Felicia.
That is the system that created social inequality, why would we want
to perpetrate it?! Why are we so eager to become the people that tormented us for so long - who gave us baggage many will carry for years to come (see
this interview with Chris Colfer about being bullied at school. I remember the names of everyone who bullied me, too).
I have a proposition. How about we stop worrying about being 'cool'
and focus on the things that make us happy? On learning new things and
being better people, better friends, better geeks? Let's celebrate
what we have in common AND what makes us different. I don't want to be
cool. I want to be me, whether or not I'm wearing my Dr. Horrible
t-shirt.
