Tales of the Geeky Vixen

Last Saturday my mom and I looked through old pictures, and it was so much fun. We laughed about the snowball ambush my dad and I heft upon her and my uncle, and cooed over baby pictures when we were all a lot younger, and family members we've since lost were still with us. I started a stack of photos I wanted to take home, and when I looked at them the next day, I noticed something. I am truly a child of the 80s. Christmas photos I brought home showed me unwrapping Cabbage Patch Kids, She-Ra's Crystal Castle, and Rainbow Brite, among other things. I wore t-shirts of ET, Smurfette, and various Sesame Street characters. (Some things don't change--as I write this I'm wearing an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt that says, "S is for Scram.") In a bunch of pictures, I'm sleeping/playing in a bedroom covered in Strawberry Shortcake. 

So yes, back then, even, stuff made me happy. It wasn't the basis for my happiness (most of the time), but it does explain why I'm so immersed in pop culture now. (Not the pop culture of now, though, because a lot of it is more poop culture than pop culture...wocka wocka wocka.) I think as a whole we 80s kids are the ones who win at Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit, because we are more aware of the minutiae. We remember weird details that no human should retain, even about other generations (I have to say I was really excited when I beat my parents at 60s Trivial Pursuit).

It's no surprise to me, then, that every year geeks become more of a force in pop culture. Look at the summer blockbusters this year--mostly comic book movies. Even Indiana Jones has ties to comics--several times since the 80s there have been Indy comics (as opposed to indie comics), starting with Marvel and most recently landing at Dark Horse. San Diego Comic Con is *the* place for Hollywood to bring out their big guns and see what the geeks have to say. For the first time in our lives, we are the ones running the show. It's cool to be a geek nowadays. Now most of the time that would mean that the geeks wouldn't want to be geeks anymore, much like the cool kids dropped myspace when it went mainstream. This is so not the case for us. 

So what does it mean to be a geek? I'm sure it means a lot of different things to different people. I use the term "geek" in a very broad sense. To me , it's not about liking comic books, or sci-fi, or math, or video games, etc. Being a geek is so much more. It means you have a passion for something. Anything. You could be a music geek, meaning that you possess a passion/love for music so great that you spend most of your time pursuing music, whether making music, or discovering underground bands, or just listening to music 24/7. Maybe you're a movie geek, and you write reviews on your blog, read movie magazines, post on Ain't It Cool or Rotten Tomatoes, and read every book you can on the movie industry. The bottom line is, it doesn't matter what you're a geek for, just that you're a geek. People use this term as a derogatory term, but I think we've taken it back, and with a vengeance.

As for me, I'm flyin' the geek flag high (as the title of my Plurk tells the world). I'm a geek of all trades: a comic book, video game, computer, movie, music, toy, English, craft, sometimes science geek. And yes, buying comic books and urban vinyl toys does make me happy. I'm not defined by my stuff because of its worth, but I am defined by my stuff because it's part of what makes me a geek. In that way, I guess I've always been a geek. If my mom hadn't bought me those Archie comics, or if my uncle hadn't taken me to the Great Escape (the greatest used record/movie/comic book shop in the universe) and sat me down in front of the comic boxes, I might never have discovered the beauty of comics today. If I hadn't played GI Joes with my friend Joe Brandon in the 2nd grade, or if I hadn't ever had She-Ra's Crystal Castle, I might not collect action figures and vinyl toys today.

So there you have it, my Geek Manifesto for the day. I love being a geek. Why else would I spread the name Geeky Vixen all over the internet? It's who I am. A geeky girl who also has a smolder-y side, a vixen quality, a girly streak. Being a girl geek can be a minefield. I can hang with the boys because I like the same kinds of movies, and I love playing Halo, and I love comics. But that doesn't mean that I want to always be one of the boys. Sometimes I want to turn the boys' heads (OK, one boy in particular, my cutie husband). And that's where the vixen part comes in. You don't have to be one or the other. They're two sides of the same coin. Think of it as reading comics in a push-up bra. 

I leave you with that thought, gentle readers. Happy Saturday! (Incidentally, "gentle readers" is a part of my being a lit geek. Dorothy Parker used the phrase in a lot of her essays, and I'm such a fan, I picked it up.)