So, “Nice Guys” are causing a stir on the Internet again, thanks largely to a new(ish) Tumblr blog called “Nice Guys” of Ok Cupid, which posts selected highlights from the OKCupid profiles of self-proclaimed “nice guys” who make it very clear, in their profiles and in their answers to OKCupid’s “match” questions, that they are in fact anything but nice.
Some of them are actual or potential date rapists, convinced that women that they’re “nice” to owe them sex. Others are bitter from too many rejections, and launch long tirades in their profiles about how women are bitches and whores. Still others are clueless on a more fundamental level, declaring that women have “an obligation to shave their legs” and otherwise prettify themselves for men while noting that they themselves only shower or brush their teeth occasionally.
It’s not clear how any of this is supposed to convince the women of OKCupid that these angry, ranting, hapless-yet-entitled “nice guys” are indeed as “nice” as advertised, much less convince any rational human being to have sex with them.
The site is a goldmine of unintentional self-revelation — as is a similar site with the name of, er, OKCupid Goldmine — and I’ve spent hours looking through the pictures on both sites and discussing them with friends. The only reason I haven’t linked to it in the past is that neither of them blur out the faces of the people they feature, which seems to me a pretty major invasion of privacy. (As you no doubt have noticed, I’ve taken the liberty of somewhat creeepily disguising the faces of the guys in the pics I’m posting here.) But “Nice Guys of OKCupid has been pretty widely discussed, linked to by Jezebel (1, 2) and The Guardian and even the Men’s Rights subreddit, to mention merely a few examples; Ok Cupid Goldmine is also provoking discussions. Posts on both sites regularly get dozens if not hundreds of comments and reblogs on Tumblr. The cat’s already out of the bag.
Here are a couple more of these “Nice Guys” with their faces all spiral-ized:
and before we leave.Naïf: Is pecunium Eastern Orthodox? Or Russian? Hmmmmmmmmm.
HET.
Try again.
Not trying to rile anyone up. Honest. You think I’m that overt?
A second admission (you really need to work on avoiding the revealing subtext).
“Ani ledodi, v’ledodi lee
And I am for myself alone?
lumi: I will be back (after brunch) and the spinning continues (though in my haste to have yarn to take with me, I just emptied a bobbin of some very energetic romney, which is going to be hell to ply as a result).
Pecunium! Have you tried spinning any alpaca yet? It’s a bit slippery but knits up beautiful. I had a gorgeous pair of alpaca-wool gloves but kids, sigh. It seems that the tricky fibers are the best – I saw someone at MD Sheep & Wool spinning angora straight off the rabbit. That’s not an easy fiber to work with, but so soft and warm that it’s worth the trouble.
When were you at DLI? I’m assuming you were MENA, I was Russian (down the hill). Graduated 2000.
Darnit, I missed the bit where the Cynical Asshat pretended he was having some sort of rational debate. Darn the luck. I hope he’s back for a bit before he’s banned.
In addition to all the good points made so far about this, I think there’s a subset of male nerds/geeks who accepted the negative labels of being a geek and feel that was some big amazing rebellion on their parts, that they’ve sacrificed and suffered for being nerds. “I know this is going to have a social cost but I’m going to be a geek and say fuck you to anyone who has an issue with it because I’m so much smarter and more advanced than those subhumans” etc. These are the guys who are uberhostile to any social justice issues when they’re brought up about the contents of geek culture, because they’re such noble victims themselves, there’s only room for their victimhood and they can’t handle the idea that they may be contributing to victimizing others. On top of that, they feel an intense protectiveness when it comes to who is a geek and who isn’t. They’re the ones (the only ones, really) policing who gets to be a geek or a nerd and who doesn’t, because they’ve invested heavily in the label.
And in their minds, women don’t pay a social cost for being geeks (since any conventionally attractive woman anywhere can get laid at will [lol] and a conventionally attractive woman entering a geek space can 1) have as much sex as she wants from the pathetic losers that are geeks and b) go back to the “normal” culture without any problems). Couple that with rampant misogyny in society at large, and male geek culture being heavily produced by men like them for a long while, you get guys like Harris and the other douchecanoes who rage about how women can’t be geeks or female cosplayers are fake geeks and so on.
I see a lot of crossover of MRA ideas about women and geek male ideas about women. The elevation of logic as the end-all, be-all of argument even though their arguments are often not logical at all, the assumptions that all women can have sex whenever they want, feeling shut out of the rest of society for some reason that they blame on something other than the patriarchal standards that pressure men in western society. And on and on and fucking on. *sigh*
I do think guys like Harris are an extreme on the continuum and don’t represent the majority. There’s misogyny problems in the culture in general, and in geek culture they appear in rather specific ways. I suspect many male geeks have a lot of internalized crap from the culture, but only a small group go to the extremes of people like Harris. And then you have guys like Scalzi on the other end of the continuum.
OK that got really long, sorry.
@Kitteh, my computer’s on its 9th life of upgrades ; ) I’m on a decrepit version of Firefox that needs Java mostly disabled and doesn’t recognize Flash anymore. But I can post in threads by golly!
That Dumbass Cynic Guy said:”timetraveler-Not trying to rile anyone up. Honest. You think I’m that overt?”
Ahahaha, I get it now- you imagine yourself to be some crafty master of psychology, tricking everyone into thinking you are a douchey loser when really you are an unrecognized genius in the field of human behavior. Here’s the thing, dude- you do and say douchey things to other people, you are a douche. Whatever you imagine your motivations are (and I strongly suspect you’re getting your kicks saying offensive things to strangers like every other troll in existence) it is what you do that makes you a douche. And usually, when you look behind that doucheyness to see what a douche really is deep down inside, all you find is more douche.
(Some) men don’t see the social cost a woman pays for geekery because they only notice the conventionally attractive booth girls. Most geek women are the same as most geek men, just looking for people who like the things we like, but because beauty is not emphasized in geek circles, there’s an assumption that we’re all fat, ugly, and desperate.
It took a moment of staring blankly at my computer screen and sipping coffee to think of an answer to the nerdy-misogynistic-geekery, and I think I have one to offer:
It lies in Azeroth.
I think “nothing” has a great point though – for the most part, misogynistic people would be misogynistic irrespective of their subculture, because its seldom solely because of the subculture or even the culture isolated, it’s more to do with personal mindset perhaps exacerbated by a certain set of activities, and boiling over into a neat, summarizing excuse. See: “Music today sucks because hypergamous women reward anyone who can pick up a guitar”. See: “No good games are made anymore because they have to tailor to feminized sensibilities”. See: “Society sucks because lol feminazis”. Not true, not even fucking plausible, but to someone looking for a way out, so, so easy to set up as the prime factor. And then you can get some delightfully frothing vindictive rage going.
Anyway, as long as someone is told that what they do is nerdy (=not cool), geeky (=silly), for losers (=you are one), strange (=you are also weird) and silly (=not as cool as the stuff I do, which is totally cooler, because rawr) and socially awkward (=you will never have friends) they’re most likely going to grow up thinking everyone thinks the same about them. Social feedback, right? That’s what happened to me, and a good chunk of my friends.
Somehow we missed the bit where we were all friends and had fun together because we were told we couldn’t have friends nor have fun. I guess brains are weird like that.
Any sentence that starts with “I think this is cool because I am a nerd…” implies, to me, that the person saying it is excusing their own preference because of some ineffable quality of nerdiness that other, more “normal” people would not have. That may not be true! It’s just what I get from the sentence, and it ties into the thought that if someone has mentally isolated themselves (I’m a nerdy geek loser who does silly things and no one will ever like me and no woman finds what I do attractive!) it’s easier to start making up reasons for that to be a trend in your life.
So you… like stuff, not because the stuff is cool, but because you are a nerd.
So you… don’t have many friends, not because you’re an introvert, but because you’re a nerd (and they don’t have friends).
So you… are lonely, not because you don’t do much to socialize, but because women and Normal People (somehow a separate category, the fuck), don’t understand you. Damn those shallow bitches baargle bargle. So someone goes on their lonely way, misunderstanding and misattributing factors, and then…
And then suddenly here’s this beautiful person in a homemade custome, right? Well screw her!
I’m not beautiful and no one ever liked me and everyone always picked on me and I can finally get my revenge.
Clearly she is just out to get me because no Normals ever liked geeky stuff, I am going to ask her about the optimal approach strategy to destroy the Death Star just to trip her up and expose her as a non-nerd because clearly, as a female creature, she has no ability to be a nerd! That’s what I’ve been told my entire life! And if she DOES qualify my initial assessment then we can have sex and it will be my only shot ever because she is a nerd too and I won’t ever meet anyone like her she’s the oooneeeee!
… Urgh. Too many times.
Myopic perspectives and accidental thinking. Probably also the fact that, well, being a geek or a nerd or a trekkie or a star… warsie… has never isolated you from the wider culture. It just gives you more stuff to do. So you still suck up all the other messages and social conditioning going around and add it to a neat cocktail of “Nerds are foh realz losers, lol”.
As for Azeroth? Players can be men and women and everything else, and young and old and everything else. “People” and “Culture” still say it’s nothing but 13 year olds in a basement playing Night Elves – but I’m going to a wedding in a few months with a nice couple who met in our guild, so…
Liking Star Wars is never a reason to hate women. Liking D&D is never a reason to hate women. Thinking Women (as some monolithic entity) will hate you for the things you like? That’s a good start on the hate-train. And then add all the normally rocky bits about privilege, anger, resentment, bad representation and scantily clad elves shackled to a wall… Bad mojo, mon. Bad mojo.
—
This was actually all just a reason to delurk once again, since everyone seems to be doing it in this thread. Hi everybody! (Hi Dr. Fibi!)
Does anybody know?. Anyway, how long must it have existed as oral history before it was written down (or never been written down. Good luck with that!). How accurate does it have be? Is some minor inconsistencies fine?
“On “povertize”, I really wish that people would just accept that not all words need to be used as verbs.”
Using “impact” as a verb instead of affect is my pet peeve. It’s only semi-valid if the subject is a wisdom tooth or an asteroid.
Awesome analysis, Drst- remember that guy Dirk Manning did a viciously misogynistic article on ‘fake’ geek girls? There were several excellent response articles detailing the misogyny in geek culture and I’d love to get a hold of my favorite one. But I lost it on the internet. Would you know what I mean?
It’s so weird, the idea that women would pretend to like geeky stuff to get attention. I’ve always liked superheroes, sci-fi and fantasy, and never felt I “got” rom-coms and other “girly” stuff. But in order to seem normal and be accepted (didn’t work that well btw) I tried really hard to like “girly” and “normal” stuff and shut up about my geeky interests, until I became an adult and more independent. Then I sort of came out of the geek closet.
Now I’m viewed as the official über-geek at my job. There are a couple of guys who have some geeky interests as well, but they’ll always defer to me for facts about super-heroes, sci-fi and fantasy as if I’m the expert. Once I met one of the guy’s brothers when we were going out after work, and he said “You know, N just pretends to be much more geeky than he really is when he’s around you, he’s not that geeky at all actually”. Um, weird.
But then again, I’m not really involved in any “geek culture”, so I’m probably missing out on tons of misogynism that’s out there.
“And usually, when you look behind that doucheyness to see what a douche really is deep down inside, all you find is more douche.”
It’s just douches all the way down.
Another strange question that seems to be on OKC (i’m not a member so I don’t know)
“For you personally, is abortion an option in case of accidental pregnancy”
What is this question supposed to for a cis man? Like, if you were impregnated by the intervention of aliens with supertech or a wizard did it, would you consider abortion? Or something else?
@timetravellingfool , Dr Nerdlove has posted quite a bit on the “fake geek girl” meme. You might find the article there.
TTF, I don’t know which article you mean, but this is my favorite: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/07/26/who-gets-to-be-a-geek-anyone-who-wants-to-be/
@ Fibinachi- Right on!! Preach it, sister/brother!!
Thanks for my afternoon reading, lumi and heathenbee- heathenbee, where is that quote from?
I can’t get over how bizarre it is when men assume that women they find attractive must be turning them on deliberately. I mean, NWO used to outright state that women and girls were maliciously using their boner-rays to bonerfy him, and I think the average male geek would recognize that NWO speaks fluent nonsense. However, a big portion of the Fake Geek Girl(tm) idea depends on NWO being right. Why are these multitudes of women pretending to like nerdy things? To turn you on, dude! That’s why they wear costumes all the time! They’re trying to make you feel happy in your pants, the sluts! And then after giving you a torture boner they won’t sleep with you, because they don’t find geeks attractive, the bitches! All boners, no sex! That’s their dastardly agenda!
So here I am, wondering… why would I care about your boner, again? Especially if I’m not attracted to you? Like, what do I get from turning you on?
And are you guys honestly incapable of imagining a woman doing things for her own reasons that have nothing to do with you? Or, because you only think of women in terms of what they can do to you, do you think we also think that way?
@TTF, sorry, is it bad etiquette here to not credit other posters when quoting them?
TTF: Diogenes is the matryoshka of doucheosity.
Women trick men into giving them money by being sexy. Or they trick men into giving them attention, which is somehow converted into money. Or they want to snare a beta provider who will go out and slave all day while they sit around eating bonbons. Or women are just mean.
/idiocy
@Fibinachi
I think you hit on something here. As a geek, I have to say that my interests don’t seperate me from the rest of society. Hell, my girlfriend hates star trek with a passion, but she doesn’t think I’m an automatic loser for liking it. That stigma just isn’t a thing in 2013.
However, being an introvert, which I am, does much more to separate you from “normal people.” In movies and books, etc, the hero always gets the girl at the end. Everything falls into place for them and then the hot, sensual romance stuff occurs.
In real life, however, you have to meet people and communicate. Social skills, like everything, require practice. For some people, like me, they require more practice than others. Some people will always be socially awkward, and that’s not their fault. People are unique like that.
A lot of self-proclaimed geek males like to blame everything else for their failure with women, like their hobbies, their looks, or women themselves. That’s where issues like these come along. When a socially awkward guy makes a connection with a girl and she turns him down because she doesn’t feel the same way, it really hits harder than it would for other people because of the effort it took to get to that stage.
Some of them start to blame women for only liking musclebound douchebags and jerks, or for hating them because of their hobbies. They turn into “nice guys.” This is also where the whole alpha/beta male thing comes from. They feel like hopeless “beta males,” helpless in the face of the all-powerful alphas. That’s how I used to feel anyway.
I should note that the theories espoused in my previous comments are all taken verbatim from the MRM.