I swear it seems like the interwebz has been in an uproar a bit too often as of late. I think it must be the lack of new games coming out right now (FIX IT YOU GAME DEVS). Anyway, todays drama is about an article posted on CNN by Joe Peacock called Booth Babes Need Not Apply. His post is basically about fake geek girls who attend conventions for attention and how it is hurting the community as a whole. I personally really liked his article and except for one or two sentences, found it to match my feelings perfectly. I highly recommend reading it so that you’ll understand the rest of this post. Now I will try to be as elaborate as possible about my feelings toward this topic, cause I’ve seen what it can do to you if you aren’t.

When I saw Joe’s article come up in my Twitter feed, I decided to give it look-see, and I was pleasantly surprised when I did. His post reminded me of the one I posted a few months back about fake gamer girls. Sure mine was about gamer girls and his is about geeky girls, but the basic idea is the same, we hate fakers. Well it seems a bunch of people got super offended by his post,

I honestly have no idea why since the points he was trying to make all made sense to me. The part I find truly entertaining is that people always say “Everyone is entitled to their opinion” and then when someone does vocalize their opinion people flip out and treat it like a fact of life that they need to prove wrong. I admit to being guilty of this from time to time, but I’d like to think I’ve gotten better about that.

How dare you have an opinion that is different from mine?!

But I digress, one of the biggest groups offended by this was the Frag Dolls, [or at least few people got offended on behalf of the Frag Dolls]. In case you are unfamiliar with them, they are a professional team of female gamers that promote games for Ubisoft and are meant to represent and support female gamers in the industry. Now I want to take a moment to make something very clear: I really like the Frag Dolls and appreciate what they do and stand for in the gaming community. Once more: I like and respect the Frag Dolls. Ok, now that I think you get it I’ll continue. I can see why the Frag Dolls were upset since Joe called them out and said they were basically just a marketing gimmick.

“But then, you have these models-cum-geeks like Olivia Munn and practically every FragDoll. These chicks? Not geeks. I think that their rise is due to the fact that corporations are figuring out that geeks have money, and they want it. But they can’t abide putting a typically geeky face on camera, so they hire models to act quirky and sell this marketable geekdom.” – Joe Peacock

So I can see why they would be upset, [even of the ones who I am talking about in this article, aren’t with the Frag Dolls]. Sure they are pretty girls and have quirky attitudes, but they at least know what they are doing. They know about gaming and geekery. They aren’t just some superficial girls looking to exploit the gaming community and posing nude with their consoles and controllers. If someone comes up to their booth, they will be able to do more than just stand there and go “Um… I’m not sure what this game is about, ask that guy over there” No, they will probably be able to explain better than that guy over there.

So THATS what you do with consoles, controllers, and games… and to think I’ve been using them wrong this whole time.

So they asked Joe for an interview and said they wanted to give him a chance to explain himself and his post a little better. And in good form, Joe agreed. (I have marked this out because I was informed that they [the Frag Dolls] did not set up the interview. So now I am not sure what the ladies who initiated the whole Skype conversation are actually associated with but there was a Skype conversation between Joe, LethalxPrincess, MrsViolence, and a couple of guests). But when I tuned in it just felt like all the wanted to do was bash Joe and make him back pedal his entire post. This group seemed to be harping on about how he shouldn’t generalize women like that, but I feel like the main reason he was there was merely for his statement against the Frag Dolls, [and even though they aren’t apart of the Frag Dolls, they must have taken it personally]. Had he left their name out of the article, he would have been left alone. I feel like that goes back to my recent Day vs Perez post about how things get blown out of proportion when you are more famous vs being some random person that no one has really heard of.

Joe tried to stick to his guns, but they were coming at him from all sides with as many as six people going against him on their Skype call. There were a few people in the chat trying to stick up for Joe, but some of them were swiftly silenced. Yes it is wrong to generalize, but we all do it, don’t try to lie. Joe even put a couple of paragraphs in the beginning of the article explaining that the main theme of his post was targeting the girls who show up to conventions to feel like they are Gods gift to male geeks everywhere. I’ve seen them, they think if they dress up in an Avengers t-shirt and say they loved the Iron Man movies that all the boys will be “oh my gawd, she’s hot and knows her stuff! I must date her!” Sorry fakers, it doesn’t always work that way, TV can be misleading. These attention seeking fakers do hurt the community, they insult the men by thinking that they are doing them some favor by showing up dressed as Wonder Woman and trying to get attention from guys they would never date. And they make real geeky girls look bad because after seeing so many fakers, the real geeks have to prove themselves to be more than just a pretty girl. We already have an uphill climb, we don’t need any help.

Yup, that about sums it up. *facepalm*

Now right now I can’t remember if he actually mentioned booth babes in his article and changed it after everything went crazy, or if it was just them all jumping on Joe about his title having booth babe in it… either way that was another topic that was beat like a dead horse in this interview. Claiming that Joe was dissing all booth babes to be ditzy eye candy, when most of them are just doing it to make money to pay their bills, booth babes see a gig and they go for it. You can’t blame a booth babe for not knowing what she’s selling, money is money and sex sells. It’s really the industry’s fault that booth babes are usually just models that have no idea what is going on at a convention. [Some people] got very crazy about this because the Frag Dolls can sometimes be considered booth babes, but if Joe did mention them, it was just a generalization. Generalizations aren’t meant to be completely accurate, but are usually the majority. So just because one small group of girls is sometimes considered booth babes and they actually know about gaming, we are supposed to now generalize that all booth babes know about games? I think not. So it’s a bit of double standard.

At one point Joe stated that there were many female gamers and geeks that emailed him and told him they applauded him for posting such a topic and that they agreed completely, right after that MrsViolence decides to say that those that agreed with Joe must not know who the Frag Dolls are and therefore don’t know anything about being a gamer or geek and that their opinions are invalid. Wow. So you give Joe a hard time about generalizations and then you make one that is even worse? I know who the Frag Dolls are, and have for a while, and yet I still agreed with Joe and I would like to think that I do know my industry of gaming and geekery pretty well. So if we want to talk about people getting offended by generalizations, then I was pretty offended by that statement there.

While jumping on Joe they also asked him what the point and intentions of his post was, to me it was obvious, it was to get his opinion out there and maybe get some people to go “Wow, he makes a good point” Nothing more, nothing less. That’s what blogging is about right? Putting your opinion out there and just relating to people. However, they wanted him to have a solution instead of just complaining. Sure that’s all fine and dandy, but we all already know what the solution to this is: get the industry to either educate their booth babes a little better about their product or hire actual geeks and gamers to be booth babes. I would gladly stand by a booth all day, and I’m sure so would many other ladies who know their way around a controller or comic book.

Except this, I don’t want to be an giant security tag for a 3Ds. C’mon Nintendo, really?! Oh well, at least the belt is fashionable… right…?

Near the end of the interview, they actually brought Ryan Perez, yes I said Ryan Perez, in to give his two cents. Joe actually mentions the Felicia Day and Ryan Perez incident, where he says Ryan did something very stupid and is a shoddy journalist for not doing his research before calling out Felicia. Oh, the irony, so very amusing. It became more civil around this time and they backed off Joe a little bit. That was pretty much it, Joe said he will be issuing out another article tomorrow that will address and please the offended. LethalxPrincess, MrsViolence, and guests thanked him for coming on, and then we all went about our business as usual. Just like with any other internet drama. Honestly, this whole “I’m a woman and you have offended me by (insert random reason here)” is getting old. I’m getting tired of people making exceptions and changing the rules to appease the easily offended women, but that is a post for another day. Let’s all just toughen up that internet skin and let the opinions of others roll off our backs and just continue to be us without worrying what others will say.

*NOTE: I have been informed, by Valkyrie from the Frag Dolls, that the Frag Dolls did not organize this and only tuned in to see it when they saw it on a tweet. I’m not sure what to classify MrsViolence and LethalxPrincess as now since they kept referring to themselves as Frag Dolls during the whole Skype conversation, or at least that is what it sounded like to me. It could have been a misunderstanding with everyone talking over each other. So my apologies to the Frag Dolls for thinking they were with you. ♥