I’ve encountered a lot of nerds along the way, growing up. Some had completely different fandoms than me, others introduced me to some of my current loves, and yet others I gleefully geeked out with, endlessly poring over and studying our shared fandom. Being a geek and loving a fandom is an intensely personal experience; everything, from your ships, your interpretations, likes, dislikes, reactions – everything – is shaded by who you are as a person and your experience.
Learning to own your geekness tends to loosely mimic The Hero’s Journey: there is the calling to the great beyond; a possible period of denial; trials and tribulations; and a journey oft peppered with supernatural aid in form of Star Wars (or maybe Lord of the Rings) before you finally decide to own what you are – an unabashed nerd. We’ve grown up knowing we were different or slightly out of place, and maybe even more than just “a little” odd until one day, something clicked. It seems that an underlying theme of being a geek ties into growing up with a sense of being an outsider – an other, if you will. But what if you’re doubly so?
My name is Lois Payne and I am the geeky child of Korean immigrants. Growing up as “the Asian kid” and “the angry Feminazi” in mostly white spaces was pretty conducive to my nerddom; “otherness” didn’t really occur to- or bother – me, mostly because there wasn’t much visible friction about it and I couldn’t differentiate which “other” was causing the friction. Either way, it was rooted in a sense of discomfort at a form of cultural “weirdness” that didn’t conform. And in a more convoluted racist way, becoming a geek was expected of me due to my race.
It’s taken some time for me to understand my agency and be able to differentiate the subtleties of who I am as a woman and a geek, as well as how my race plays into my experience, both in and out of my fandoms. I’m still trying to figure out how to right the damage of bad stereotyping, racism, and misogyny as a WOC. You should join me on my rants and ravings as I try to figure it out, it’ll be fun. I may be obligated, as the lone Asian geek, to write a post or two addressing tentacle rape and hentai.
Also, I will roundhouse kick you in the face if you start fetishizing Chun Li and Katana. I totally look like this, if you’ve been wondering.
~ Lois
