What are the differences between girls and boys geek culture?

Sonja KangasTiina Malin

NERD CHIC!

WHY NOT PETRA PURHO?WHY NOT PETRA PURHO?

?

How manly is this?!

Alt Party by girls?

• How would it look like?• Wouldn´t be hc technical• Different skills, different techniques, different

approaches• Appearance and behaviour• Geek guy = norm• Geek girl = wonder woman, special

Women and technology

• Girls are ”the other”• Boys like cars, girls like barbie• Dads do stuff with kids, moms fix food and clean

up the house• Guys geekness is visible: Alt Party, Assembly,

demo scene, gaming, compos, hacking (=challenges)

• Girls geeks out by expressing themselves, more privately and not that technically

Women and technologyCommon comments:• Tech is not for girls• Math is not for girls• Girls are not into games• Geek culture is unhygienic

• Boys will be boys• Good girls syndrome• Social environment has an impact• Girls lack pioneer attitude (don´t get value out of that?)

Big differences

Girls like to do the same as their friends – friends are not into demo scene, games or computers

Role models?

Big differences

• Challenges / performance vs. other activities• Community• Focus on different things (technology vs. self

expression)• Guys want to show up

• Technology is core• Girls focus on handicraft stuff

• Girls don’t want to be gurus?• Girls don´t have balls to act differently?

Big differences

• Reputation, ranking & rating• Reputation for girls = skills + behavious• Girls want to utilize, not develop (that much)• When motivated: learning to create & develop• Not similarly social as with boys (mainsteam

vs. marginal)• Girls often marginal, need to be tough

Examples

• Second Life handicraft• Decos and swapping• The Sims• Etsy.org• Nail and hair tutorials• Ullan unelma• Indie game development, experimental games

Second Life

Etsy

Deco

A Deco is a small book sent away to a friend who decorates a page or two, who then sends it on to another friend who also decorates your pages, and so on. When the Deco is filled it is returned to its owner.

The Sims

You Tube

From hobby to Biz

Games

(Nanobots) Erin Robinson

Kaptain Brawe) Cateia GamesNapthaline Prod)

(Hey baby) Ladykillas Inc

?(Papermint) Babsi Lippe

(Boxgame) Sophie Houlden

Closing words• Video games have long been a refuge for the scrawny,

the unattractive, the socially awkward.

• Video games empower people by projecting their consciousness into realms where they can do things that might be otherwise impossible (like, perhaps, date the girl of your dreams).

• “Geek chic” has a great deal to do with marketers and content producers finally realizing that geeks represent an audience eager to spend money on media.

Closing words• Boys and girls both had a lot in common! They both had

arms and legs and inability to communicate with the other• Games made for boys indicated that boys liked stealing cars

and murdering and being lonely, and girls liked being pretty, and making themselves sad because they will never be a princess.

• Geeking is not only doing things one way = demos & programming

• Girls geek out by utilizing technology and developing stuff with help of existing tools

• Find different ways to reach (different) goals