Popular Culture Review 30.2
the phlegmatic is the thoughtful and patient people-pleaser . Tilton further argues that the “ nerd ” is the choleric keeper of knowledge , one who learns for the sheer joy of gaining more knowledge . He describes the dork as the melancholic creative lover of esoteric knowledge of a thing . The dork is the cosplayer in any fandom . The geeks are the extroverted sanguine . In this , we see someone publicly reveling in their love for a fandom and socializing around that fandom . It is important to note that “ these mediated representations are not exactly being created by real people ” ( 2 ). For the geek community , much of what they know about themselves and each other depends on portrayals in media such as The Big Bang Theory ( TBBT ) or Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons . And again , they are overwhelmingly white men .
While there are occasional variations , they are almost always male . Varma argues that this is not so much a new gendered idea ; rather it is “ the logical extension of implicit and over messages to which both mean and women have been exposed ever since they were children ” ( 362 ). Varma ’ s work is in computer science�trying to understand the gap between men and women in this STEM field�but the gendered stereotypes remain . Varma finds that hostility , whether latent or open , was a problem for women , just as in every other field . So when the label of geek is applied to women , they are experiencing an additional layer of social pressure .
According to Pustz , comic culture shares “ a body of knowledge and information , an appreciation of a medium that most Americans have dismissed as hopelessly juvenile and essentially worthless ” ( 22 ). Several methods of gatekeeping exist to keep the community closed . Wertley identified knowledge and gender specifically as measures for true geeks . Approaching this culture , a person of color , a woman , a transgender person , a homosexual or lesbian , can often encounter hostility .
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