Gatekeepers of the Galaxy

There’s no such thing as a fake geek girl

“F*ck you for buying chibi xenomorphs,” read the Reddit notification that blared across my phone’s lock screen. For those of you who don’t speak geek, a chibi is a style of collectible figurine characterized by a large head, squat body, and broad legs, and a xenomorph is the titular monster of the Alien series.

I was bewildered at first, mistaking it for a trending topic. Then I realized that it was a comment on an old post in which I’d shared photos of my extensive collection of figurines and memorabilia related to the Alien franchise.

Normally I don’t engage random rude comments, but today I was feeling feisty, so I told him his opinion of my collection didn’t matter and went on with my life. Or, I tried to. Over the next 20 minutes, the commenter unleashed an increasingly sexist and rapey tirade, blowing up my phone with notifications until I finally muted them. The basis of his at-times incoherent ranting was that my possession of the chibi xenomorph figurines in said collection suggested that I was not a true fan, especially not as a “girl.” And I should listen to him because he’s the “world’s leading xenomorph expert.” (Snort.) And something-something my puss something-something. Honestly, I quit reading at that point.

I was initially a little hot in the face at the random insults, but my anger was quickly replaced by intrigue. I’d finally had the fabled encounter with a particular breed of Redditor I’d been warned about: the fedora-wearing, ultra-sexist, entitled geek who can’t stand that women on the internet don’t conform to their views. Not only that, he was a gatekeeper.

Gatekeeping refers to the practice of ranking fans of a book, movie, game, or franchise as either “true” or not. Gatekeepers think of themselves as bearing the correct opinion of pop culture and insist that others memorize a vast amount of trivia (even if they themselves don’t do so) in order to prove their fandom.

What gatekeeping reveals in its perpetrators is the ultimate attitude of entitlement.

Usually, these completely arbitrary assessments fall along gender lines, with male geeks “cred-checking” female geek con…