Response to Joe Peacock’s Geek Out Article – Booth Babes Need Not Apply

If you’re a geek and happen to be a girl, then chances are you may have heard about Joe Peacock’s “Booth Babes Need Not Apply” article on CNN Geek Out. At first it made sense. I myself admit to stereotyping women all the time when I see a scantily clad pretty girl in cosplay at a convention. I find myself thinking, “I bet she’s just trying to get attention” and agree when I hear people say that Comic Con is like Halloween, just another excuse for women to dress slutty. I know it’s wrong, but sometimes this is what happens when you grow up being one of the only girls who still played video games when she was 16. But things change for the better and nowadays, it’s almost like “Who doesn’t play games?”. So at first I did agree with Joe Peacock. However, when I read this, everything else just went out the window.

“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. “

First of all, I think it’s very flattering that he thinks the Frag Dolls are models hired to play games. I mean, when I was hired in 2004 to be a Frag Doll, I was still a sporty looking skater chick who wore jeans and a T-shirt to my first Frag Doll interview and not an ounce of makeup on my face. So being called a model is actually a compliment. But that’s where the flattery ends. As a writer, you’re entitled to give your opinion. But giving opinions without doing research was his downfall. Joe Peacock even admits that he didn’t know who the Frag Dolls were when he wrote that article. What would be the point of me posting cosplay tutorials if I never once made my own cosplay? Shouldn’t one write what they know?

A few days after the CNN article, Joe Peacock sort of apologized to the Frag Dolls. And actually his comment about a girl gamer not being a big deal is exactly what we used to talk about when the Frag Dolls first started.

“To me, being a “girl gamer” is the same as being a “girl moviegoer” or a “girl reader” — who cares? And their femininity and attractiveness are being used to position them for roles in the geek community merely for the fact that they play video games. ” 

For us, our goal was to make people aware that there were hard core girl gamers, to the point where it wouldn’t even be a big deal that you were a girl gamer. You would just be a gamer, period, which to me shows how much things have changed in the past 10 years. Could it be that being a team of girl gamers in the public eye has really worked? So even though the Frag Dolls may have started out as “girl gamers”, at this point they are more than that. They’re a group of gamers who happen to be girls. They’re girls who bring a different perspective to gaming and geek culture. Each of them bring personality, insight, and passion and unfortunately Joe Peacock missed that entirely.

Anyhow, I could go on about this, but I have better things to do like watch My Little Pony.