2016

Geek Guys: Dress Up

At Emerald City Comic Con

Next weekend here in Seattle is PAX, the Pacific Northwest’s biggest game convention. Then on October comes Geek Girl Con. My message today is to the straight* guys out there who are going to attend these conventions or other conventions like them. You should dress up. It’s not hard.

When I was a teenage gamer, the idea of dressing up in fantasy clothes was ridiculous. It seemed childish, the sort of thing that even we geeks would criticize as being too geeky. We knew a college guy who played a 21st-level illusionist and who wore a cape to the game. A cape? We rolled our eyes. That’s the conformist 20th century for you. Luckily, modern society is getting over that narrow-minded disdain for costuming, especially in fandom. Costuming has really expanded in the last 10 to 20 years, and it’s a welcome addition to fan culture. Not only does it make conventions more fun, it especially makes the community more female-friendly. That’s an important improvement for a community that sometimes resembles a boys’ club. That’s why my message is for the straight* guys out there.

Dress up.

It doesn’t take much to be better dressed than the average geek guy at a con. Wear a funny hat. Wear a pirate shirt. A T-shirt with fannish joke on it might not be the best way to dress for a con, but if the shirt is clean and so are you, it’s a start. As for me, I’m not the sort to spend any serious time on a costume, so I’m likely to throw on a lab coat. In a lab coat plus a menacing glare, I'm a mad scientist. It’s not much, but that’s my point. It doesn’t take much to participate.

Wearing a costume shows that you’re the right sort of person.

• You put some thought into your appearance. 
• You like fun.
• You’re creative.
• You support costume culture. 
• You’re not a grumpy geek who takes himself too seriously to wear a costume. 

By dressing up, even a little, you help improve fan culture and make it more woman-friendly. Do your part. The bar is set pretty low, so no excuses. 

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* “straight”: In this post, I specify that my advice is for straight geeks. That’s because I have no standing to tell gay men to dress up. Only on a rare, good day do I dress and groom well enough for gay men to mistake me for gay. Male hetero geeks might be the only population to whom I could give any sort of advice about dressing up.