Bitches Be Trippin’: Zooey Mae’s Response To All The Jibber Jabber

By Zooey Mae

My favorite Synthesis columnist of all time has to be Daniel Taylor. I was supremely bummed when he called his decade-long run at Synthesis to an end to pursue law school. In my opinion, some of his best columns were when he received hate mail and published the letters, along with his own responses to them. So imagine my delight when yesterday, thanks to a plug from FilmDrunk.com, thousands of people flooded the Synthesis site to read a pared down and edited version of a column which ran a few weeks ago in our print edition. Said column expressed my irritation with females who feel the need to put themselves in the box of “female nerd,” or (vomit) “geek girl”. You Synthesis readers might remember that I used the title of one blog in particular, Has Boobs, Reads Comics, to vent my frustration. After the shit storm of comments people left, I started to feel a little bad for telling HBRC writer Jill I wanted to punch her in the boobs, as people seemed to think I actually planned on doing so (is this the death of hyperbole and satire?). I wrote her an email telling her just that, explaining that although I still didn’t like the title of her blog, I wished no ill-will on either her left or right boob, and apologized if I’d hurt her feelings. Apparently this wasn’t enough for some people, as it caused the creator of a website I wrote for in the past to write a scathing condemnation of me on BleedingCool.com. In her post, Kate Kotler takes on a self-righteous, Mother Hen attitude while still taking every opportunity to deliver catty remarks. In a hilarious (and fitting) turn of events, dozens of responses flooded into Bleeding Cool calling Miss Kotler out on her hypocritical response. It’s odd; it seems that people really will just root for whatever underdog the internet has to offer.

Phew. Ok, so now that you’re essentially all caught up, I’d like to take this opportunity to share some of the responses my post has illicited, both on the Bleeding Cool site, as well as our own Synthesis blog.

“The thing is, I know Zooey Mae, as she is someone who used to write for Geek Girl on the Street.com. I’m deeply troubled because the huge ad hominem swing against Jill just doesn’t make any sense: Perhaps Ms. Mae hasn’t done her homework and doesn’t know that Jill Pantozzi is one of the most respected female pop-culture writers there is working today.” – Kotler

First of all, I do read the Has Boobs, Reads Comics blog. Her writing is not what I take issue with. She really seems to know her stuff; it’s that damn title that irks me so. Accompanied by cropped pictures of spandex-clad comic character tits, the Has Boobs, Reads Comics title is the umbrella under which all her writing falls. Personally I’d rather discuss my penchant for comics as a person, not primarily as a girl.

“Sadly, even after being confronted with the hypocrisy of the article she wrote Zooey hasn’t exactly owned up to her mistakes.  She’s blamed bad editing for the tone of the article and claimed that her “hyperbolic, clumsy way” and the fact that she’s a “highly sarcastic and cynical person” are legitimate reasons for lashing out at Jill.” – Kate Kotler

Well Kotler, no, I apologized that I hurt Jill’s feelings, because my initial post was hyperbolic and sarcastic, but contrary to what you seem to think, I’m not actually a malicious person. I felt regret that I hurt her feelings, but not for having an opinion, albeit a strong one. I stand by what I said about girls who identify themselves as female nerds before just claiming “nerd” as their title. It seems sexist and totally unnecessary to me to call attention to yourself in such a “yeah, I have tits and I read comics, what of it” kind of way. If we wish to be treated as equals, then behaving thusly would seem to me to be step one, not flaunting our ladybits in an attempt to shatter some already outdated preconception about the nerd community.

“You could put up a video of a man shitting in a cup and people would talk about it on the internet, it means nothing beyond the fact that people have nothing better to do.” – Charlesknight (commenter)

This. Is. Awesome. And I’m sure this video does exist, I mean, it has to, right? And yes, this discussion has become ludicrous. It’s still entertaining though, for the same reason that Lobster Dog or videos of the Bedroom Intruder are entertaining. People like stupid shit. People also like to argue about stupid shit. Like for instance, whether or not it’s lame to self-identify as a “geek girl”. I think it’s lame, backwards, and sexist. And in the future, unless it’s totally rubbed in my face, I’ll keep my stupid trap shut. Maybe.

“If I was so worried about what someone on the internet had written about me that I was out looking for ‘allies’, I’m be more concerned in work out what had gone wrong with my psyche. I’m reminded of that old saying about academics, “the arguments are so bitter because the stakes are so small”.” – JensAltmann

Oh, boy. Sometimes you comb these threads and come across a gem like this that just makes your day. I’m a writer with a weekly column that reviews comics and graphic novels. I don’t claim to be the be-all-end-all authority on the subject, I just know a little about a lot and put considerable effort into maintaining at least a tenuous awareness of the current pulse of such things. But man, after over 150 columns, you write one thing in a moment of snark and suddenly the internet is aflame.

“Let’s read the article slowly, I do believe her annoyance is with the title of the blog, why must you take internet seriously, I mean punching boobs? That’s comedy gold right there” – Achmad Sirman

“OMG YES!!! About the whole thing but especially the Whedon fans. I managed a comic shop for 3 years and they are SO annoying. A bunch of girls who think they’re empowered by stories that are in fact some of the most sexist works in geek fiction.” – Alan Stowe

It’s just nice to know some people sifted through my poorly executed, rash comments and understood what I was getting at. I wasn’t saying Joss Whedon sucks, just the people who come into the comic shops every week who primarily purchase Whedon comics. In my experience, they’ve always been the worst customers. Extremely unreliable, the biggest tabs racked up… the list goes on.

“The woman whose boobs you want to punch? her name is jill Pantozzi, she has Muscular Dystrophy and is in a wheelchair , you heartless bitch.”  — Guy Furnetti

Am I supposed to pity her because she’s in a wheelchair? I don’t, as it seems patronizing. I would guess, strong, intelligent woman that she claims (and seems) to be, that she wouldn’t fancy that either. And come on, you really don’t think the idea of punching someone’s boobs is funny?

If this experience has taught me anything, it’s that America really needs to funnel more money into public education with an emphasis on reading comprehension. I understand someone feeling the need to lash out and attack someone who they feel has personally attacked a friend of theirs, but it seems to me that Kotler needs to learn to let things go and take a joke at face value instead of dissecting it to death and writing response rants at 4 AM when you don’t have the energy to spell check or make coherent points. I’m quite aware of my insignificance, but I’ll continue putting my ridiculous ramblings out there for the world to read, dismiss, or what have you. Cheers.