Boys Are Petty

Everybody is a nerd nowadays. At least, that’s the premise of the monthly Nerdcore night (every second Thursday) at the Ruby Room, which features musicians, performers, and comedians who speak the esoteric dialects of fellow fanatics.

“We all grew up on Nintendo and Star Wars,” says Nerdcore promoter Aubree Miller. “It’s a part of our childhood and for a lot of us it’s a part of our adulthood, too. Nerdcore night is about embracing that kind of fun and taking ownership of your nerdiness.”

As a partner in TheGamerGirls.com — a lifestyle website for female gamers — Miller intended Nerdcore night to be a real-life meet-up for site members.

“The event is meant to be an experience for gamers to get out of the house but still give them an environment with which they are comfortable,” says Miller.

Soon, however, the evening grew into a staple affair for “the general nerd population,” featuring prominent poindexters such as MC Lars, MC Frontalot, Dr. Awkward, Zealous1, Shammers, Adam Warrock, Kirby Krackle, Broken Pixels, and YT Cracker.

“Nerdcore is a fun genre of music,” Miller says. “What I like most about it is that the music is smart. It’s not about a specific sound, it’s more content driven, which makes the genre entertaining because you are intrigued on a personal (usually nerdy) level and you can listen to different types of music, from rock to hip-hop.”

Hosting a gallery of models in various nerd-friendly motifs, Miller considers TheGamerGirls.com’s namesake girls to be role models for “female gamers who feel animosity from male gamers.”

“Whenever a girl beats a guy over, say, Xbox live or whatever, a ton of messages immediately start piling up about how you must be a fat, stoner, loser chick to have beat them at a game,” says Miller. “Boys are petty. We use actual female gamers on the site who are hot to prove these kinds of boys wrong. Honestly, girls just want gaming equality.”

Have the website and event helped accomplish that?

“In a sense, yes. It’s kind of, like, to get noticed you have to do radical things and make over-the-top statements. Think about the women’s suffrage movements. They weren’t just, like, Oh, we are going to pretend like we are equal until it happens.”

Get equal, gamer girls, at the Ruby Room on June 7 with Broken Pixels, MC Chalkskin, Dez Thrill, and MC Ohm-I. Five credits.