Um... squee?

Allow me to indulge my feminist and geek sensibilities all at once for a moment. Being proud of my geekdom, I am of course familiar with the term 'fanboy'. For those who aren't, here are a couple of definitions:

Wikipedia- Fanboy is a term used to describe a male who is highly devoted and biased in opinion towards a single subject or hobby within a given field. Fanboy-ism is often prevalent in a field of products, brands or universe of characters where very few competitors (or enemies in fiction, such as comics) exist.

 The Urban Dictionary- Fanboy: A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets his passion override social graces.

I was thinking about the term 'fanboy' the other day, and began to wonder if there was a 'girl' version of the term. Lo and behold, there is. I can't help noticing, however, that the definitions of 'fanboy' and 'fangirl' seem a little uneven. Note, from the very same sources:

Wikipedia- The term fangirl can be used to describe a female member of a fandom community (counterpart to the masculine "fanboy"). Fangirls may be more devoted to emotional and romantic aspects of their fandom, especially (relation-)shipping. However, it is commonly used in a derogatory sense to describe a girl's obsession with something, most commonly a male teen idol or an aspect of Japanese pop culture. Fangirl behavior can vary in intensity. On one end of the scale are those that, while harboring a crush on a particular actor or character, are perfectly capable of understanding that the fulfilment of the crush is never going to happen. On the other end are the girls who are said to be obsessive in their claims on a fictional character, even fighting with other fangirls over who 'owns' the character in question.

The Urban Dictionary- Fangirl: A rabid breed of human female who is obesessed with either a fictional character or an actor.

Uh... rabid? Excuse me, give me my term back! I'm a girl, and I'm a fan of lots of things.

I hereby declare myself a non-rabid, non-hormone-driven, passionate, geeky fangirl of the following:

• Neil Gaiman (including, but not limited to, the Sandman comics)
• The Princess Bride (yeah, that's me in the t-shirt)
• The Obernewtyn Chronicles
• The Lord of the Rings films
• Robin Hobb's fantasy worlds
• Narnia

Don't you dare diss my fangirldom.

Stuff White People Like on films based on books

On forthcoming films based on books:

"[T]hese announcements create a ticking time bomb where by a white person must read the book in ADVANCE of the release of the movie. This is done partly so that they can engage in the popular activity of complaining about how the movie failed to capture the essence of the book. But more importantly, once a book has been made into a movie, a white person can no longer read that book. To have read the book after the movie is one of the great crimes in white culture, and under no circumstances should you ever admit to doing this."

Read the full entry here.

Sometimes, though, the film is better. I think this is the case with The Lord of the Rings, but I know that's controversial.