Gag gifts for geeks

Holiday yuks from The Joy of Tech.

Gag Gifts for Geeks (Via Laughing Squid)

• [crosberg]

  Am I the only one kinda weirded out that three of them are highly gendered “get your man to stop doing that thing that geeky men do and spend time with you and the things you like instead” options?

  • [Nancy Eckert]

    You’re not the only one. 

  • [jetfx]

    All of them assume that geeks are guys, and it was the first thing that jumped out at me.

  • [jenjen]

     Exactly – and as such it’s a great skewering of the very gendered “for him” and “for her” gift guides that plague us this time each year.  I’m pretty sick of “for her” guides that are all kitchen and makeup.

    • [crosberg]

      Exactly! You know what I want for Christmas? I really need a better tool kit for some of the furniture/home improvement stuff I’m working on, and I need long boxes for my comic books. Whereas my cosplaying boyfriend is getting small/soft craft tinkering gear. But hooray for gender stereotypes!

• [Alex Rudnick]

  Yeahhh! Geeks are *male*! I’ve always thought so.

  • [OtherMichael]

    A Geekatrix (or Geekatrices) is (are) *female*.

• [fulldisclosure]

  Joy of tech is a hugely sexist comic and I’m not even talking about the geek==male assumption.

  • [Alex Rudnick]

    What?! This comic is in no way sexist and I resent that you would suggest that.

    http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1628.html

    • [invictus]

      if you’re seriously, rather than ironically, using that to illustrate the comic’s sexism, I think you’ve missed the mark.

• [SamSam]

  What I want to know is whether all the porn stays inside the box after its been filtered, and whether you can then just have a hard-drive full of porn.

  Also, is it like other filters where it eventually gets so completely clogged that all of the clean websites have to brush past the porn on their way through, so the pictures that your grandma sent you end up with hardcore triple-anal smeared on them?

• [jenjen]

  I LOVE the idea of the mock-LOTR set, except everyone I know already has that full set.  Mock-Game of Thrones anyone?

  • [Dlo Burns]

    That’s the thing I thought too. I’m the only one I know who doesn’t have one because mine got destroyed. 

• [Trond Aasland]

  Wow. This manages to be condescending and offensive to both geeks and women in general, and women geeks in particular, without even bordering on being funny. Congratulations!

  Seriously, can we please stop pretending that tired, idiotic ’50s-era gender stereotypes are funny? Pretty please? Mark, shouldn’t you as editor of a blog as influential as BB perhaps try to keep an eye on the inherent values in what you choose to promote?

  • [Boundegar]

    Well I thought it bordered on funny.

    • [princeminski]

      Better check yourself into the Department of Humorless Outrage for reconditioning.

  • [penguinchris]

    The BB gang are masters at this – Mark especially. They post things like this without comment and you’re not sure if they’re posting it to point out the stupidity or because they actually agree with it. The commenters then sort things out.

  • [ohbejoyful]

    First in with “but BoingBoing has women on staff so they can never be accused of promoting offensive gender stereotyping!”

    Which suddenly made me wonder – I sure as *hell* hope that there is complete pay equity on BB.  Yeah yeah yeah, it’s their own private IdaBlog, but I get to have the same hopes about Cargill and Koch.

• [Christen Haden]

  What?? No jokes about shoes or tampons? …and I was *so* close to winning Lazy Stereotype Bingo!

• [Magill Foote]

  I think the real crime here is that these aren’t for sale. That Game of Thrones spoiler edition sounds awesome, and a PornTrap would be a hilarious prank gift.