Queer Your Tech With a Nerdy Video Party

Welcome to the thirty-eighth installment of  Queer Your Tech with Fun, Autostraddle’s nerdy new tech column. Not everything we cover will be queer per se, but it will be about customizing this awesome technology you’ve got. Having it our way, expressing our appy selves just like we do with our identities. Here we can talk about anything from app recommendations to choosing a wireless printer to web sites you have to favorite to any other fun shit we can do with technology.

Header by Rory Midhani

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Perhaps it’s because of YouTube’s Unix overhaul for Geek Week, but for whatever reason the Internet is alive with awesome nerdy videos relating to geekery of all stripes. Don’t believe me? Here, go forth.

For the Computer People

she ++, a trailer for a documentary about female computer science majors/computer scientists, is actually 3 months old. But it made another round on the interwebs this week and I’m all about helping it continue to make the rounds. You can get involved with she ++ (the organization).

For the Cartoon People

I love Adventure Time probably more than is normal for an adult? But here’s the thing, I feel like other adults also love Adventure Time this much, so I’m cool with it. And you might want to join me in loving this quirky animated show if you don’t already, especially because BMO could be a Third Wave Feminist. At the very least, BMO is genderqueer. #ourteam #excusetowearthis #orthisthisiscooltoo

FYI, this same channel has an interesting discussion on Animal Crossing and its relation to Otaku citizenship.

Plants, Plants and Space, and Space: A Video Continuum

Nothing like a timelapse of macro footage of plants growing to remind us that we’re all aliens.

Here’s what photosynthesis looks like from space:

Film maker Fabio di Donato pulled a bunch of still images from Cassini’s exploration of Saturn and made this stop motion video. Fun fact: when I was little, I pretended I was an alien from Saturn. I had a few friends convinced.

This could actually go up in the cartoon section because it’s got cartoons. Either way, here’s Bill Nye explaining what we’d have to do to stop an asteroid from destroying life on Earth. You know, in case you needed something else to worry about.

To Sum It All Up…

Here’s a music video by the Doubleclicks about the rejection of women/girls in geek/nerd culture based on sexism. It’s called “Nothing To Prove.” It’s fabulous! The little girl scientist holding up the sign that says “Why are you surprised I want to be an astronaut when I grow up?” made me cry!  It’s probably v. relevant to your interests because this is probs something most of us have experienced.

You can download the Doubleclicks’s album/this song on iTunes.

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A.E. Osworth

A.E. Osworth is part-time Faculty at The New School, where they teach undergraduates the art of digital storytelling. Their novel, We Are Watching Eliza Bright, about a game developer dealing with harassment (and narrated collectively by a fictional subreddit), is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing (April 2021) and is available for pre-order now. They have an eight-year freelancing career and you can find their work on Autostraddle (where they used to be the Geekery Editor), Guernica, Quartz, Electric Lit, Paper Darts, Mashable, and drDoctor, among others.

A.E. has written 542 articles for us.

17 Comments

  1. I am so crazy about that BMO and feminism video. I have shared that like ninety times this week. So genius.

  3. Ali, your home planet is really beautiful.

    Also I love that Shostakovich waltz! You don’t hear that many waltzes in minor keys… (/music nerd moment)

  5. That Mike Rugnetta is way too adorable. The fact that he can so smartly riff on feminism and gender makes him downright hot.

  6. Thanks for the procrastination aids!

    Sidenote, the girl at 3:39 in the geek girl video looks a lot like Annika

  8. That Saturn video was so gorgeous. At first I was musing over why they wouldn’t have used Saturn by Holst, but that song is so slow and sleepy that it wouldn’t have worked.

    • Oh please do not read the comments on that youtube video. I repeat Do not read the comments

  10. That plant video is so beautiful I will be playing it at my weddings and/or other public celebrations of cheese in my life, alongside a slightly mortifying montage of grouchy baby photos and Grey’s Anatomy clips.

    • This is a lie – none of that wedding video business is in my culture. I just like plants, okay.

      (And maybe Grey’s. Maybe.)

  13. That Nothing to Prove video is so incredibly awesome. I’ll be smiling for days after that, thanks!

  14. So nobody’s going to point out that the Idea Channel video calls Brandon Teena a woman? That’s super.

Comments are closed.