Fake Geek Girls is a podcast looking at nerdy pop culture from both a fan and critical perspective, encouraging the things we love to do better.

By that, we mean we value pop culture for what it is—entertainment for the masses—and for what it tells us—what our culture values—and the interconnected relationship of how culture shapes media and media shapes culture. We’re critical in the sense that we think critically (though sometimes we can be just regular ol’ critical, too), and we almost always choose topics we’re interested in. When we’re negative, it’s not out of spite or hatred or dismissal. Pop culture has value.

Our goal with this podcast is not to tell everybody what it’s okay to like—we’re not the grand arbiters of taste, and we like plenty of things considered problematic, weird, or just plain bad. But understanding them contextually, as representations of cultural desires and anxieties, is our goal, not tearing popular things down just because they’re popular.