Forever alone but well-dressed

Stéphane C.L. Delisle 26 Mar, 2012 at 2:02pm ET Article published in Life

Let’s all be honest here: we all wear clothes.

Well, in general, at least. I’m the first one to stroll around hanging brain when I’m home, but that’s a mental image you didn’t want.

A second point: we are all gamers and geeks here. We want our look to reflect how we feel about what we love, right?

Here’s a guide to being dressed in the best geekchic fashion without having to actually go outside and talk to people, because let’s face it—who wants that?

Nerdy clothes

The most obvious place to begin is ThinkGeek. Where else can you get a Portal tee, bacon salt, caffeinated soap and a USB pet rock all at once? With a system of points for regular customers, ThinkGeek is a mecca for gamers, geeks and nerds.

For the real geekchic men (or for that mythical internet creature known as the geek girl), Jinx has the shirts you are looking for, and let’s not forget that they also have Portal 2 longfall socks. Official threads from Blizzard (World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo), Minecraft, Portal, The Guild, the one and only Wil Wheaton himself and many more—not counting all their own designs inspired by geeks and gamers like you (yes, you can submit designs), J!NX is the one-stop shop for clothes for every nerd you know.

Next two are the “SR”: SplitReason & SharkRobot. Both have highly similar shirts, based on classic game references and memes. With prices just a bit under $20 and a lot of designs to choose from (most notably my favourite one, “Two Girls One Up”). The only notable differences between the two are that SharkRobot also has official gear from some of the smaller webcomics.

Some of my own SharkRobot shirts

For those of you who are broke but still want to be fashionable and l33t, TeeFury has the limited edition shirt for you. With only 24 hours to buy the current design before it changes to another one, you will own a rare shirt. Did I mention that they’re 10 bucks? That’s it. You can also submit your own design, for the artsy folks out there.

Making a note here

On a side note, I highly encourage visiting Valve’s online store for your Aperture scarf, Sapper iPhone skin, Black Mesa parking permit, Hunter plush and many more.

And a little bonus for my fellow iPhone user and beer drinkers, when you are gaming, you might need this.

Comments

26 Mar 2012 ~ 2:10pm fatcat real geeks go pantless
26 Mar 2012 ~ 2:15pm Gate28 Might want to double check your Valve affiliate link, It's taking me to a blank Icrontic page.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 2:50pm midga I was a big fan of Woot for my geekish and semi-unique tees for a while, but I'm a bit skeptical since they raised their prices and then, a few weeks later, switched from American Apparel to Anvil...

Also, I have more shirts now than I can hang up. I do have a nice selection in both AA L and AA XL, though, so I can switch with the season.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:07pm primesuspect We don't have a Valve affiliate link. There's no such thing, as Valve doesn't do an affiliate program.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:27pm Tushon The valve store link worked for me (surprisingly, behind work firewall). @fatcat, real geeks go naked.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:32pm poofie It seems like pigeonholing to assume that all geeks want to wear novelty t-shirts. I consider myself pretty geeky, and I hardly ever wear t-shirts outside of the house. I'm more about fun patterns, bright colors and pairings.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:35pm oni_dels @poofie it is true that many geeks still prefer more classic or just not so geeky styles, this is why i precise geekchic fashion, which includes the novelty shirt and accessories...
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:42pm poofie And I disagree that "geekchic" is only novelty shirts and pac man scarves and the like. What about a dude wearing a Dr. Who inspired suit, or Mal Reynolds' browncoat? Or someone who enjoys a steampunk flair when they get dressed? Or a girl who dresses like her favorite anime character instead of dressing in more "normal" clothes like t-shirts and jeans?
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:54pm oni_dels @poofie i didnt say geekchic is just gaming, nor have i said these sites only have gaming stuff. i said geekchic includes these, along with yes geek cultures like tv shows. Steampunk i'm reluctant to put in the geekchic as it's more suited with the medieval / renaissance style: i know steampunkers who are absolutely not gamers or geek, but nerds in their own way. And for anime cosplay well the Otakus have that: they've been here since before the novelty shirts, and before the geek revolution of our age. Japanese are crazy folks, we love them and started doing it here also.
Even with my rather large collection of novelty shirts, i'm most often in dress shirt and tie: a more classic look that can still be in the geekchic fashion. obviously not just a Final Fantasy belt buckle makes you geekchic: wear it with a TAPOUT shirt, and you're just a gamer douche (no offense to anyone). I still often wear my metal band t-shirt, but i don't really dress in the Metalhead style anymore, thus i don't really call myself this way.
this is an interesting reaction though, and perhaps i'll do another one on the geek culture more than just gaming.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 3:59pm BuddyJ Novelty t-shirts are pretty weak. TeeFury is by far the worst offender. It's like they have two wheels they spin to come up with a design. One wheel lists popular sci-fi shows (half the slots say "Dr. Who") and the other side is a mix of video games or pop culture references. They spin both wheels for ideas on shirts to make. None are particularly clever. Most make you groan. Some bring on full facepalms. I'm sure their design meetings go like this:

Boss: "What's our next uninspired design going to be? Bring me the wheel of ideas!"
Intern: (brings wheels)
Boss: "Oh great wheel, give us a sign. What unlicensed design should we produce next?"
Boss: (spins wheels)
Boss: SUPER PORTAL BROTHERS! Genius! Artists, get to work.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 4:09pm oni_dels @BuddyJ teefury is actually random people sending their design, but yeah just like anything else, sense of humour is not the same for everyone... I think novelty shirt can be great when it's not an overabuse of something (i.e.: how many Simpsons shirt i've seen that have nothing to do with the show itself...) i like it when it's something very precise in a game or tv show that only real fan will understand and that most people will just be like "well that's just a random shirt"
26 Mar 2012 ~ 5:04pm malia I completely agree with @poofie - geek (read: gaming) tee shirts seem like the lowest common denominator of geek chic. While I have to admit to owning this shirt http://www.spiffystudios.com/oxytocin-shirt, I've been a geek for circa 30 years now, and that type of thing is a very small portion of my wardrobe, and doesn't make it out of the house often. Instead geek chic tends to mean things like my favorite cat-eye tortoise shell glasses (with real Rx), blazers with oversized tees in bright colors, crazy scarves, and skinny jeans + converse - admittedly preppy geek, but it seems to work pretty well.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 5:31pm oni_dels @malia i do agree, and i haven't made this saying this is how you should be or look if you're a geek. Like anyone who went through highschool, you learn quickly that genre doesn't really define people, and you can dress the way you want, (well, you learn that after highschool) because fuck what people thinks. this was mostly for some cool shirts, with the exception of Thinkgeek who basically has a shit ton of cool other stuff too. It's usually easier to recognize a geek if he's wearing a koopa troopa shirt then if he's only wearing a generic black shirt and a jacket. (that is, beside talking to him/her and ask stuff like do you think the coffee is great in Twin Peaks?). although yes some/most of these shirts were based on gaming, there's also some great geek culture in there. Like i said even I don't wear these shirts everyday, but i think they are a great addition to a geekchic wardrobe. Going to a lan party or videogame con? i got a shirt for that. going to work? well that depends. I also wont go to dinner with my grandparents wearing a Glow-in-the-dark Boo from Super Mario... going to the pub? I wear tie and a jacket, and also skinny jeans and converse, 'cause converse are at least 10 kinds of awesome. In the non-gaming shirts I have a lot based on webcomics, Megatokyo and Penny-arcade mostly. these are geek(not gamer) shirts, although most people who reads these comics also are gamers.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 5:40pm primesuspect This is girls vs guys now.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 5:41pm RyanFodder
This is girls vs guys now.
... Careful....
26 Mar 2012 ~ 5:44pm primesuspect There are all kinds of geek subcultures. Most of the stores in this article are for gaming geeks. I know @poofie and @malia both and I wouldn't call either of them gaming geeks. They game, but it's not their core geek hobby.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 8:31pm Garg I don't permit myself slews of "cube goodies," since I have plenty of junk already. I'm not really into novelty t-shirts anymore, but did have some back when I lived on top of a mesa and it didn't matter what I wore.

I do have a weakness for coffee mugs & beer glasses of all kinds, though. I've been resisting the 70s Aperature Science mug, the Black Mesa mug, and the Vi mug from Thinkgeek, but my will is running out.
26 Mar 2012 ~ 11:21pm malia @oni_dels - Thanks for clarifying; I think my hang-up was really more that the OP seemed to be conflating geek culture as a whole with its gaming subculture. As prime mentioned, I'm probably geek first, then gamer (and totally pro webcomic), and since I work at a university - almost completely with other science/computer geeks - ppl do wear these shirts to work every day, although they're the minority to other, more creative (imho) geekchic options, so I guess I'm used to more daily diversity than the OP mentioned.
Also, I think @primesuspect may have a bit of a point with his "guys v girls" comment; until recently (well, in my lifetime at least), many of the traditional "geek" shirts weren't really made with women's sizing in mind, so we had to appropriate a bit of our own geekchic if we wanted something better than tent-shaped clothing to wear