| "Nothing to Prove" | |
|---|---|
| Song by The Doubleclicks | |
| from the album Lasers and Feelings | |
| Genre | Nerd-folk |
| Length | 3:53 |
| Songwriter(s) | Laser Malena-Webber Aubrey Turner |
| Audio sample | |
Short excerpt from the song, including the titular refrain. | |
"Nothing to Prove" is a feminist nerd-folk song by The Doubleclicks released on their second album Lasers and Feelings . It is a response to the misogynist concept of the "fake geek girl" and the subsequent bullying and gatekeeping prevalent within the geek community. The Doubleclicks released a crowd-sourced music video, featuring segments filmed by women within the geek community, that went viral and received over a million views.
The Doubleclicks, nerd-folk duo and siblings Laser Malena-Webber and Aubrey Turner, have personal history of being challenged about their "geek cred" at shows and online. [1] However, they were more concerned about young girls, just becoming interested in things but being bullied and shut out of the community by such behaviour just because of their gender. [1]
The idea for the music video concept came from screenwriter, and friend of the Webber siblings, Josh A. Cagan. [1] While touring, the duo recorded some clips of women holding signs about their geekery and how they have been challenged about it. [1] When they returned from the tour they solicited submissions online, receiving a "completely overwhelming" response. [1]
The video was released on YouTube on July 23, 2013. The video went viral, received 500,000 views within the first five days and soon exceeded one million. [1] [2] [3]
Laser does, however, acknowledge a lack of intersectionality in the video as the majority of the contributors were white, saying "That means I didn't try hard enough." [4]
The song was played before a panel called "Sex, Sexy and Sexism: Fixing Gender Inequality in Gaming" at PAX East in April 2014 to applause from the audience. [3]