I had been looking forward to last week’s new episode of Community, “Conventions of Space and Time”, which invited us into the inner workings of an official Inspector Spacetime convention, a place where Troy and Abed could meet other fans of the obscure British TV series, indulge in a few hobby-related purchases, and generally be themselves. As someone who’s been to C2E2 twice, Wizard World Chicago four times, three GenCons so far, two Star Wars Celebrations, and several local Trek conventions, I was curious to see how the generally geek-approved series would approach such a setting. I tried to keep my expectations modest — without creator Dan Harmon around anymore, this season’s first two episodes were a little shaky. I’ve stuck with the show and keep hoping for the best.

Several moments were accurate, true to my experiences — fans in costumes; whimsical photo ops; panels with limited seating; ubiquitous time-traveling phone booths; characters hated for reasons hard to explain to outsiders; unappetizing concession-stand pizza; and so forth. However, I was a little disappointed that the writers felt the need to use Jeff as this week’s counterpoint naysayer instead of Pierce. Despite having spent three seasons around Abed and Troy and getting to know them through-and-through, Jeff spends the first act spouting the same banal geek/nerd insults we’ve been hearing for decades — not just on TV, but on the Internet as well. As Jeff later learns a very special lesson about the error of his preconceptions, I had to shake my head that anyone on staff considered this lesson necessary, either for Jeff’s benefit or the viewers’.

It’s not the first time I’ve been let down by the portrayal of geek conventions on TV, and I doubt it’ll be the last. Such episodes tend to be assembled ostensibly as a well-intentioned nod to the fans, but fall flat more often than not. To you future sitcom writers out there: if you’re ever compelled to set an episode of your series at a con, I’d appreciate it tremendously if you could avoid these extremely basic tropes, cheap shots, and fallback assumptions in your script at all costs, unlike what this episode foisted upon us this week:

* Everyone attends in costume! No, we don’t. Cosplayers represent a creative, beloved, talented, sometimes enviable section of fandom whose works I enjoy seeing. They’re also a minority among attendees, representing maybe 5% of the population at best (amateur estimate). Personally, I don’t participate because I can’t sew and my physical features lend themselves to very. very few fictional characters. (I suppose I could attend as any number of overweight, four-eyed, bearded comic book creators. I’m not sure that counts, and I’d rather not be accosted by undiscerning fans asking for autographs or dying to tell “me” my work sucks.)

* Everyone’s a single virgin! My wife of 8½ years and I would dispute this, as would the numerous couples (older and younger) that we’ve met, chatted with, or merely seen milling among the crowds. Fans who attend the larger conventions even use the ‘Net (sites unaffiliated with the cons, mind you) to plan hookups with other fans of all persuasions during their big weekend. That’s never been my thing, but it’s a sort of dating service out there that many find useful. I’m not recommending or even condoning it; I’m just saying that some folks have thought this through and found ways to network and broaden their options.

* Everyone’s a guy! If you’re under the impression that women are never geeks and never attend cons, you’re several decades behind the curve. Seriously, catch up. Sure, we sadly still have misogynist pigs among the populace, but thousands upon thousands of women don’t let that deter them from joining the festivities. They’re not a micro-fractional minority that clusters in one corner and stays out of the way of the domineering menfolk, and they’re not clueless significant others dragged along against their will. I lamented the underrepresentation at InSpecTiCon in this episode, apart from guest star Tricia Helfer, plus Britta as a clueless significant other dragged along against her will. Sigh.

* Everyone lives in their parents’ basement! Again, we married homeowners would dispute this. Basement-dwelling jokes are among the hoariest put-downs of them all, and I can’t believe someone on the Community staff thought they were still funny or relevant enough to write one for Jeff.

* Everyone wears glasses! This particular pet peeve of mine isn’t directed at the Community episode per se, but needs to be stated for the record. This one was invoked by a recent Indianapolis Star article about a nerd speed-dating event (novel idea, IMHO, though the participants seemed ambivalent about the results). The article itself was even-handed, but it was accompanied by an underwhelming sidebar purporting to summarize the history of nerds-in-media, with the working definition of “nerd” being “anyone who wears glasses”. The writer was clearly an uninformed outsider who needed to axe the sidebar and find some other way to fill those column inches.

* Everyone’s a meek pushover, just asking to be bullied! Try imposing your will on the surlier fans with the scary tattoos, stern glares, and muscles you didn’t expect. Go ahead. Try. Or you could chat with them instead and learn for yourself that they’re also one of us.

* Everyone’s either obese or rail-thin! Okay, yeah, we’re a noticeable demographic, but not everyone at the cons has that issue. I see plenty of normal body types wandering around. For those seeking assistance, I know of at least one blog dedicated to nerd fitness, and geek icon Chris Hardwick’s part-humor/part-self-help tome The Nerdist Way has entire chapters devoted to the importance of balancing geek interests and physical health. Efforts are being made to reverse this historical trend.

* Everyone memorizes episode titles and stores entire character guides in their heads! Balderdash. Plenty of fans disregard episode titles in TV discussions and instead refer to “The one where…” Y’know those guys in the classic SNL “Get a Life” sketch that no one will ever let us live down, the ones who remember all the minutest minutiae and ask the most absurd questions at Q&As? Those are extreme examples. I wouldn’t say they’re nonexistent, but that level of dedication is hardly mandatory…let alone common anymore, in an era where any such info can be researched and accessed within seconds via smartphone. Thanks to today’s advanced technology, applied memorization is practically a thing of the past, for better or for worse.

* There’s plenty of space between booths and aisles for walking and breathing! Man, how I wish that were true. InSpecTiCon appeared to have 15-20 fans on the floor, tops, milling around a handful of booths the size of a small-town 4-H fair. Try sharing a convention center with tens of thousands of other humans for hours on end, and you’ll watch most of your personal space magically disappear. On the upside, that’s another easy way to meet other people at conventions…