“There’s a lot of girls blogging about gaming…”
This is something that my fellow GD member, Sean, just uttered over our call. He’s new to tumblr, has no idea about the roves of feminists and anti-feminists or literal Nazis yet. He’s still just a tum-child, barely knows how to search tags. And that was the first thing he mentioned to me.
Now, considering that we are best friends and do quite often play together, he knows for a fact that girls play games. That didn’t stop him from falling into the stereotype about gaming, though. Why is that?
Why is it that when someone imagines people gaming, it’s usually boys? Why is it that the two most stereotyped versions of a “gamer girl” is either
a) a sexy hipster who has no idea what she’s doing but is doing it to get attention from boys
b) a fat slob that has no life and zero irl friends to complete her
Meanwhile, the stereotype most imagined about a boy gamer is:
drinks too much mountain dew, either extremely fat or extremely skinny and has pimples
Tumblr, I ask which is worse. Why is it that, when outside society looks in on the gaming world, it is stereotyped to put all gamers, not just girls, as bad looking and usually unproductive members of society? Why is it that, even with people inside the community, we often think of these stereotypes ourselves?
One of my other GDs, Mason, has a well-paying job, an amazing wife, and was in the Navy. He’s the oldest of our group. Sean is half-Asian, likes rap, and smokes pot. Ralk is a loving family boy from the South (of the US) who enjoys playing Sims and couldn’t be whiter if he tried. I’m a girl that uses video games as a way to relieve stress from my life, as well as play with the two friends who originally got me started on it.
Outside of us being friends, there’s nothing in common between us. I met Ralk in TF2 and thereby brought him into the GD. Sean and Mason met on Natural Selection 2. There’s no “gamer stereotype” that directly fits even one of us. There is no stereotype that fits the gaming community.
Today, girls are becoming more and more prevalent in gaming, but we still face difficulties. As of yet, there hasn’t been a single fellow female that I’ve talked to that hasn’t experienced either the perverted douchebag or the sexist douchebag. Sometimes these douchebags aren’t even guys. Sometimes other girls will attack new girls, too. It’s not scary at all, at least not for me. It is, however, extremely annoying. This is my 12 year old joins the game and is a squeaker level annoying. It’s complete and utter bullshit.
Another problem? Instead of helping people who are new to the game, or new gamers all around, we tend to yell at them and get angry when they’re on our team. We think they suck, despite if they even tell us that they’re new, and that they’re useless. We don’t give them the time of day and we don’t try to help them out to get more used to the game. I know that there are a few exceptions, but I think it’s safe to say that mostly everyone has seen this happen and either not spoken up or was that one decent person who actually tried to help the other player. This needs to change.
I want to do a call to action. If a guy starts harassing a girl, either sexually or by being extremely sexist, call him out on it and tell him he’s a dick. Hell, if another girl does that, tell her she’s a bitch and don’t let her do that shit. If someone uses any type of gaming stereotype? Call them out on it. If someone’s new to the game and you can tell from how they’re playing then offer advice and pointers. If someone offers you advice don’t be rude to them, they probably are just trying to be nice.
There is no gaming stereotype that is true. Gamers are a large and diverse group. We all need to stick out for each other and call out each other on any bullshit that we see. No yelling at newbies. No harassing females or anyone else. We’re gamers, not barbarians, even if we play a game where we are. We can damn sure act civilized.
