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The term "gamer"
I would like to be able to play video games while distancing myself from that label as much as possible. "Gamer" is no longer (perhaps it never has been) just "someone who plays video games" and it is too time and energy inefficient to try reclaiming that definition from angry white boys.
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[user deleted]
Was gamer ever a positive label for the people who saw it as just another one of their hobbies anyway? I suspect the current shitstorm will mostly pass outsiders by, even if more mainstream news outlets are publishing about it. Also, Hoff-Sommers is getting in on the squabble.
Anyways, Gaming Feminist Illuminati might be fun to adopt instead: http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/read/gamings-feminist-illuminati
Christ, are we actually jumping on this bitter, spiteful bandwagon?
"Someone who plays video games" has always been the core of the definition. What extra conditions, limitations, elaborations, assumptions, and stereotypes are added to it vary from person to person, social context to social context.
I would like to be able to watch anime while distancing myself from that label as much as possible. "Anime fan" is no longer (perhaps it never has been) just "someone who watches anime" and it is too time and energy inefficient to try reclaiming that definition from angry white boys.
I would like to be able to browse online while distancing myself from that label as much as possible. "Netzien" is no longer (perhaps it never has been) just "someone who surfs the web" and it is too time and energy inefficient to try reclaiming that definition from angry white boys.
I would like to be able to live in the UK while distancing myself from that label as much as possible. "British" is no longer (perhaps it never has been) just "someone who lives in the United Kingdom" and it is too time and energy inefficient to try reclaiming that definition from angry white boys.
I would like to be able to live while distancing myself from that label as much as possible. "Human being" is no longer (perhaps it never has been) just "someone who has opposeable thumbs and doesn't go 'Ook' (At least not most of the time)" and it is too time and energy inefficient to try reclaiming that definition from angry white boys.
Insomnia makes me facetious
See, the thing is, the recent trend of saying that "gamers are dead" has accomplished absolutely nothing productive. The reason for this being is that very few gamers out of the millions who exist today really had a stake in any of this drama initially. So when more than eight different games journalism sites run the exact same article saying that gamers are defined by misogyny and should just stop being gamers, they are going to get angry because they really don't have any clue what the fuck they're being attacked for. They are systematically dragged though the mud and shat on by journalists for something that they had absolutely nothing to do with.
So, how exactly does a gamer defend themselves? Short answer: they don't. They can't abandon the label of "gamer" because it means something important to them and satisfies their need for social belonging, and if they in any way object they immediately get insulted, bullied, or harassed for it.
So what do they do instead? They strike back. They seek out like-minded individuals who are similarly hurt and loudly and aggressively call out the people who've bullied them. This escalates further as both parties attempt to try to shut down the other by turning up the aggression and self-righteousness to 11, which quickly reached a fever peak in the last few days.
Thankfully, the sheer amount of shit that's been being slung around has turned enough heads that a lot of the people involved have started to back down or otherwise find some rationality within the madness. The co-founder of the Escapist has apologized for the conduct of the site contributors and elaborated that they don't believe the term gamer needs to die. Moviebob also issued an apology over Twitter, as did Mike Bithell. Several feminists have even started to raise doubts about the issue, such as one blogger who goes by the pseudonym Ariel Conner.
I'm am desperately hoping that this marks a change in the overall language and methods used to discuss social justice issues online, because for a while now there has been a lot of seriously shitty behavior in its name that's only been exacerbated by the difficulty of communicating ideas clearly through text. It's extremely difficult online to tell if the person you're talking to is a genuine bigot or just some random shmuck who wants to do good but has no idea what the fuck is going on. That, combined with the infamous Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, results in a total loss of any sense of proportionality and the complete inability to aim your justifiable anger at inequality at the right targets.
Except that "gamers" created the division in the first place by excluding anyone too "casual" from the label. Even before Anita Sarkeesian, the "hardcore" types were declaring war on the Wii and the new audience it brought. So my sympathy is extremely limited, because I have already got the message that I am not welcome. I am becoming increasingly casual in my video gaming, so I don't want someone that doesn't represent me speaking on my behalf. You want "gamer" to not have the negative connotation? Stop letting exclusionists control the discourse. In fact, that is what people calling for the end of the label actually mean; that video game players are far more than a bunch of assholes who couldn't care less about anything other than their games.
As for being bullied, where were those "gamers" when the hardcore types were bullying anyone deemed too "casual?" Why are those who were complicit before speaking up now?
No. Stop derailing the issue with your appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. The way game journos have handled this is unacceptable, and nothing will ever convince me otherwise, so stop trying to demonize us for having the courage to stand up for ourselves.
The fact of the matter is, I can't do anything about the people who demonized "casual" gamers in the past. If I see it happening, I call them out on their bullshit, but I'm not everywhere at once and I can't stand up for everyone at once. I'm only one person.
Being a "gamer" is a part of who I am. It's a part of my identity, even if it is an admittedly small one compared to the many facets of myself. But I can't simply discard it on a whim because other people don't like it.
Console wars, tourneytards versus scrubs, PC master race: elitism won't stop just because there's some consciousness raising happening(true-art-is-angsty walking simulators versus dudebrah rooty-tooty-pop-up-n-shooty has been happening for years now). The greatest mistake was taking the word of people who said all of online gaming's thrash talk, harassment and smut was somehow part of the format seriously. Instead of better blocking policies, better training for con security, company-endorsed safe space servers and the like, we get garbage like this, in which the content of the games facilitates the abysmal behaviour of its players and inconcrete mindfulness is the solution to problems happening right now: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/DevinWilson/20140828/224450/A_Guide_to_Ending_quotGamersquot.php
It's the fangless flipside of the 'stop overthinking it' defense. Especially 11 is hilarious with regards to this screencap from the other side of the aisle: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-spU9yAj3nYA/T0ZEvhF6oLI/AAAAAAAAAe4/YgIhwOnHupk/s1600/fun+is+just+a+buzzword.jpg
[user deleted]
[user deleted]
Yep, I try to do this too. Not that easy since I don't have that many avenues where I can -- I'm on Twitter, but not Reddit nor Tumblr nor SA nor GameFAQs nor a number of other higher-traffic gaming-related sites. That said, I guess the benefit of being in smaller places is that when I do see stupid opinions I get the time to take the opinions apart and pin them down.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I personally was never complicit. I've had opinions about the way the gaming world is going for years now. If anything, the problem was that I never had much occasion to voice those opinions -- I would naturally self-select for those communities that I'm personally interested in (barring any altruistic intentions of getting myself into trouble just to support a cause). And thus it comes as little surprise that I joined forums related to Final Fantasy or Mega Man.
Also for some reason I never really felt much impulse to join huge forums. I still haven't figured out why, but I think it's a combination of not really enjoying some standard internet behaviors, never feeling hyped about the next big thing (regardless of what it is), and feeling that smaller communities were more "manageable" in terms of becoming comfortable with them. I think that, had I joined larger communities such as GameFAQs earlier, I might have run into more occasions to make my opinions known -- if this is my fault, then I apologize. That said, I would question how reasonable it would be to expect me to go join forums just to espouse opinions -- it (1) seems almost like trolling (the bad kind), and (2) ascribes a level of self-sacrificing altruism that even I'm hesitant to say that I have.
As for the label, I honestly have stopped giving that many shits about what people think of it.
I can call myself a gamer in front of people for whom I want them to hear me calling myself a gamer. And I can not call myself a gamer in front of those people for whom I don't want them to hear me calling myself a gamer. And I get to choose who goes into those categories. And by my choices I can implicitly espouse opinions if I need to. For example, if someone starts a thread decrying "casuals" as not being "real gamers", I can use the term "gamer" in my response rebutting their point.
At the end of the day, I'm still playing videogames, and a person playing video games by any other name would play just as much videogames.
[user deleted]
Can we get out of the way that no-one here has to establish any credentials that are common sense? Speaking out against the useless 'end gamers' red herring does not mean you condone or passively tolerate rape/death threats and harassment. Criticizing videogames for any -isms does not automatically mean you want to shift the whole format of videogames to some sort of strawman message-over-gameplay paradigm.
Yeah, I don't blame you. In fact, I was overly harsh in the "complicit" assessment, since it is not easy to be an active bystander on the Internet and doing so on a large Internet forum is masochism. And if you avoid online gaming, you avoid the worst of the bullying anyway. I suspect online gaming creates this solipsistic disconnect that creates a different player attitude compared to Nintendo-Land style games involving friendly banter with real-life family and friends (such as shown by James Rolfe and co.).
It's frustrating. Games are evolving, yet a bunch of so-called gamers are refusing to evolve with it. If games are art, then they should be held to the same standards as other art forms, yet we still stick to predominantly violent power fantasies and deny any criticism of it. Heck, Metroid: Other M's primary defense is that it has a story at all. I do have hope for the future of gaming, but the online community is a major obstacle to that.
Still, I think the best thing anyone can do to be a good Internet bystander is promoting safe spaces. Going after "hardcore" gamers isn't really productive (since only the internal fighting game community defends the Cross Assault harassment, for instance), so it's better to focus on everyone else. And I think Glenn has the right idea.
[user deleted]
That might have been a contributing factor for me not really feeling in touch with a lot of the crap that people throw around. I rarely do online gaming (or multiplayer gaming even, more generally), and even then, only for a select few games. I've mentioned elsewhere that it seems that at least for a significant chunk of people it seems that they practically expect games to have some sort multiplayer game mode, while my own game library consists mostly of single-player games, and I've only been heavily involved in a couple online multiplayer games (TF2 and 100% OJ), so I've been insulated from much of the stupidity such as trash-talking and misogyny.
I do see crap from time to time, though I try to call it out in a "that's not cool" way rather than a "you're wrong!" way, since the first one (I think) makes my opinion more appealing.
"It's frustrating. Games are evolving, yet a bunch of so-called gamers are refusing to evolve with it. If games are art, then they should be held to the same standards as other art forms, yet we still stick to predominantly violent power fantasies and deny any criticism of it. Heck, Metroid: Other M's primary defense is that it has a story at all. I do have hope for the future of gaming, but the online community is a major obstacle to that."
Everything that's art still follows Sturgeon's Law. Movies, books, etcetera are no less prone to rote genre crap where the conflict is resolved through violence, the hero is rewarded with a maiden and so on and so forth. Saying that games are evolving instead of diversifying fuels the paranoid nonsense that the current trend wants to fundamentally alter the nature of all games everywhere, which is quatsch.
That pretty much tells me all I need to know about you and your motivations.
No I'm not. I'm saying that it's not okay for entirely innocent people to be labeled "neckbeards", "manbabies", "losers", and "misonynists" when most of them didn't even know or care about the controversy until game journalists started insulting them.
I'm not talking about the actual misogynists or idiots who harass other people, mind you. Those guys are dicks, and I won't defend them. No, I'm talking about the people who want nothing more than to play their games and have not done anything wrong who have the exact same level of vitriol spewed at them because the people doing so are too clueless and short-sighted to direct their anger at the right people.
Courage is being able to stand up to the people who are committing an injustice against you. I don't see what's so controversial about that.
What's so ridiculous about not wanting to be bullied and demonized for adopting a group identity that satisfies the need for social belonging?
The "or care" is the problem.If you count yourself a member of a group, and people do horrible things in the name of that group, you don't get to not care about it.
Right, and insulting and harassing them for not caring is certainly going to convince them you're the side they want to be on. /s
Honestly, the biggest reason that this whole thing pisses me off isn't because of the attack on the label of "gamers." It's that the people who take comfort in that label literally have no way of arguing that they'd rather keep the label because it's something that helps solidify their status as part of a community that fulfills their basic human need for belonging. If you abandon the label of gamer, you lose something important to you, but if you don't, you get attacked for daring to hold on to it. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Plus, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, a lot of the current rhetoric seems to be highly prejudiced against the autistic. There are some people who are talking about redefining "gamer" from the stereotypical "socially awkward nerd", which seems to be either ignorant or unsympathetic to the fact that many can't help but be socially awkward. Sometimes it really is just people who are using a righteous cause as a shield to deflect any attempt to call out the fact that they are acting like total dickheads.
This is why I'm so glad that so many people have started issuing apologies for the way they're acting. This whole thing has gotten so ridiculously out of hand that even the ones who are so stubbornly insistent in their own ways can't help but realize that they might have gone to far. Fuck, at this point it's really just fighting for the sake of fighting, nobody has any clear "goal" in mind anymore except to tear down others with empty rhetoric.
I'm not seeing a ton of insulting and harassing coming from that side.Totalbiscuit got death threats for daring to speak out on the issue from a more "neutral" standpoint.
Did he? I'm not seeing anything in a quick Google or the first couple screenfuls of his Twitter. A citation would be appreciated.
Apparently he did.
Really though, you'd have to have a pretty spectacular case of "not-paying-attention-itis" to not know just what's been going on.
I mean, when you have people saying things like "gamers are sociopaths who should be put in jail?" Yeah, I'd like you to try to defend that to me.
As far as I can tell, what's been going on is: a woman was harassed out of her own home (by "gamers"), which is not worth caring about; and then some websites published snarky articles, which is approximately the greatest crime perpetrated in human history.I've had extremely limited internet access for most of the last two weeks, so I apologize for having not read every single tweet that's been made about it.
Yup, there isn't even the minutest chance that that's a joke.I'd hardly call articles that flat out claim "gamer" to be equivalent to "terrible person" nothing more than "snarky." They're hit pieces that are written for what is equivalent to character assassination against millions. If it's really about critiquing games culture as they're saying, then they do a piss-poor job of actually making it about that by demanding everyone else drop the label "gamer."
Also, you're making the assumption that it's not okay to care about both of these things, which as far as I've been able to tell just isn't true.
So it's okay to say incredibly mean-spirited and hurtful things as long as you make the rationalization that it's a joke? Fuck. That. Shit.
You and everyone else here needs to stop jumping on this hateful bandwagon and fucking apologize for this atrocious behavior. This is not okay. This is never okay. And the fact that you're so willing to rationalize, make excuses for, and otherwise look the other way when this shit happens proves that you lack the empathy to care about how you people like you might effect others. What you're doing is bad and you should be ashamed of yourself.
When even Moviebob of all people is willing to apologize for how he might have hurt others and you aren't, then what does that say about you?
Does nobody else here have a problem with the way that news is presented?
It's one person on twitter who sent her death threats. It would never amount to anything. 'Forced out of her own home' sounds like a better headline than 'Received a death threat'. It's streamlining and sensationalizing the issue to create a very convenient and easily digestible narrative about how a poor woman was demonized by mean white men. It reeks.
I'm not saying that people sending death threats is okay (It is absolutely not. The person needs to be found and sent to prison), and I also don't think the police should have treated it with anything less than total seriousness but the buck ends there. As soon as she flees her house and turns herself into a super internet victim ( ;___________________________
I stop caring. She's been forced out her home by nobody. It's a tabloid story.
Also the first (I think) person to write one of those asinine 'Gamers are dead' articles also started the even more asinine #reclaimanimeavatars hashtag on twitter because apparently they've been usurped by fascists. This presumably came from some shit Phil Fish said a few weeks ago, though it might go back further. It's stuuuuuuuupid.
Also this is a great article. Especially the first few paragraphs.
PS: I'm a feminist (And a third wave one at that!) and agree wholeheartedly with the points Sarkeesian clumsily makes in her videos. I can't relate to male protagonists in games if they're not very well written. I want more female characters.
No, they're really not. The point is that normal people who play video games can and should step away from the "gamer" label because a) everyone plays video games now and it's barely even something worth mentioning, b) a lot of people who self-describe that way are incredibly shitty.I can sort of understand the reaction from people who are used to calling themselves "gamers", but reality really has moved on from the 90s. We don't go around saying "oh yeah, I'm a book-reader". The term has been largely useless outside of no-true-Scotsman arguments for a long time now.
Did I say that? I wasn't talking about whether or not making that tweet was "okay", I was talking about whether or not that guy or anyone else actually believes the things he's saying there. Which they don't. (Though that particular tweet is so blatantly unserious that I can't even wrap my head around the idea of taking it seriously...)