Today’s article was just a short one, and engaging in what makes everyone roll their eyes: seeing something happen on Reddit and writing an article about it.
To cut it short:
- Billie Eilish (famous singer) uploaded a picture of her old Nintendo DSi in gallery of images, to her Instagram account
- Someone shared that on Reddit
- Half of the comment section slid straight into shitty gamer dude Hell (the other half did not)
- Some man on Mastodon attacked me
- Post removed from Reddit when moderators spotted the comments
…this is a fast-forward of the oddness, but if you want to read over my ramble here, and see some shittiness, the link will help:
https://gardinerbryant.com/you-dont-look-like-a-gamer/
I see this shit all the time, and it is not only exhausting, but something no one should see (no matter their identity) should be subjected to. Anyway, read on if you’d like!
Obviously this is not a representative sample, but it’s hard not to notice that the three redditors in these screenshots that are gatekeeping gaming all have female-presenting avatars. It makes me think of an article I read two or three years ago written by a black man saying he gave his son advice that in an emergency white cops were a significantly safer bet because institutionalized racism gives them a lot more leeway to show empathy towards minorities without being ostracized for it. A woman actually trying to fit into a misogynistic culture is going to feel more pressure to consistently prove her belonging, and can end up being more ruthless in enforcing the misogyny and more effective because her gender allows a cover of legitimacy.
anime girl PFPs are the new ‘xXx_420_BLAZE_IT_xXx’
…it’s the same dude who had a ar15/skull/COD Ghost PFP 10 years ago…
Anime avatars have been a thing for much longer than that but these are clearly not anime girls, it’s the thing where people customize the reddit logo to look like themselves. I might be wrong but I’m under the impression that the culture with these isn’t one where toxic masculinity will mesh with presenting as female.
One of them has a trans balloon, this seems to further ratify what you are saying, trying to validate a stereotype to fit in better. This is sad from humanity :(
Remember kids you can be who you are without needing external validation. Especially not external validation gotten by being against your “own group “
Remember kids you can be who you are without needing external validation. Especially not external validation gotten by being against your “own group “
I don’t think it’s quite that straightforward, because they’re doing this because they’re also perceiving gamers as their own group and feeling like being a part of two groups at odds with one another demands that a choice be made. Their version of not being against their own group begins with asking themselves “which group do I identify more with”, rather than asking whether the two have to be at odds with each other in the first place. The lesson is that your immutable characteristics are not character failures, and if you’re starting to feel like they are it’s really important to introspect on where that’s coming from.
I know people generally look at this kind of gatekeeping from the outside and write it off as a repressed self-hatred, but I’m kind of inclined to think of it the opposite way. If your immutable characteristics are a handicap to being a part of something important to you, then actually being accepted into that group is a triumph that most people with the same handicap can’t achieve. If gamers are cool and I don’t question the premise that girls aren’t fit to be gamers, then if I can kind of sort of be accepted in this space that’s still better than most other girls. The boys fit in better here of course, but it’s not impressive it’s just normal. This other girl is just larping because she wants to be like me.
We should strive to identify cultures of looking down on others. We should strive not to participate in that. Don’t just find comfort in being who you are, but allow others to find the same comfort with more ease than you had.
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If this happens to a celebrity posting about a 20 year old Nintendo game system, I can only imagine what it’s like for your average female logging into modern competitive shooter.
Gamergate never went away. It was the precursor to the youthful fadcisti, in many ways. We need women in these spaces to help diffuse the malignant culture. They’ll remain targets of harassment tho, so it’s up to everyone to police misogyny, and racism for that matter, too.
This shit is just so ridiculous when you step back and look at it. . . Like at toddler play when I was a kid and they gave the boys the toy trucks and gave the girls the dolls. That was in the fuckin early 70s and it was bollocks even then. Video games are for whoever wants to play with them, and so are trucks and dolls.
What losers. This is why there are safe places online. All it takes is one weirdo too. Social media, Reddit, even here. Theres a reason you should never reveal your real name on the internet. And aparently gender jeez. Wtf. Gateeeping is strange people. Its a fun thing to do for everyone.
Gateeeping is strange people.
That’s the weird thing. Shouldn’t people be thrilled that someone shared their love of a console? The gatekeeping is just the weirdest part of all of this. The new (and thoroughly shitty thing) is everyone shouting about people ‘larping’. It was all over the Sony PSP communities I scroll through, over the last few months. Why should anyone care what someone else is doing with a console? If someone buys something to use occasionally and look nice on a shelf…why care?!
I swear if I roll my eyes more at people’s actions they’ll just roll on out of my head.
edit hah, laughing at the downvote. I know just the kind of person you are!
We need better safe spaces. There we need to put those people, and then lock the doors. Safe.
Reading again I realized that can be easily misunderstood. I mean those idiots, not the people fleeing from them. Why should people need safe spaces to live their life without any harm to anyone? The others are the ones that should be kept away. You don’t like people that are different? Oh no! Tough luck. Fuck off then. Don’t come back.
I grew up hearing that what ever game I enjoyed, “was not a real video game.” And this was IRL, from people I knew and thought as my friends, at the time. If I tried to continue, it turned verbally abusive and my fave games got properly shitted on. So I learned to stay quiet and play only offline games, just play my lil games alone. These days I got real friends who’d like to play with me, but I’m too shy to go online… Like I want to, but just too afraid. It’s really fucking dumb.
Fyi I am your friend and I support your personal, self found flavour of games 🤙🏾
I think the only person posing as a gamer is Elon cause he pays people to farm his Diablo account. Everyone else gets a pass no matter what they play or how much they play.
I thought it was PoE he was caught paying to farm. Still a bitch move no matter the game though.
I think it was both.
I think the telling thing is that these angry gamer dudes are awfully lonely and would kill to have a girlfriend who shared at least some of their interests.
This kind of self-face punching comes from such a low self esteem that they have to reject the idea for fear of rejection in reality.
And then they go looking for every other reason to explain their loneliness epidemic.
Yeah, it’s not a clever or new observation to point out that the men who are mad they can’t meet women are the same ones who make being a woman in nerdy spaces suck, especially online gaming (but also plenty of irl spaces, my ex was a female magic the gathering judge and oh boy did she get treated poorly). But it is something still worth mentioning.
This also gets worse when genuinely nerdy women are anything other than the equivalent of the worst stereotypes of nerds. When you ask the question why wouldn’t some women of all sorts have been Tolkien heads or been playing ttrpgs since they were teenagers (or have always wanted to try), or been gaming since they were kids, then this behavior gets even more absurd.
If led Zeppelin could be super into Tolkien, why can’t Billie Eilish be a gamer? If Henry Caville can be as nerdy as he is, why can’t a similarly attractive actress be equally nerdy? If some of the guys at the game shop grew into their face and got into working out, why should you assume that that’s not a possible story behind a pretty woman who decides to come in?
Yeah, it’s not a clever or new observation to point out that the men…
Eh, thanks. I mean, that’s a bit of a harsh way to start a reply to a comment you then go on to agree with.
Ope sorry if it came off critical, I meant it in a form of “this has been said many times and yet it continues to bear the repetition that you engaged in and I’m about to”
Ah, my bad, no harm done and thank you for explaining that, it really is appreciated.
I find so much online discourse has become performative contrarianism that I’m probably a little over sensitive to it.
I like this place precisely cause of people like you two!
Totally fair lol, I too can get a little over sensitive to online comments for similar reasons.
The you don’t look like a gamer line has always been so tired. If someone plays games, they’re a gamer — no gatekeeping DLC required.
Yes and no. I’m sorry I refuse to count someone who exclusively plays Candy Crush on their phone as a “gamer”. I mean I’m not acting like it’s a exclusive title, but there is a reasonable minimum. You wouldn’t call someone an artist because they drew a stick figure doodle on their school notes.
By the logic everyone would be everything.
Okay I’ve read the article (although probably too fast) and the part where harassment can also be ‘exclusionary humour’ is like. Hit me in the brain.
I am female and visibly so. I use to frequent a local game store before it closed. And while I was mostly welcomed there (father would have raised hell if anything was overt, he knew the owner well) the amount of inside jokes, the “oh you wouldn’t understand”, “it’s fine” when I’d ask what they were talking about was just :<
But at least I meet my husband there. He’s cool. He loves sharing nerdy things with me.
I fucking hate dudes like this. I’m someone who has “nerdy” interests and such and naturally they tend to be male dominated because people keep gatekeeping and being misogynistic for no reason. I’d love to have to partner with similar interests in this regard but it’s made harder by the fact that the men in the spaces are the way they are and it’s hard to engage in that way without making the person uncomfortable because there’s a precedent for all sorts of weird behavior. And then these same incels complain they are unsuccessful, well please stop ruining it for the rest of us as well. Even in a non dating context having a more diverse hobby means a more diverse experience.
and naturally they tend to be male dominated because people keep gatekeeping and being misogynistic for no reason.
Why does every male-dominated space need to become inclusive? Why does the same not happen with female-dominated spaces? Why does this only happen in one direction?
Have you tried to be in a female dominated space? I’ve had zero issues being in majority female environments like dance classes or arts classes once they see you’re not there to hit on every single one of them.
Spaces can be man or woman dominant but they should not become this way through discrimination, only through self-selection. It does happen with women-dominant spaces as well.
This is the second comment I’ve seen in here by you. Each of them gross. You’ve got yourself a ban now, but I did not make it permanent. Once the 30 days is up and you’re back in here, please have a think before you type. This is not the kind of shit anyone wants to read in this space.
Why does this only happen in one direction?
The “friends” my husband had, well his friend’s husband, invited him to D&D he hosted. He was not interested. The guy begged, utterly begged him, he declined. I said, I will! I’ve always wanted to play. They declined, and I was really confused.
Realized a few months later after talking to the host’s wife more, it was a boys club, and I wasnt allowed. My husband declined because he knew they guys there, and well, knew who they were. The type to make the joke"hey I have a dishwasher!" and point to their wife, cringe shit. I was new, and just hadnt figured them out yet. My circle of friends was never like that.
They divorced, I must mention. My therapist is starting a new D&D therapy group next month after planning it for a year. So, im finally going to be ablevto learn to play!
If I had an all lady D&D group and a dude wanted to join, a dude could join, anyone could. Hell (fuck EA and the sims) but If I had a sims party, whatever that may be, a guy could come to that too. Im not different in front of people, for better or worse, I am the same for everyone.
This guy had a great analysis video, complete with interviews with victims, of toxicity towards female entry into male spaces. He goes historically into how video games were first age-neutral, then Nintendo made them “toys”, and toys were for boys, slowly leading to the space having a toxic exclusivity problem.
One of the best bits (which I unfortunately don’t have a timestamp for right now) is when he talks about his own experience as a kid, and how he inadvertently tried to exclude a family member when she started playing the game better than him.
how he inadvertently tried to exclude a family member when she started playing the game better than him.
Yep, that is a big part of the reason. There was a study where they showed: the top players weren’t as misogynistic as the bottom players when a woman played with them. So the conclusion is that to a lot of people they are really fragile and lash out because they aren’t as good as they like to be and fear losing ‘status’ if women would join our hobby.
Sadly I can’t find the study at the moment.
Years of playing multiplayer have taught me why girls play muted. And I do what I can but often that’s just getting some sweaty dude at the bottom of the leaderboard banned. It’s so often the same ones that are silent until the match is over and they’re blaming everyone but themselves.
Thanks for sharing this! It’s good to also hear men bring these issues up.
Guys, guys, it’s 2026, gamers don’t need to look like unhygienic basement dwellers anymore, get on with the times!
What if I like it?
You don’t need to be like that, but if you do, go nuts!
Thank you for sharing names. Easy blocks and reports. The irony was clearly lost with this guy and his concept of “compassion”.
Must still be practicing.
He said the concept of compassion for a reason though.
Growing up, PCs and video games were very much a boys thing and every time I saw someone outed as a girl/woman playing games, I was like “Nice! A unicorn!”.
And every time they played better than me, I was like “Wow, that’s amazing! Carry me, mommy!”So my toxicity went the other way, as in too enthusiastic. Or a simp as some might call it. “Don’t be mean to this rare, mythical creature or she might run away!”
Now that I’m older, I’ve been tempered somewhat. No longer do i simp biasedly. I can yell out both “Carry me, mommy/daddy!” shamelessly.
Good read! Thanks for sharing your work.
The comment section (in part) quickly becomes less about the device or shared memories, and more about performance: who is “allowed” to be associated with gaming culture, and on what terms.
Yuck, disgusting reddit behaviour.
I’m glad to report that my experience here in the fediverse has been quite plesant as wimmin folk with an interest in discussing games. ! I have to give a shoutout to my favourite comm !soulslike@lemmy.zip and our wonderful
overlordmod @v4ld1z@lemmy.zip and the folks over at the community for creating a cool and welcoming environment for everyone.Thank you so much for the shout-out - means a lot to me. Trying my best 💜
I’m quite surprised that in all the time moderating the community, I’ve barely, if at all, had to remove comments or posts due to toxicity of any kind, let alone misogyny or other forms of sexual discrimination. And that’s quite telling for a video game genre that’s so full of elitist #Gamers™ who bombard you with toxicity for playing a game a “wrong” way or having a different opinion about which game occupies which spot in an arbitrary ranking. Although, these issues primarily accompany reddit’s toxic neckbeard community, which we’re rid of for the most part
I mean what does a gamer look like? 35 year old neck beard? I mean I’m a 55 year old dude that’s been playing games since I was 6 years old. Do I look like a gamer?
Find somebody playing a game. Look at them. That’s what a gamer looks like. FFS it ain’t that hard.
