So the top post in the Men’s Rights subreddit for a time yesterday, with hundreds of upvotes, was a post devoted to the question: “Why should male gamers change their behavior?” Yep, apparently the sacred right of men and boys to harass women and girls on Xbox live is one of the most important Men’s Rights issues of the day. Here’s how the OP, IsItRacistToAsk, framed the issue:
[G]amers themselves (until relatively recently) were a 90% male community. This goes back really far if you count non-video-game games (like Dungeons and Dragons and the like). Now all of a sudden they’re expected to just behave differently because some girls want to join?
I’m not saying girls shouldn’t be welcome in gaming communities, I’m just comparing them to someone who shows up, uninvited, to a house party and demands everyone go out and get blue plastic cups because red offends her.
Well, no, it’s more like a girl or a woman going to a public event, open to everyone, and facing a small army of creepy dudes who come up to her making sandwich jokes and calling her a bitch and a whore and a fat slut and demanding that she show her tits and when she refuses telling her “I hope your vibrator shorts out and fries your fucking vagina.”
The OP’s response to harassment? Well, guy gamers regularly get called “faggot” and “n*gger,” so girls and women should just suck it up.
Yeah, it would be too much to ask to suggest that guy gamers actually stop calling each other racist and homophobic slurs as well. Because, really, how can you possibly enjoy Call of Duty without calling some guy who’s just shot you a “fag.” Seriously, gals, you need to model yourselves on the mostly straight white dudes of Reddit who really don’t mind when people call them “n*ggers” and “fags.”
The discussion (more than 700 comments worth at the moment) is about as terrible as you might expect, filled with epic shitlordery and self-congratulation and calls for the gals to “man the fuck up,” with only a handful of commenters having anything bad to say about the culture of harassment in online gaming. Indeed, most of the gamers in the conversation seem to feel proud that online gaming culture is as shitty as it is.
Some highlights:
JonLR won himself more than a hundred upvotes for this self-congratulatory assholery:
By asking to never be made fun of, they’re essentially asking for special treatment. These days, ‘gamer girls’ go on and on about wanting to be treated like everyone else, but then cry when they are?
I used to play Quake 1 online, and a lot of the players knew I was short (5’7″). I got called a fucking midget every game, haha. My asian clanmate got called a chink every game. Fat people got called fat, girl players got called sluts, everyone made fun of everyone. No one cared. It was all aimed at throwing people off their game.
What the fuck happened in the past 15 years that made it the worst thing imaginable to insult a girl in gaming? Whatever it was, it’s embarrassing to witness.
Oneiorosgrip got nearly two hundred upvotes for her special snowflaking:
I’m not a video gamer – long time tabletop gamer though…
Remembering when I was the only girl in the group, it strikes me that modern gamer girls are spoiled princesses who expect to walk a path they did not forge, without ever seeing any of the dirt along the side. Those of use who played before there was internet, before there was linking between video game systems… before there were RPGs on video game systems, for that matter… we didn’t earn our place among the gaming community by whining about shit like that. You had to be able to take it, and dish back, or you took your dice and went home.
I took my dice and went home only once, and found that to be a wholly unsatisfying response. After that, I learned to eschew restraint and mouth off in kind. That was more effective, and more fun, and I think it would be the more appropriate handling of today’s gaming environment, as well.
In other words, IMO, modern girl gamers really just need to man the fuck up.
Men’s Rights subreddit regular Demonspawn was his normal charming self:
Men take the shit to make a niche, once it’s successful women want to take it over.
This is the world order, nothing new about it. I’m just glad that gamers are finally saying “No.”
Sidetracking got dozens of upvotes for suggesting that women and girls just hide their identity and pretend to be guys, because gamer girls who acknowledge their gender online are just attention whores hungry for female privilege anyway:
When anybody plays a video game, without talking, they are pretty much concealed. Nobody really knows what gender, age, etc. In real life, girls expect this privileged talking, because people want to engage in intercourse with them, however, over a video game, this privilege is gone. In order to get the privilege back they say “Hey, I’m a girl”, not knowing that this privilege is completely removed over the internet. Then they get over-sensitized when someone calls them a bad name, when they don’t realize that pretty much everyone calls anyone out over the internet.
Daysleepin83 also got dozens of upvotes for talking about the kinds of “gamer girls” he hates the most: The ones who complain and the ones who, evidently,wear no clothes.
For the most part i really don’t give two shits about what sex my opponent is.
But there are two types of “gamer girls” that really piss me off. There are those like Anita Sarkeesian who seem to bitch and nag about all that is sexist and wrong with video games. Doesn’t really offer any solution to the problems she digs up, aside from telling us we need to change. …
Then there is the second group, they don’t so much as piss me off but more like aggravate me. The sexy gamer girl. … Could she be a legitimate gamer? Sure of course she could be. I could also one day become the Pope. Till she puts some clothing on and picks up that controller i am not going to take her serious as a gamer.
MrDorph explained that he hates those “girl gamers” who “have to shove down your throat.” (Shove what? Your own assholery?)
The issue I have is girl gamers who have to shove down your throat. I imagine the majority just don’t give a shit and tend not to talk or if they do its not provocative. The moment I hear “hey guys” I leave, I can’t be bothered with the shit storm that comes with it.
Ghebert001 told the “poor things” to get used to shitty treatment, in online gaming and everywhere else:
Bottom line is women need to learn to adapt to the “environment” (environment meaning gaming community, workplace, etc.) instead of always expecting that the “environment” adapt to them and use language like “it makes me uncomfortable” to shame others in that “environment” to accommodate them at their own expense.
Throwing in the obligatory, “women” =/= all women…don’t want to offend the poor things. Oh wait, there I go accommodating again!
Yourotherusername wins points for pomposity with this response to the OP:
Well put. Like many things, the environment of gaming has it’s own language. It isn’t the language of Shakespeare or high-finance. It’s high context communication. It’s code. It isn’t (usually) to be take at face value. The problem for the people who complain, is that the marketers who attracted them to play the game, didn’t tell them how the game is played and the vocabulary needed.
If a person hangs out with a group of people not in their normal click, they need to understand that what is being said, might not actually be what was meant, and until they grasp the context, they need to keep their mouth shut if they don’t want to look like an asshole. I’d much rather ‘learn the language’ than try to change a sub-culture.
Take reddit for example. Expect masturbation jokes. Expect memes. Expect stereotypes. But in all of that, you will find that once you adapt and understand the context, it becomes more than a middle school locker room (especially in the smaller subreddits). IF you are so bold as to challenge the nature of communication on Reddit by admonishing others and trying to get them to change their way, you will be anathema, and most likely down voted to hell. The best you can do to change the language, is to be an example of what you want, and hope to flying spaghetti monster, that it catches on.
TLDR: Go with the flow or don’t go at all.
Reddit: Awful and proud of it.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Men’s Rights subreddit, someone has once again posted a link to the “The Catalogue of Anti-Male Shaming Tactics,” because god forbid anyone ever say anything “shaming” about MRAs for being the shitty people they are.
Some guy, from the popularity of the Shakeville post you could conclude feminists like movie quotes. From the Subreddit post you could conclude MRA on that Subreddit believe that gamers putting considerable effort into insulting women/gay people/non-white people online is reasonable.
It might not be a key MRA issue, defending severe insults, rape and death threats might just be a bit of fun for MRA like sharing movie quotes is a bit of fun for some feminists. I don’t know many movie quotes so I find sharing them dull, but I’d still rather be friends with people who get their kicks sharing movie quotes rather than defending being verbally aggressive and threatening violence. Ugh, I guess that is misandary.
@ David- Bahaha at the list of anti-male shaming tactics! Apparently pointing out people are using sexist stereotypes is an anti-male shaming tactic.That’s alI I got from a quick skim- I have to go back for more detail. am looking forward to some entertaining reading. Oh dear, I am probably man-shaming right now.
Ah man, they went from funny to creepy really fast: “You guys are scary.” “You make me feel afraid.” is apparently a shaming tactic now- Holy shit, I’m sorry my rational fear response to your crazy hate mongering is making you feel bad, poor ashamed dude scaring the wits out of me. You know, instead of the recommended response: ‘how do you expect women to be leaders in this world if they still have a sense of self preservation!!!” maybe you should just leave. Like fuck off. Because you are scaring a person.
Whataboutthemoonz, that’s so cruel. Lego hurts.
Oh. My. God. And, apparently, suggesting that these dudes won’t get laid counts as force. Seriously. Like, remember how one of the major issues at the Geneva convention wasn’t women withholding sex from men? Because sex is not that bloody important and people can live long happy healthy lives without it? Christ, how entitled do you have to be?
Hmm? How exactly is saying that someone probably won’t get laid “force”?
Saying a dude can’t get laid if he’s an asshat apparently falls under the fallacy ‘appeal to force’ in their eyes. Because people are required to like you, no matter what horrible prejudices you have against them.
No seriously, if you think harassing women is your god-given right…you shouldn’t expect to get laid.
There’s pretty much no way to reach that conclusion without starting from the assumption that sex is something that men are entitled to. Ick. You’d also have to believe that women are not supposed to have any preferences at all about who they have sex with.
“Saying a dude can’t get laid if he’s an asshat apparently falls under the fallacy ‘appeal to force’ in their eyes. Because people are required to like you, no matter what horrible prejudices you have against them.”
Lol, they have their appeals to pity crossed with their appeals to force, that’s -2 pts on Spot That Fallacy!!
And girls don’t play games? Wtf did my neighbor and I do with all those hours after school then? I’ll have to inform her that all those times she kicked my ass as Samus don’t count since she and Samus are both girls…this does make me ask wtf gender yoshi is then, or was I an androgynous ninja playing an androgynous dinosaur? o.O?
“Whataboutthemoonz, that’s so cruel. Lego hurts.”
I stepped on a nail once and thought it was a lego, those fuckers definitely hurt!
Here’s a list of reasons why “Gamer Girls” (not girl gamers, mind you, but Gamer Girls) are wrong in their pursuit to change gaming culture.
1). They’re just playing victim, and for no good reason. I’m perfectly capable of never interacting with strangers online. I keep to myself (I’ll group up with friends, but don’t communicate with strangers unless it’s about strategy) and guess what happens: No one sends terrible messages to me or does crazy stuff. If you put yourself out there, male or female, some people will attack you. Gamer Girls like to point out that the attacks that they receive are based on their gender, but so are the attacks on men. We’re called f*gs and so on. But so what? It’s a competitive environment, and some people can’t handle that without becoming a**holes. Oh well. Shed your tears if you must, and then move on.
2). Gamer Girls complain about representations of women, and this is highly hypocritical considering they never bother to mention that it’s equally as bad for men. For every sexy video game vixin, there’s a male cannon fodder soldier who’s a meathead that doesn’t show any emotions. Why, oh why, is it that Gamer Girls are the only ones to complain about this despite the fact that they aren’t the only ones to experience it? Well, see point 1 (playing victim).
3). The only way to make gaming culture sufficiently comfortable for victim-minded women is to make games less competitive and more cooperative. Which is what I suspect will happen if Gamer Girls have their way. The problem is, if Gamer Girls successfully destroy yet another male space, then all of the male gamers are going to move on to something else, and it’s probably going to be something less pleasant like learning Game or just angrily hating women while they play “Friendship Helpers 3: The Friendening” on Facebook. I’m not saying that’s okay, but it’s going to happen.
4). No Girl Gamer creates anything of her own. All these Girl Gamers are doing is tearing down a culture that others created for themselves which they enjoy. I don’t like racial slurs, but I enjoy the cutthroat competition and the crap talking. Without that, gaming would just be bland and pointless. If Gamer Girls get timid around masculine pasttimes, then maybe they should create their own instead of tearing down something that’s working for others. Except that won’t happen, because in order to do what Gamer Girls are doing, by trying to change the culture by shaming gamers, they have to have a strong sense of hypoagency. That is, they have to feel completely powerless and afraid to act on their own behalf, and therefore will be completely incapable of creating anything of their own.
What these Gamer Girls, like Anita Sarkeesian, won’t admit is that they NEED men to change the culture for them. They have completely rendered themselves helpless and inactive and so they hope men will do the work of dismantling men’s pasttime to make it better for a minority of women who feel like victims. Looks like video games are going to be going way downhill in the near future.
If you’re playing D&D or similar: “Go step on a d4″
Or “Go step on a caltrop.”
Hellkell has my favorite insult: “Eat a bowl of bees.”
You guys know there’s a vegetable called a caltrop, right? The first time I saw one IRL I was all, Cthulhu has a farm and grows produce?
http://chef-a-gogo.com/wp-content/uploads/buffalo%20chestnut%20krajab%20water%20caltrop-004.JPG
I’m not kidding btw, it’s an actual…technically I guess it’s a fruit rather than a vegetable? But it’s not sweet. Supposed to have medicinal qualities. You can buy them at good Chinese grocery stores, and it looks like you’re buying a package of tiny little demons for dinner.
http://sennyong.blogspot.com/2009/11/good-health-anti-cancer-ling-jiao-trapa.html
I had no idea! They look like false mustaches to me.
Hellkell has my favorite insult: “Eat a bowl of bees.”
As a bee, I take offence to this.
I’ve heard so many nerds of many kinds talk about “fake” nerds and how bad it is. Yet I’ve never heard one give even a reason at all, let alone a good reason as to why that may be.
Also, they talk about how guys get insulted as well. But isn’t what’s close to, if not the most common complaint about online gaming is constantly being insulted by kids?
The “catalogue of anti male shaming” top comment says
The most common one these days is their sarcastic, “but what about the menz?!!?!” which is uttered to derail any discussion of men’s rights.
But that only gets used on feminist blogs!
They’re going round to feminist blogs, demanding people talk about men, and then accusing the people who laugh at them of “derailing” the discussion they want to force them to have.
I’m just comparing them to someone who shows up, uninvited, to a house party and demands everyone go out and get blue plastic cups because red offends them… and then accuses the people who mock them of using “shaming tactics” and goes back to reddit and whines about the injustice. And describes themselves as an activist for participating in this activity.
Let’s apply this logic to other things in life!
Mugging victims:
They’re just playing victim, and for no good reason. I’m perfectly capable of never walking outside alone. I stay in my house, and guess what happens: No one stabs me with a knife, or steals my wallet. If you go outside, male or female, some people will attack you.
People who have been harassed at work:
They’re just playing victim, and for no good reason. I’m perfectly capable of never having a job. I live in my parents’ basement, and guess what happens: No one harasses me at work. If you have a job, male or female, some people will attack you.
Kids who are bullied:
They’re just playing victim, and for no good reason. I’m perfectly capable of never going to school. I dropped out after fourth grade, and guess what happens: No one bullied me at school. If you attend classes, male or female, some people will attack you.
There you have it, kids – the appropriate way to respond to people treating you badly is to never, ever do anything that might bring you into contact with people! That is clearly a vastly superior solution compared to suggesting that maybe people don’t really need to call you a stupid cunt and threaten to rape you!
Exactly! Threatening to rape people is an involuntary reflex, you guys! How could we be so unreasonable as to think people have control over the words they speak or type? How absurd!
I’m sorry, I just fell off my chair laughing.
Phil, kiddo, I hate to break it to you, but someone with a male-sounding name appears to be complaining right now.
Exactly! I mean, heaven knows there’s no way to compete with people without cursing at them and threatening to rape them. Hence why professional sports encourage athletes to curse at and threaten each other as much as possible, and absolutely do not have rules against that sort of thing! And hey, every high school mathlete can testify to the fact that, in between trigonometry problems, it was absolutely standard procedure to scream racial slurs at the other team! I can’t imagine why anyone would think competition while acting like a reasonable adult is at all possible, because there are clearly zero examples of people competing against each other without saying they’re going to rape each other in the eyeballs. ZERO.
Watch out, ladies! He’s not saying it’s OKAY for men to engage in nasty, threatening, abusive behavior. He’s just saying if you don’t do exactly what they want, they WILL, and it’ll be YOUR FAULT.
So true! I for one have never created anything in my life. Not one thing! This is also an indisputable truth about all women who enjoy video games. Felicia Day, for example, is noted for her complete lack of creative endeavors.
Exactly. Whereas male gamers all single-handedly coded every game they have ever played. Skyrim, for example, is only played by developers at Bethesda and evil, nasty girls trying to ruin things for those poor developers.
The point of gaming: crap talking. Specifically, crap talking with racial slurs, because it is impossible to have crap talking without them. All of you who thought it was something like “fun” or “competition” or “stabbing gnomes in the face,” you are clearly deluded, because Phil is here to enlighten us, and the point of gaming – all gaming, even single-player gaming – is racial slurs.
The best way to prove you’re not powerless is to do nothing and accept the status quo, because you’re not allowed to change it. Man, how can we possibly argue with brilliant truths like these?
Totally. I mean, fuck innovations in graphics or storytelling or combat; if we can’t call people fat slutty whores, games are completely ruined. Think of the poor, deprived future generations of gamers, using their VR headsets to engage in hyper-realistic combat against an army of beautifully rendered invading orcs, and not even being able to call the orcs cunts! The horror! The horror!
Magpie wants to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep before work. Cat and Rabbit want to play a gallumphing game of tag all night. AAAAARGH!
This has been your unsolicited pet update. 🙂
@phil
please read Polliwogs response to your sorry self indulgent crap. Please, please read carefuly and consider. You do get it now, don’t you?
I’m not joking, I really am having my faith in the basic decency of humanity shaken by this idea that a right to abuse (note I said abuse, not offend) trumps all else. Worse still, the idea that the abuse is seen as fundamental to enjoying something.
I am disgusted that a pastime that I enjoy is being “defended” in the way, for fucks sake you’re in your room playing with what amounts to a toy please get the fuck over yourselves.
When half of video gamers are female, it is not a male space, so you can take that false premise and shove it.
Seriously, Phil, how old are you? There have been women gamers ever since the tabletop days. I knew women who played D&D as a child in the 80s. The awful scary evil vagina-having killer has been inside the house for decades. Much like every other geek area of interest, it’s never been an exclusively male space.