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In case you were wondering, there are still dudes out there who simply refuse to believe that women and girls play video games. Consider the reaction to a recent Twitter thread in which a video game industry analyst announced the results of a recent survey of video game players that revealed, among other things, that women make up half of those who own a gaming PC–and more than half of those who own a Nintendo Switch.
The gatekeeping gamebros simply refused to accept the data.
Some were convinced that the people who bought the Switch weren’t the ones who played the games.
Others suggested that these women were playing games that weren’t hardcore enough for them to count as real gamers.
A surprising number of commenters decided the survey results had to be suspect because the survey makers were counting trans women as women instead of as men.
One commenter seemed to blame it all on … Chad?
I would say, “found the incel,” but I think we found a bunch of them already.
I mean, I used to be part of a Legend of Zelda fan forum that was entirely women and me. Half of them kicked my bum in Smash Bros and adored Portal as well.
I guess, if you make every single space you’re in hostile to women, they will not wanna spend time with you.
Found a new bookshop today (Saw a sign saying ‘Hypatia’ so couldn’t resist going down the alleyway. I’d be really easy to mug).
But it was a great place; and loads of stuff people here might like. I said I’d plug it as they do mail order.
@Alan Robertshaw:
Do you know whether Hypatia’s inventory and mission statement includes trans women, or historical figures who might be construed as such by modern standards (Chevalièr/e d’Eon de Beaumont comes to mind)?
Wait, so the transphobes think fully half of gamers are AMAB and transition to women? How many freaking trans people do they think there are?
@Hammerofglass
“How many trans people do they think there are?”
That’s the fascinating thing about the Transvestigator conspiracy, as with most conspiracies – anyone who points out flaws in your thinking is PART of the conspiracy.
I’ve seen some posts on the subject on the Leopards Ate My Face subreddit and elsewhere where even their fellow TERFs get accused of being enemy agents – one notable example being Rowling herself. From what I’ve seen, either the most ardent among them believe literally EVERYONE other than they themselves might be secretly trans, including other transvestigators, or they’re trolls who are remarkably committed to the bit. And we’re so far past the demise of satire and parody at this point in the timeline that I’m not even going to try guessing which it is.
@GSS ex-noob
I got a moonpod chair, which doesn’t take up too much storage space and isn’t as outrageously priced.
The most significant lifestyle upgrade I highly recommend is the bedroom projector, if just for sleep ambience alone. I have a whole YouTube playlist of options so my wall can become an aquarium, or a foggy picture window to a rainy forest, or a sleeper car going clickety-clack over the countryside, or particular moods like “humming spaceship”, “zombie safehouse” or “sith meditation chamber”. There’s also spectacular sunrise ones for gentle awakening vibes.
@Jess: That’s the brand I was looking at. But I gotta save up my pennies. I’d just leave it parked on my couch nest instead of the current mess of pillows, no storage needed.
Would love to see your house someday! I make do with ambient noises from YT; not sure I’d want the projections. But I could use better speakers. Although I have a playlist of songs from my teen and tween years, which reminds me of sleeping with the transistor radio behind me, and those songs were all mixed for transistors anyway, so a small speaker is a perfect replica of those days. (The days when there was music worth listening to on AM!)
There will never come a point where anything like most of the people who have bought into this narrative will ever change. They don’t care that Roberta Williams was there from the start of the hobby. They don’t care that the cultural cache of video games has meant that lots of girls who felt intimidated away from actually playing games still found their own narratives and connections. They don’t care that the boys club of the 90s was manufactured marketing. They don’t care that Zelda Moms have proven for decades now that it’s possible to get an experience that will bring even older women into the hobby. They definitely don’t care that gaming on the Switch has a lot of female fans precisely because there’s been an effort to court indie devs who can make good experiences on the platform.
“True gaming” was whenever they and their friends were at the arcade, or at home, or wherever else. Even if they are still gaming, modern gaming is still corrupt. It’s still infected with “casuals”. There never can be a change in the future that shows that women always would have wanted to game (and, heck, that as culture changes they’ll even play the testosterone-driven side of the hobby). Because they’ve made themselves a perfect clubhouse in the past.And they blame the world for them not being able to move on and just put the good memories away so they can now go on to make new ones.
That’s pretty much always the underlying motive behind fascism.
@Full Metal Ox
The mission statement doesn’t mention trans women, nor does the rest of the website. None of the people involved appear to have any kind of transphobic track record, a couple have pronouns in Twitter bios, the Trust Twitter account RT-ed praise for a (positive) book about hijras. They look OK imo, maybe too old fashioned to have a fully detailed mission statement or maybe wary of getting piled on if they publicly include trans women (a hypothetical decision I would understand even though it would be frustrating)
@‘mantha:
Thank you. Alan doesn’t tend to keep that sort of company, but I was wondering.
Ooh, hi ‘Mantha & FMO
Sorry I missed your original query. I’m glad you were able to find something.
It’s always difficult to tell from a brief visit. I was only in there half an hour or so. But I didn’t get any bad ‘vibes’ as it were. Seemed a pretty chilled place rather than Mumsnet if you get my drift. But next time I’m over I’ll check. They had lots of books. The more prominent ones seemed to be like earlier writers; but that might just be to tie in with the slightly old world ambience about the place.
Cornwall does seem pretty chilled when it comes to gender stuff. There might be a bit of selection bias there. Sorts of pubs and arty places I like are probably a bit more safe space-y. Having said that, I also go into some of the most traditional pub type pubs in town, and there’s plenty of conspicuously* queer and trans people happily swigging in those too.
(* In the sense of T-shirts and badges etc)
One of the most revered folk figures down here is someone called Betty Stogs, a female folk ‘heroine’ traditionally played by a man; so it’s not like people are that wedded to rigid gender stuff
“Farewell to your wines and whiskies
Your brandies and your grogs
I’d sail the world and back again
For a pint of Betty Stogs”