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Female only gaming event cancelled following online harassment
- Thread starter kulapik
- Start date
You are so out of your depth here, I honestly feel bad for you. Life must fucking suck for you if this is the full extent of your ability to shift perspective and emphasize with others. Damn dude.
psychowave
Member
yeah let those women have their female-only event and realize they're fucking nothing without us
Thank you for this.
Weltall Zero
Member
What the hell? Of course they do; hell, I'm a blibliophile myself.
I'm 40 years old myself, for whatever that's worth.
Are you seriously suggesting that your life experience defines all of reality? Just google "I'm a blibliphile / cinephile" and see if nobody ever calls themselves that.
Gamer is a term with a very clear definition and has existed forever, long before videogames swerved misogynic. It's the entire industry that has a problem, not a single word that you can pile on your problems onto and then throw into the fire to make them disappear. You are in a videogame forum, you play videogames: you are a gamer. Period. Trying to distance yourself from what is wrong with gaming by removing this tag from you, as if it was a sticker that will magically make those things go away once you convince yourself you aren't one, is a childish reaction that changes absolutely nothing.
If you are so sickened of gaming culture that you want nothing with it, that's fair: stop playing games, stop coming to NeoGAF, and get on with your life. Only then will you have stopped being a gamer. Until then, you are a gamer, and calling yourself a striped Martian butterfly won't change a thing, except alienating other gamers, including those you are supposedly defending.
What does giving up on the term "gamer" accomplish? Aren't "videogames" and "gaming" equally tainted? What will you call them when you explain what you're buying or playing to people? What will you tell people the G stands for in GAF? WIll you simply hide that part of your life to them, lie to them, tell them you're reading books? Do you expect everyone else to follow suit, hide their videogames like they were porn, play them when nobody is looking? How do you thing that stance makes it feel to minorities that are actually fighting to make gaming a more inclusive space, like the organizer of this event?
Hopefully I'm getting the point across that changing a label without changing anything else is the most possible lazy move imaginable.
And I think that's lazy and cowardly for the reasons outlined above.
I think you could have mellowed the tone of this post a bit, jeeze. You're talking about whether or not someone wants to define themself as a "gamer". It's really not a big deal if they don't. I honestly don't blame anyone who wants to avoid that moniker nowadays.
Weltall Zero
Member
Entirely true, I just edited my post to remove part of the unnecesary vitriol.
But I disagree that they're simply not defining themselves as "gamers": they're actively pushing every decent human being to do the same, causing the term to be tainted that much more. And for what? To feel better about themselves? Will that stop any of the shit going on in gaming communities? It's nothing more than a feel-good, empty, lazy action so that no actual fighting has to be kept up.
Projectjustice
Banned
I feel bad for both of you if thats what you got out of my post.
Weltall Zero
Member
And yet you have no qualms speaking for every woman and assuming they will feel empty without us men around. I mean:
Get the fuck out with that condescending bullshit.
Actually, wait, I do agree they will be missing (not having) a key part of the gaming community: all the harassment and belittlement. But I think they will not be missing them in the way you mean.
Projectjustice
Banned
I never said all, I actually said you can't speak for everyone in the very post you quoted. Seems that you want to create something from nothing and yet in the end you agree with me. You have no clue how they will be missed cause you can't speak for everyone.
Also I clarified my post with the following post above yours. Why are people like you ignoring it?
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Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
People are having trouble with you in this thread because you don't seem to be acknowledging that the gaming community can be a horribly toxic place for women. You seem, on the surface at least, to be more interested in pushing some utopian ideal of everybody coming together in harmony and that's just not how the real world functions.
To be blunt, you seem to be living in blissful ignorance at best, and at worst your posts so far could be read as an attempt to ignore any of the actual substance of this issue while playing with words in a way that agitates people without saying anything that is outright abhorrent.
Projectjustice
Banned
Its toxic for men too, its toxic for everyone. We all know this. Im just concentrating on the good. Which is sharing something we all love, gaming. Every community in all hobbies has its toxic side but if thats all you concentrate on than you arent going to enjoy what you love. I already state they should have their event but lets stop acting like all men in gaming are there to ruin it for the girls.
Ah there it is. Toxic for men too huh. Jesus christ way to miss the point.
And nobody is acting like ALL men are there to ruin it for women. But please, continue your #notallmen campaign in a thread about a women-only gaming event getting harassed out of existence.
Edit: and for the guy who replied to me about the word gamer, waaaaaaay more people call themselves gamers than bibliophiles. Gamer is a pretty general term for people who play games, and I'd say the amount of people who call themselves bibliophiles is insignificant relative to the amount of people who read books.
I'd rather call myself a videogameophile, but I'm not a fucking weirdo, so I am just a person who loves games. I've always thought the term gamer was lame and corny as fuck, but now that it's associated with this misogynist "just pranks" sub culture, I will never use the word gamer to refer to myself.
No one is saying this...but it's also not a stretch to say that (probably) all women gamers have experienced harassment online to some degree. Admittedly, that's speculation on my part, but it certainly seems the case to me from what I read online.
The toxicity for men in gaming is no where near on the same level as it is for women (except for gay men, maybe).
Concentrating on the good and ignoring the bad only gives the assholes more wings to keep doing their shit.
It's also a VERY EASY thing to say when you are not the target every damn time.
That's why the #Notallgamers is infuriating. We know not all gamers are like this, but ignoring the problem gaming has only makes it worse, and let's not say about telling the victims to ignore it too..
Which is exactly the same situation in every facet of life really, not just gaming.
psychowave
Member
I love playing and talking about video games with other women and I never felt like I was missing anything when there weren't any men around, but thanks for your condescension.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Ugh, this is disgusting.
Also Forocoches is spanish 4chan basically. They will troll anything and everything just for shits and giggles, even if people at harmed in the end.
Like i dont even think separating women and men is going to help impulse equality and more women getting jobs in this industry, but it was not doing any harm at the end of the day and nobody should have made a ruckus or troll about it, just let them do their only women conference.
Also Forocoches is spanish 4chan basically. They will troll anything and everything just for shits and giggles, even if people at harmed in the end.
Like i dont even think separating women and men is going to help impulse equality and more women getting jobs in this industry, but it was not doing any harm at the end of the day and nobody should have made a ruckus or troll about it, just let them do their only women conference.
BUT ALL MEN
It is not all boys who want to ruin it for the girls, but it is much more boys who are there to ruin it for the women than there are boys who is out there to ruin it for the harassers.
What have YOU done when you hear/see a woman being harassed on a game ?
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Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
I could be dismissive and just quote the second paragraph of my post back at you here, but I'll resist that urge.
No, the gaming community absolutely is not toxic for everyone. If you genuinely believe that, then you are living in blissful ignorance. As a straight, white man I can say with certainty that nobody in the gaming community is ever going to harass or bully me simply for being who I am.
And nobody is claiming that all men in gaming are trying to ruin it for "the girls" (nice condescension by the way, and a nice example of what I said about your words being aggravating but not outright abhorrent), but we are in a thread created because a female gaming event had to be cancelled due to toxic harassment, largely from men... Just in case you forgot.
Eh, I mean I don't know why this kind of discussion is even going on in this thread. But when people talk about toxic Dota community for example. It entails more than just racism, homophobia, misogyny. It's any kind of slurs and hostility. And homophobic slurs aren't only directed at gays, since how would they know that a random team mate happens to be gay? But you are correct that people don't get bullied and harassed for being straight white men. They still get bullied, insulted, met with hostility and so on. People use this to downplay and excuse the toxicity and harassment towards minority groups and that's idiotic for sure. But it's silly to say that only minority groups face it. "It's just trash talk brah!"
Telling people to kill themselves or wishing them cancer because they don't perfrom well in game is toxic as fuck. You think that being straight, white and man stops that somehow?
This hasn't happened though. Men weren't excluded because they are all harassers, they were excluded because way too many are and they have been disrupting events similar to this. If someone has acted that way, it's not in this thread. So no reason to complain about it here.
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Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
It seems like you understand exactly what I meant when I said those words, so I don't think we need to get into a debate about the vagaries of how to classify different levels of bullying, toxicity and harassment.
Weltall Zero
Member
Don't be disingenuous. You said they didn't know what they will miss, and that they will learn from experience, thus asserting that you do know. It's really as simple as that, and the irony of your statement being yet another textbook example of male condescension would be rich if it wasn't so commonplace.
So you really think it's only "gamer" that's tainted, and not "gaming" or "games" or "videogames"? No wonder you think distancing yourself from that particular term is any kind of solution if that's your view of reality, but that sounds more like wishful thinking and cognitive dissonance to me, but whatever makes you happy at the end of the day.
I do.
TwilightPrincess
Member
that isn't exclusive to gaming though, some men are dicks and they even send dickpicks etc. Women live with that if they go online, on social media, in gaming, also there will be people who hate it when women are successfull, that's also not gaming exclusive. But with anonymity in onlinegames, with many stupid kids and manchilds, yes, onlinegaming isn't a perfect place.
I don't have anything against women only meetings, if they are not toxic itself. It's dumb to troll such events, those guys have serious problems, i wonder if those forists even were "gamers" (it could be reason enough that there is a women event, i don't know if the topic of the event was the problem for them).
But on the other hand people shouldn't only concentrate on idiots, there are plenty of mixed events that do function. I know women (one of them is lesbian) which organize mixed gaming events over the internet, it's totally doable. So it's not all doom.
Will women get flirted at when they attend gamescom? probably, but thats also not gamingevent exclusiv. That happens every day and is pretty normal. Harrassing or touching/grabbing is a problem at big events (not only at gaming events, but with much more young man there....) the security should be tightend and perhaps they should hand out flyers with warnings (if they aren't doing it already, didn't visit a big event in a long time). Throw idiots out, not women.
Dude, I don't know why youre attacking me over this. Of course the problem is with the entire culture, and I'm not trying to solve the problem by not calling myself a gamer, I just think the term gamer is fucking dumb. Get over yourself man.
Weltall Zero
Member
You don't think it stops a huge part of it? Think of being a woman or minority as an abuse amplifier: you get 10x the "normal" amount of abuse.
Raven77
Member
Not trying to start an argument, not trying to belittle what women are going through.
Just in my experience I can't agree with your last statement at all about toxicity levels, based on my own experiences. I've been online gaming since it's inception and nearly every game I've played with open chat, or voice, or a way to communicate with the other players I'm called to varying degrees and with varying ferocity a dick head, a piece of shit, a fucking asshole, that I should die, that I should kill myself, that I am the worst player they've ever seen, that they hope my family dies, etc. etc. etc. This goes for all of my friends that play as well. (am I allowed to use the explicit words above? If not, my apologies and I can edit them out).
Since I've been gaming so long, I shrug it off because it has simply become unfortunate, annoying background noise. Women definitely face more direct, targeted toxicity but I think that unfortunately gaming online, etc. as a whole CAN be a pretty toxic place.
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Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
If you understood what I meant with that statement, I don't understand why you would want this tangentially related debate with me.
I'm 36. Been gaming since I was a boy. Nobody has ever bullied or harassed me for being a man, or for being white, or for being straight.
That's it. I've got nothing else to add to that.
Yeah as I bolded to make it clear, people don't get bullied for being men, straight or white. I'd love to get rid of racism, misogyny and homophobia. But personally I wouldn't stop there. I would also get rid of mocking of disabilities, body shaming, elitism that shows as bullying and insults and so on. I hate how people that are new to the game often get treated, like people having smurf accounts just so they can stomp and mock newcomers. But this topic isn't about that. It's about women in gaming who are indeed in a bad place.
I didn't want to debate you, I wanted to correct you. I'm 33 with a lot of multiplayer gaming experience. If you think this is somehow relevant.
I have a friend who has dwarfism and also in a wheelchair. The vile shit he has gone through makes me react when someone claims that he is safe of harassment because he is straight, white and man. Sure he would had it even worse if he was also a woman, but even as a man he gets made fun of because of his voice too. Which is because of his condition. Not to mention the disgusting snickering and whispering among people when he goes to a LAN party. Or those aware of his condition bullying him online.
If you have no sympathy for him, please don't say anything about this issue. I really don't want to hear it.
Weltall Zero
Member
I'm not attacking you, I'm debating a point; not even "against you", I've debated this before you mentioned it, with other posters, and will debate it again when it comes up again. If you don't want to keep debating a point, then don't debate it. It's not really that complicated.
I'm going to be honest: I think "gamer" is not a term we can afford to give up. It seems to me most people that believe we should just let it rot haven't taken a minute to think of the ramifications of doing so. Once you let GG-types co-opt the term, "gaming" and "games" are next, and then you've lost every gamer (sorry, "player of games") mindspace to them.
That's why I say that if you think it's just one term, then I understand you simply wanting to give it up. But hell if I'm going to sit here and take flak for defending something I believe is a crucial foothold in the fight against bigots.
ZombieNapoleon
Member
Ugh, just another reminder that best things in life (video games, like-minded enthusiasts) can be ruined by (I like to believe) the loud and hatfeul minority of men. As a white male in the US, I know I can't empathize with the organizers or even non-white/straight players, but I always wish there was more I could do to shut down their hate. I hope they can get something together in the future because it never pays to give into those who would see others silenced.
I think that if a form of media consumption defines who you are to the point that you use a special word to define yourself, that's super cringey and lame. We're on the same side in this thread, but you're being aggressively hostile about this argument, and you're kind of being a dick. Just chill out.
Weltall Zero
Member
Well, we can (and should) indeed empathize; I assume you mean we can't fully grasp what it is to be in their shoes.
That's fine, I think it's cringey that people use special words to define themselves according to their religion. I don't lecture them into not doing so, though.
By the way, I'm also a videogame developer. What's your recommended, non-cringey term for it?
Says I'm being aggressively hostile, calls me a dick, asks me to chill out. OK then.
May I suggest it's you that's taking this all waaaay too personally and defensively? Which is kind of ironic considering this all started with a "gamers are fragile" comment.
Weltall Zero
Member
Double post, sorry.
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Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
Just to be totally clear; I'm on your side with all of this.
It's as you say though, this thread is about a specific thing.
S
Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
See my post above.
I understand people get agitated when discussing these things, so I'll not hold a grudge over the assumptions you're making about my character.
Projectjustice
Banned
Not gonna reply to everyone, I said what I had to say and if all you get is what you get from it than so be it. I was very clear on what I Expressed. Can't make everyone happy.
You weren't clear at all. That's why people are taking away a different meaning from what you apparently intended even after your clarifications, which are also inadequate.
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Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
Projectjustice
Banned
No it's was, that post is getting ignored. So now I'm done with this thread.
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Steve.1981
Unconfirmed Member
Ride off into the sunset, like the hero you are.
Are you really done? Like, for real, for real? Because I think you're going to come back and be pissed that people took your statement that women always need men to get the most out of video games at face value.
FloatingIslands
Member
By cancelling it, I think they let this assholes win.
All over the world, guys are meeting up to play sports, drink beer, engage in other hobbies etc. Women can often do pretty much the same things without hindrance, but when it involves videogames, there has to be a contingent of shitheads that think it effects them somehow.
They've got their forums and their party chats and subreddits various other echo chambers to spout hateful garbage in, day in day out, but some female gamers in Spain having this event was too much for them. Fucking sad.
They've got their forums and their party chats and subreddits various other echo chambers to spout hateful garbage in, day in day out, but some female gamers in Spain having this event was too much for them. Fucking sad.
Yes, I agree with you...the amount of language coming through on that mic in general is horrendous. Names, trash talk, "die in a fire", all of it...I hate it. I really do. But I never feel like it's targeted at me, if that makes sense. yes, they're talking TO me, but the anonymous nature of just berating another person makes it so impersonal. But once they find out it's a woman, holy shit, and the vitriol is amped up and becomes targeted. Even if the comments are "innocent", like "hey baby"...that's something I never have to deal with, and women deal with on a constant basis.
It's also interesting to note, that in my (anecdotal) experience, it's only men (no, #notallmen and all that) that spew crap out like that on the mic, regardless if directed at a women or other men. Sure, I'm sure there are women out there that talk nasty shit on the mic, but I personally haven't seen it, for whatever that's worth.
Also, I hope this doesn't sound like I'm saying "I can deal with it because I'm a man, so women need to be protected from it". if it does, I apologize.
Raven77
Member
Rookhelm, it really is a shame. I have two very young daughters, one of them is finally starting to "get" using a controller (if you have small children these controllers are enormous to them in their little hands). It's a shame that I have ZERO confidence in allowing her to communicate with anyone online in any game. Honestly i'm not sure what to do, she will eventually want to play online.
Online play is possible without a mic. I do so; just make sure that she is at least communicating with the built-in tools and/or playing on par and she will be treated like any other guy. Also, gender-neutral profiles are a must, except for Nintendo. Nintendo's online architecture and features are so geared towards inclusivity that I never feel particularly worrisome about showing that I'm a woman online.
We shouldn't have to discuss how women need to navigate online gaming spaces, but lol. Here we are.