In a time of new sexual revolution its
not really surprising to see a lot of backlash from the established norms.
But the most disheartening for me is how female gamers are treated as
they, more and more, step into the arena with the boys.
.
But a new trend that's been getting a lot of coverage lately is the
particularly nasty attacks that have been levelled against some female gamers. Also how they seem to be viewed by geek culture in general is really quite disturbing.
I won't be linking to the video's or
the YouTube channel but there has been a revelation broken today by Kotaku (who have the aforementioned links if you want them). A user
by the name of ShrineNI posted, on Dec. 23, in a “Christmas
Special” YouTube video began voicing his opinions on how girls who play World of Warcraft, and presumably in all games, should be treated.
In this, oh so
special Christmas extravaganza, he goes into detail about how to “Get
inside the mind of a girl gamer”. From this well thought out and
clearly evolved perspective we are treated to such titbits of wisdom
as: “New content is too hard for
them to participate in,” as an
explanation of his perception that girl gamers only do old content
raid instances like Molten Core.
And apparently girls only do dailies and
secondary professions so that they feel like they are playing the
game when in fact they aren't. Because, you know, dailies and
secondary professions aren't a “real” part of the game.
Now my personal opinion is
that this was actually a troll of the girl that he takes aim at towards the end of the video, Daicy. I am currently awaiting a conversation
with the girl gamer in question to discuss this issue. Update to
follow.
The second video is more
of the same disgusting behaviour and talk but again, I don't really
buy it. At the beginning he feigns just enough elaborate planning
about communication and coordination to sound like it's something he's
put a great deal of thought into. the video then quickly deteriorate
into him just rambling diatribe and fake sounding “get the gamer
girl” nonsense.
Finally is the apology video which ShrineNI spends about 1:30 explaining how sorry he is for being so thoughtless. He then breaks out an ethnic slur against the author of the article and launches into yet another diatribe, this time, aimed at the author of the article, Patricia Hernandez and Kotaku in general.
Maybe I'm giving the guy
too much benefit of the doubt but really if I am, then I think the
quote of the whole day goes to the YouTube commenter who pointed out, that in the
faux apology video, ShrineNI had the tab “How to come out of the
closet” open.
The worrying thing about
this whole thing isn't even so much the guy who posted the videos. As I said, I believe he is trolling. No, the really worrying thing is the commenter's. While I agree that its disgraceful to equate sexual
harassment with sexual assault or rape, its quite still disturbing to
see SO many people completely support the message of the video. That
women are inferior in some way and should be treated like dirt for,
you know, existing.
*is still scared of the feminazis*
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