Why is casual racism/sexism more accepted in video games than other forms of media (these days)?

Mordy, I feel like you are using linguistics to muddy what EVERYONE IN THE WORLD UNDERSTANDS IN THIS CASE to be the referent of "gamer".

Hence the reason that those very self-identified fucksticks feel that gamers are being attacked - they don't think any other kind of person gets to be in their club, so when outside voices intrude, they are in opposition to gamers or gaming culture. By default.

http://i60.tinypic.com/6t0d2a.png

Awesome. Who gives a shit?

Your argument is akin to saying that "Christian Identity" movements aren't bad because while it is a code for white supremacy, Christians having a sense of identity is totally ok.

No, my argument is akin to saying that "Christian" movements aren't bad because while some Christian movements use the term as code for white supremacy, Christians as a group are far more diverse than this limited usage implies (and that it in fact serves white supremacists to have "Christians" confused for "Christian Identity").

#notallMordys

Like if IS starts to fall a part it will make no sense to start writing articles about how this is the "Death of Islam," even tho acc to members of IS their brand of Islamism is the only authentic brand. Similarly, that some bro gaming culture is having a public tantrum doesn't really mean anything about gamers in general (as I believe the word is popularly understood outside this case), and writing articles about the death of gaming is similarly stupid. To your point that anyone discussing this issue knows what we mean we say "gamers," I agreed w/ that way above when I admitted my point was a nitpick in light of the broader conversation.

EZ, are you afraid no one saw your shit joke the first time you posted it?

Nope. But you obviously don't get it.

Seems to me that you are sidestepping the shitiness of this whole situation by falling back on the fact that these dudes are misusing the term "gamer", which is similar to sidestepping Christian identity awfulness by saying those dudes are misusing the term "Christian" so it looks like my point still stands, and in fact thanks for illustrating it for me.

I get it. You believe that in trying to explain why I think the term has been hijacked to refer to a niche culture within gaming at large, that actually I'm trying to deflect the accusations being made about gamers. I don't think it takes the critique away, though, to note that gaming is much more diverse than the community under discussion. It can strengthen the critique by reaffirming various gaming communities over the years who have been building diverse cultures while bro gaming has been in existence - it reminds us that ludic engagement in gameplay doesn't have to take the form that it does in a particular kind of hyper-expensive, violence-saturated, sexually offensive capitalist driven product.

That was xp intended.

There are tons of people on ILX that love video games but no one wants to claim the poisoned fruit of "gamer" other than you. Does that mean nothing?

Look, I work in an industry that has at least partially pulled itself out of this cesspool in the last 20 years, if somebody wants to write an article about the death of the "guitar dude" despite being technically a prime specimen of guitar dude I am all for it.

I don't know what that means. It's bizarre. SPECULATION: I think we have a bunch of people who probably until very recently thought of themselves of "gamers" and as this clusterfuck has blown up they've stopped identifying w/ the term bc they've started to believe it means something they hadn't thought they had signed onto. I think they believe that bc the discourse has been very effectively hijacked by so-called "gamers" and the /gaming media/. xp

Like "gamer" is a shit term, it's like claiming people who like food are foodies. I eat and enjoy food and enjoy cooking it, which is a normal pursuit and it's fine if someone thinks of me as a foodie or w/e but self-identification would be weird because it's something I do, not my identity

These dudes think they're Ryan Gosling in Drive as "the driver" when in fact their defining characteristic isn't playing games, it is being dickholes.

Yo Mordy how many gaming conventions have you been to

0

I have met gamers my friend, and you are no gamer

the hours i've spent in my life playing video games beg to differ

Wait hold up, now gaming media is to blame?

well duh - gaming media has been creating bro gamer culture forever. i remember reading the most sexist shit in gaming magazines when i was growing up. they taught that culture to their readership.

i wish i could remember the magazine i once bought in a train station that was literally Maxim for video games. i think the rating system was on a scale from zero to having a beer and a woman sitting on your lap. odious shit. like i know they didn't invent Duke Nukem, but there's no reason they had to identify so hard w/ the most juvenile part of the industry when franchises like civilization + sim city has spanned the history of video games.

That is

A - uncomfortably close to the shade these assholes are throwing
B - weirdly analogous to the Fox News "lamestream media" approach

These dudes use the term like a banner, how is gaming media to blame for that? Should they be inventing a new name for them?

Like you can read a shitload of books but until you join book club or write book reviews you are not part of "reader culture"

btw I bought every issue of "Video Games & Computer Entertainment" religiously and then subscribed to GamePro and later was all over some FPS websites circa 2000, which is where I am coming from

yes - they should call them bro gamers

The term is fucked, Mordy. You standing for "gamer" will change nothing.

i disagree - it'll be rehabilitated in a minute. ppl who play lots of games will want to call themselves gamers. they always have.

Gaming media has changed. Dramatically. These gamers of the modern day don't like that. It's part of their dumb as balls platform where everyone is a social justice warrior because they acknowledge that non Cheeto fingered white hetero dudes play games now. Blaming the media of now for that is fucking ridiculous.

I don't want to call myself a gamer

Like there was a period of time, probably over a hundred years ago, where "Zionist" was a pretty chill, homeland for a people term (history probably would show me otherwise, but run with it). Due to the timescale of the internet and video games, you are showing up in 2014 and saying "what do you have against zionists" when the popular North American perception is fucked up Christian evangelicals wanting to bring on the apocalypse

lol

And honestly I never have. That's why this "don't steal my identification!!!" approach makes literally no sense to me.

Xposts apparently

And you saying it will be rehabilitated completely undermines your point that it is a neutral term!

well obv it's not a neutral term in this conversation! i'm not an idiot.

It's not a neutral term in any other conversation at the moment either, just FYI

first they came for the gamer bros, and I laughed my ass off

i bet u if i go out into my world of non-gamers and ask them what a gamer is 99% will tell me someone who plays games.

Even if that is true, so what?

of that 99%, 80% will add "who live in their mother's basement"

Haha yes

Your entire argument has been that it is not a loaded term that most video game consumers don't really relate to

btw most video game consumers are women over 30 or w/e, who just play some games

do I do not think your world is representative, and the question you should ask is "are you a gamer, as in a term of self-identification"

DJP also otm

Go ahead and take a sec and look at the first 50 image search results for "gamer" and get back to me about your thoughts about how the public sees the term.

now i'm worried i'm going to find out i'm also not a stoner bc i've never been to a cannabis convention

apparently the public views 'stoner' very different than i do according to GIS

I prefer the term "hardcore gamer" myself. sounds so cool.

i wish i could find that picture of joyce carol oates playing n64

this weekend i'm gonna ask my DS-addicted mum if she's a gamer, might get in trouble tho