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

http://www.gaming-age.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/dew-doritos-xbox-one.jpg

oh! I totally wanted to start a CHEWING magazine like in the calvin and hobbes strip.

the running and cycling culture watterson is making fun of is probably in its own way as toxic as gamer culture.

omg bicycle culture is horrible

people are super lonely and in desperate search for community and meaning i think is the moral to all of this

idk goole, I don't think "gamers" are any weirder than people who are obsessed with the NFL or w/e, with the diff that video games are at least participatory

― ⌘-B (mh), Monday, September 8, 2014 1:20 PM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you all seen the roll tide/war eagle 30for30? a dude poisoned some trees because he was mad a cam newton. frankly i think that's less bad than the shit these 4chan shiteaters have pulled over the past few weeks. it's certainly on the same continuum tho.

mad *AT

lagoon's just trolling now as usual

― Nhex, Monday, September 8, 2014 2:20 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i am a white hat troller tho

i've been telling myself that for years now

people are super lonely and in desperate search for community and meaning i think is the moral to all of this

― lag∞n, Monday, September 8, 2014 1:23 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

let me bring up the similarity to volkist antisemitism again

not all group identifications are similar to volkist antisemitism lol. ppl also join churches because they're lonely it doesn't make them nazis

well...

I'm with goole here, the dopamine squirt hamster wheel of casual bullshit gaming is better than all the other gaming imo

have we come to a conclusion yet re: the relative merits of Henry James vs. ToeJam & Earl

joining a Salsa club: volkist antisemitism y/n?

not all group identifications are similar to volkist antisemitism lol. ppl also join churches because they're lonely it doesn't make them nazis

― Mordy, Monday, September 8, 2014 1:27 PM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

BUT THIS ONE SURE IS

despite our rugged individualism + abhorrence for group identities, i notice we all post on the nazi-like community board ILX

a board that will last a thousand years

everything uber alles

Is there a convenient one word appellation for a sports fan? Sportster?

american male

actually, that's incorrect. although I have been thinking "ugh sports dude" as I swipe left on women's dating profiles where they're wearing sports jerseys :/

"sporto" has fallen out of favor

Those are both two words buddy xp

http://fansedge.frgimages.com/FFImage/thumb.aspx?i=%2fproductImages%2f_1168000%2fff_1168081_xl.jpg&w=518

lol

american male

― ⌘-B (mh), Monday, September 8, 2014 2:44 PM

no way

tbf a lot of them are wearing iowa hawkeyes gear, one of the most inexplicably long-lived college sports fandoms
I have heard tell of hawkeyes-themed bars in chicago and seattle :/

#notallamericanmen

that thing white american males do when they disparage 'white american males'

i don't care about sports. at all.

she's cheer captain and you're on the bleachers?

me neither

however, 2/3 of my (white, male, middle-aged) coworkers can speak to each other with some knowledge of the weekend's football games on a monday morning

I am sure geography and economic class have a lot to do with it

the remaining coworker who seems less sports-knowledgeable is fun to talk to about star trek

My office spends a lot of time talking tennis, it's kind of great

I wonder if that happens many places outside of the east coast

In the United States, I mean.

don't be dense, if my argument was "being into something = nazi" i would have just said that

to repeat andrew's observation again:

I'm aware of the very large gulf of analogy, but the tone of the language actually reminds me of 30s German anti-semitism: These people are responsible for the fact that it's not the days of glory any more, these people are invisibly in cliques in positions of influence (and can only be there for subterfuge as they definitionally can't share the same identity as you and I), these people must be fought against at all costs.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, September 8, 2014 11:00 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what is shitty about gamers is the same thing that's shitty about reactionary reddit-ism, about the zones elliott rodgers stewed in; i'd bet there are huge overlaps in terms of the actual people too. the maladjustment, the paranoia, the crippling lack of passable familiarity with adult life. it's something that people need to keep an eye on.

do you think there might be less trenchant ways to express the idea that some gamers long for days of glory than comparing them to nazis?

nah not really

Days of Glory does sound like a WWII sim

can you think of better ways of describing seeing something malignant brewing in the society around you

yes, my mind does not immediately go to nazis whenever we discuss social ills

you could say "gamers are kind of like the Klan" but I don't see that going over any better

that tumblr did!

unless the comparison is like - gamers are just like nazis in that both have a heavily industrialized program of exterminating untermenschen... i just don't see it

i think andrew captured the similarity in attitude pretty well

given what i've seen on 4chan i wouldn't be the least surprised if a lot of these dudes didn't turn out to be straight up antisemites too

I meant to post a longer version of this last week, but didn't get around to it:

When video games first appeared on the scene, there was no reason they would be specifically male-targeted. There were creative people, some of them outsider-types creating these things for whoever was interested. But, like many other things, when something reaches a certain level of mainstream acceptance or popularity, it gets *colonized* by the male-dominant, intolerant segment of society that creates this hegemonic power, driving out diversity and self-policing in terms of what is "allowed" in the community.

The fact that this exists in a form that encourages people to play alone in their homes or in fairly anonymized online environments makes it easier to dismiss marginalized people, namely women. The plots in games upholding masculine tropes and the general culture of being a _male gamer_ is self-congratulating.

It's like the youth version of the good old boy network idea -- people like us are meant to be on top, we make the rules here, make sure you keep anyone who isn't like us down.

Historically, the software development profession had a similar arc -- many of the first generation of programmers were women, but once people decided it was a profitable profession (or one that could have more prestige than acting like programming = typing = secretarial work) it became male-dominated. The fact that games used to be a lot more of a programming practice than a content-creation practice means there's a common thread, too.

Antisemitism is def a part of 4chan xp

I was rolling my eyes at a comment on twitter about "growing up playing games by Roberta Williams so I didn't know gaming was sexist" but there's a seed of truth in that. Gaming really only went fully dude-colonized in the 90s.

Autism is def a part of 4chan xp

:/