

Why I can’t call myself a gamer anymore - edtechdev
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/02/why_i_cant_call_myself_a_gamer_anymore/

======
gavanwoolery
This is pretty much flamebait, but I'll chime in anyway.

I'm all for every sexual orientation, but if someone makes a tame joke about
transgenders, who the f * * k cares? We make jokes about straight people all
the time. My friends who are gay make jokes about gay people. Stop treating
everything like its holy ground, and learn to laugh at a joke, whether or not
it targets your minority or majority class. Do you really want to live in a
perfectly politically correct world where nobody can make a joke about
anything because they might offend somebody? As George Carlin said:

"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and
cross it deliberately."

That said, dissociating yourself with gamers because many of them have a
juvenile sense of humor is kind of silly. It is like saying "I am going to
stop calling myself a movie watcher because half of all movie watchers like
straight male-oriented action movies."

Edit: Uh oh, hit the beehive. To clarify, there is a very clear difference
between hatred and joking, most people can make the distinction. I understand
the trauma that a lot of orientations go through (I have watched my friend's
parents disown him for being gay and read the countless stories of people
being murdered for being whatever orientation). Nonetheless, I do not believe
at all in censorship and I never will. I do believe in being polite and
respecting others. Humor is a way of bridging gaps, hatred or making fun of
somebody cruelly is a different beast.

~~~
patdennis
> Stop treating everything like its holy ground, and learn to laugh at a joke,
> whether or not it targets your minority or majority class.

The main reason people get upset about transphobic jokes isn't that they don't
have a sense of humor. It's because trans people are disproportionately
targeted by violence because of their orientation. People get beat up, people
get killed.

This is pretty serious, and a lot of people think part of the problem is a
cultural sense that demeaning trans people is ok. You can call them "it", or a
"thing".

These people aren't going to be mad if you make a joke around your trans
friends. But they see it as a problem when a whole generation of 12-13 year
olds are being culturally conditioned to treat trans people as lesser, as an
other, etc.

Not to mention the effect this culture has on young trans kids. They already
have a much much higher risk of suicide than the average person. Change has to
start somewhere.

~~~
aaronem
Having grown up as a gay teenager in the 90s, I don't really remember having
had my bones broken by any jokes people made about me. I did get my ass kicked
pretty good a few times, but in those cases, it wasn't words doing the damage.

Conflating jokes with beatings, and assuming that incidence of one has an
effect on incidence of the other, does no good for anyone subject to either --
I also don't remember, in any of the cases where people beat the shit out of
me, wishing someone would step in to stop them making _jokes_ about me.

I'm also curious: What about kids who get beat up, not because they're gay or
trans or what-have-you, but just because they're nerds? I was one of those,
too, as it happens, and that bought me more beatings than being gay ever did.
Those beatings are of less concern, in the realm of social justice, than the
ones I got for being gay. Why? Certainly the latter didn't hurt worse than the
former, nor did it particularly matter to _me_ which was which.

Based on that experience, it seems to me less reasonable to consider that the
reasons behind any given beating are the problem, than that the _beatings_ are
the problem; worrying specifically about gay kids getting beaten, or trans
kids getting beaten, or what-have-you, seems roughly as risible as worrying
specifically about guns being used to kill people, rather than about people
killing each other.

~~~
AlexMax
> Having grown up as a gay teenager in the 90s, I don't really remember having
> had my bones broken by any jokes people made about me. I did get my ass
> kicked pretty good a few times, but in those cases, it wasn't words doing
> the damage.

Do you not think that words contributed to the atmosphere of oppression that
made it easier for others to stand by and do nothing or think you deserved it
somehow? Or that it doesn't have the effect of tearing someone down mentally?
If someone is hurt by the things someone says, is it the victim's fault for
letting it get to them?

Why can't people just be nice to each other? Why can't we just start from
that? Why can't we as a society frown on that sort of bullying behavior
instead of insisting that it's the victims who should take two "life
experience" pills and get over it?

~~~
aaronem
You seem to be missing my point entirely. Of course hearing nasty jokes about
me hurt! How could it be otherwise? But if the problem is that I'm being
beaten for the same reason that people are making nasty jokes about me, I
don't see how spending effort on stopping people making the jokes does more to
solve the problem than would spending the same effort on stopping people doing
the beating.

> Why can't people just be nice to each other?

Because human nature frequently requires otherwise.

> Why can't we just start from that?

Because it doesn't work; see above for why.

> Why can't we as a society frown on that sort of bullying behavior instead of
> insisting that it's the victims who should take two "life experience" pills
> and get over it?

I'm arguing that it's precisely that behavior on which the utopians should
focus, instead of generating a lot of hot air on the subject of harsh
language.

And it's pretty rich, I think, for you to be suggesting to me that I'm blaming
the victim. I've _been_ that victim, thank you very much, and it is in
precisely that experience that my arguments on this subject find their
motivation.

------
petercooper
_As Parkin points out, the term “gamer” is idiotic. We don’t call movie fans
“moviers” or literature enthusiasts “bookers.”_

There are various terms for both. Bookworms, cinephiles, movie buffs,
bibliophiles.

Maybe if it's a "branding" problem, of sorts, using other words would work,
like ludophile, but it doesn't avoid the fact there are cores of enthusiasts
for most (all?) media.

~~~
lmm
Ludophile I would think of as a (pretentious) board gamer rather than
videogamer.

~~~
petercooper
This ties into the "branding" thing. That's what the term could instantly make
you think of, but really it has no specific connotation. (A bit like how to
some it seems "gamer" gives off a certain vibe, when no such vibe is intrinsic
to it.)

------
Zikes
Perhaps the author would also like to stop calling themselves a person. I
mean, there's no reason to half-ass this sort of thing. Many evil deeds have
been committed by people, each calling themselves a person.

Failing that, perhaps the author would like to stop pigeon-holing the entirety
of gaming for every single misstep committed by someone that happens to play
games or that takes place in a gaming context.

------
vezzy-fnord
It's funny the author mentions "transphobia", given the existence of many
postmodern feminists who are openly against transsexuals.

But ignoring that, the problem is that this article adds baggage to the term
"gamer" when there isn't any. A gamer is a person who has a passion for
playing games (usually video games). That's it.

Might as well stop calling ourselves programmers, because after all,
programmer culture is horribly misogynistic and oppressive.

~~~
ceejayoz
> It's funny the author mentions "transphobia", given the existence of many
> postmodern feminists who are openly against transsexuals.

Also known as the "fuck you, I got mine" variant of feminism.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
One that is nonetheless relatively popular. For all intents and purposes, they
aren't any different from the other postmodern feminists which pervade
contemporary feminist discourse on the web, in all other aspects.

------
kerpal
This is stupid. The article claims the term gamer itself isn't appropriate but
the examples it provides are wrong. People who enjoy films may often be called
film buffs or even more generically movie goers. People who enjoy reading may
be referred to as book worms. Deciding to reject them doesn't really mean
anything. The term gamer is not the problem.

If this article was more about rejecting sexist and racist language and
behavior in gaming I'd agree with it. However I think these problems are more
a factor of age and maturity than anything else. Play in a gaming community
where the average age is 20+ and you'll find a more tolerable environment.

------
A_COMPUTER
I want to see someone write an article entitled "Why I can't call myself a
journalist anymore" and then blame Salon for articles like this.

------
mattgreenrocks
This piece is less about gamers and more about the failures of online
'communities.'

The interesting thing about the Internet is how utterly unaccountable people
want to be for what they say. Just _try_ mentioning that people should be held
responsible for things they say. Anytime you even suggest the state of online
discourse is abysmal, there are five people who show up to tell you that it's
perfectly fine, and the problem lies with you for noticing it.

It's like there's a culture of acquiescing to perceived social norms (in this
case, mediocrity), lest you speak up and be expelled.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
> Just try mentioning that people should be held responsible for things they
> say.

I have the right to free speech. If I say I think trans is a psychological
condition treated by therapy instead of surgery or whatever politically
incorrect thing might be the enemy of popular thought today, I shouldn't be
put up in some discrimination court because someone was offended by my views.
I also should have the right to publish my thoughts anonymously.

Long story short, political correctness is just censorship. While I certainly
don't like hateful on-line communities, I think your suggestion to make people
"accountable" for speech is only something that can lead to real human rights
violations instead of perceived slights from overly touchy people.

Try criticizing Islam in the middle-east. There's accountable speech there.
Why are westerners obsessed with bringing these horrific limitations on speech
to the west? Free speech transcends being offended.

~~~
mattgreenrocks
This is less about free speech and more about setting zero tolerance for
outright hate speech. Accountability here is being banned from
games/discussions. This doesn't apply to society in the large.

------
Millennium
I'd prefer to take the term back than to give it up, personally. Gaming
culture used to be better than this, and if we can kick the fratcore back to
the fringes whence they came, it can be better again.

~~~
aaronem
Consoles aren't going anywhere, though, and their low barrier to entry means
they're going to have a larger share than PC gaming for as long as they're
around.

~~~
Millennium
I'm not so sure consoles are the problem. XBox Live gets a lot of heat, and
deserves it, but most of the fratcore's market strongholds don't have their
roots in consoles. FPS, MMO, and sandboxes all have famous PC roots, while
technical fighters got their start in the arcades. Madden is really the only
one the consoles can claim, and then only arguably: the first Madden wasn't
released on consoles, but the consoles were where it really took off.

That's why I'm reluctant to point the finger at consoles. The problematic
franchises and strongholds have their roots elsewhere, and continue to start
in these places, only coming to consoles later. If anything, consoles' low
barrier to entry makes them more a part of the solution, not the problem:
simply put, we need new blood, and lots of it.

~~~
aaronem
How does the fact, that console gamers on average consistently behave much
worse in the manner under discussion than PC gamers do, implicate the origins
of various franchises as the problem, and consoles as the solution?

~~~
thesnider
counter-example: EVE Online.

------
yahesop
This "article" is but a mere click/flamebait, the likes of Kotaku likes to
post. Absolutely terrible. In fact, the whole Salon website is clickbaits and
it's a shame to see this kind of stuff on the front page of HN.

There is a recent wave of so called "social justice warriors" (SJW) invading
video game journalism and writing articles such as this one under the guise of
"feminism" and other fringe movements because the feelings of transgender
people are not respected, because it promotes "misogyny, transphobia and rape
culture". Excuse me? I don't really know what kind of agenda they're trying to
push other than trying to fabricate controversies where there were previously
none (apart from the "video games make you violent" crowd, which everyone
already dismissed).

What kind of bizarro world does the author live in - and from reading the
article I assume he's a pretty casual gamer otherwise he wouldn't write such
an unsavory article and call PAX the Woodstock of video games (an event that
appeared in 2004) - that people call themselves gamers? No one I know calls
himself a gamer and I've been playing video games since the 80's. Your
identity is not driven by your hobby.

Protip: Just because your feelings were hurt, it doesn't mean you are right.

------
RyanZAG
_> We didn’t even call video game players “gamers” until the fairly recent
past. I certainly don’t remember hearing the word “gamer” in the mid-’90s_

Gamer originated in the 90s, in particular round-about 1996 with Quake, but
well before that too with other games. A gamer was someone who packed up their
big computer and lugged around a monitor in their car to a LAN party. There
were plenty of girls around too, however they were mostly girlfriends and
sisters.

The strange rape-approving culture and other terms such as 'gg', came about
because of two factors (I think, anyway). First, most people involved were
generally high school or university students, and if you've been to a boys
high school party then you shouldn't be surprised. Secondly, you generally sat
around in a large hallway and the games let you use text chat. It was amusing
at the time to talk congenially with your friend next to you and then send him
a text message about raping because most of the people didn't even know what
rape was. You generally saw complete shock if a younger player who was sending
messages about rape was actually told what it was. It was probably the novelty
of real time text communication. 1337 speak was also very popular around the
time for the same reason - it helped to cement who was 'in the know' in the
community.

Gaming itself was very much a meritocracy. People at the top of the kill board
were the popular ones and people listened to them, and these people would
generally travel around to other lan parties and pick up the 'rape culture'
from them, and then it would spread at more lan parties when these
knowledgeable players talked about it. Standard social dynamics, I guess.

~~~
ebbv
> Gamer originated in the 90s, in particular round-about 1996 with Quake

This just isn't true at all. Kids who played Dungeons & Dragons and other
games were "gamers" in the 80s, and probably before.

The term only entered the mainstream in the 90s when DOOM and Quake made PC
gaming a mainstream activity.

~~~
RyanZAG
I'd say the term got re-used. It felt like a different subculture to me at the
time. The people involved in D&D/tabletop gaming were generally not the same
people at lan parties as well. I don't think joining the current gaming
culture to the D&D/tabletop culture is entirely correct...

~~~
ebbv
In my case and most of the people I knew, it was the same people. It depends
on your generation, I suppose. But everyone I knew who was into D&D was also
into computers and computer games. I'd challenge you to find someone who was
into D&D and NOT into computers and computer games.

~~~
RyanZAG
There were a lot at the time. Computers for playing games were expensive and
lan parties tended to take a whole weekend including sleeping there, while D&D
was more relaxed and was just a couple hours in the evening.

I'd still say the culture was vastly different though. A few people sitting
around a board rolling dice was just a completely different social interaction
to a hundred people in a noisy hall. There also wasn't the same level of
'scoreboard hero' in tabletop games that arose during Doom/Quake.

I guess I'm actually talking more about 'quake culture' than gaming culture at
the time, but it's actually that 'quake culture' which has gone mainstream
rather than the 80s gaming culture which is still around today. Without the
lan parties and quake, you wouldn't have the 'rape culture' they talk about
and that's why I'm saying the two are something different.

------
panzagl
His examples aren't problems with gamer culture, they're problems with a mass
media culture that stereotypes gamers as basement-dwelling neckbeards, and has
decided the best way to market to them is T&A.

------
RokStdy
This really is idiotic to me. It seems increasingly popular for someone to
take a minority position and then complain about how they are oppressed by the
media, or game companies or whatever. The entire argument is pointless. It
assumes that 'gamer culture' is somehow imposed by the industry, which is just
utter bullshit. The video game industry, like virtually any other, exists to
serve it's customers. The industry will do whatever it thinks it needs to do
to appeal to it's customers. That's it.

------
Bognar
> As Parkin points out, the term “gamer” is idiotic. We don’t call movie fans
> “moviers” or literature enthusiasts “bookers.”

We call people who read "readers", we call people who go to movies "movie-
goers". Game isn't just a noun, it's a verb, and adding an "-r" or "-er" to
the end of a verb is a common English way of turning that verb into a word
that means "person who [verb]s". To suggest otherwise is idiotic.

------
SDGT
I blame consoles primarily, as it seemed the barrier for entry in the PC
master race was always high enough to separate at least some of the wheat from
the chaff.

It could also be rose coloured glasses, given that my last serious gaming
(before coding ate up 12+ hours a day) was 5 years of Diablo II and CS:S
followed by 6 years of Guildwars. I got out of all of this before COD/ BF and
LOL were huge games.

I can say that I know far more brogamers rocking a PS/Xbox than PC's.

------
sigmar
My biggest issue with this article is that he isn't talking about speaking up
for the acceptance of transgendered individuals. He is just stepping away from
the word "gamer" and declaring himself on a moral highground

>Until then, not thinking of myself as a gamer is going to be a matter of
conscious effort and avoidance of temptation, because it’s just so easy to do
otherwise.

This guy clearly thinks he is really brave, while not really doing much

------
ancarda
>Parkin feels that the idea of the “gaming community,” and its endemic
misogyny, transphobia and rape culture, all need to die, and by extension,
anyone who has adopted an identity as a “gamer” needs to give it up.

Everyone I know who plays games isn't a misogynist, transphobic or makes jokes
about rape.

>We don’t call movie fans “moviers” or literature enthusiasts “bookers.”

No we call them "Movie buffs" or "Book worms". Besides, this point really
highlights an issue; shaking the word "gamer" won't change the behavior of
some people in the community.

------
thomaslangston
I'm a gamer, that means I play games.

I try not to be a jerk, but some people who play games do act like jerks. I am
not going to give up my hobby or my identity because some people who have the
share either act like jerks.

There is a subset of the gamer population which encourages players to act like
jerks. The correct response is to build environments (games, communication
channels, and communities) which inhibit and discourage negative behavior, not
to abandon the field.

------
knodi
Does it matter if you call your self gamer or not?

------
ebbv
I've been a gamer since I was a kid in the 80's. Being a "gamer" is not my
identity, it's something I do. I'm also a home chef, a programmer and a
husband. No one of these things identifies me entirely.

There's a lot of teenage males who play video games and consider "gamer" the
entirety of their identity. This is because they haven't developed an actual
personality yet. These are usually the people who are constantly slinging
racial/homophobic epithets and flipping out whenever they encounter a girl
online.

Their behavior does not affect how I view myself, or the hobbies I engage in.
It has no bearing on whether I am a gamer or not. To say that it should or
does is pretty stupid. It's like saying because Paula Deen is a racist I
shouldn't identify myself as a home cook.

There are douchey people out there who engage in all hobbies. The correct
response is not to pretend you don't enjoy your hobby or to damage your
enjoyment of it. The correct response is to let these people know what douches
they are and call them out to their face.

People like the author of this article are the problem as much as the
immature, stupid kids are. Because when they encounter those kids acting awful
online, they stay quiet and do nothing. You should stand up and call them out.
When I run into racism in DotA 2 I tell the kids "Does being racist help cover
up the fact that your parents are first cousins?" or when they engage in
homophobic slurs I point out "The most homophobic people are usually the ones
giving blow jobs in the airport bathroom." This usually shuts them up.

Pretending you don't play games, or stopping a hobby you enjoy is doing
nothing but damaging yourself.

