We have never met before, probably because I value things like hygiene, the open air, and the desire to have conversations in meat space except for on TeH InTERWEBS!!! Regardless of our lack of introduction, I have heard quite a deal of you, and from you, and you. You're really loud, and obnoxious. And Loudly obnoxious and obnoxiously loud.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing you this letter is to convey this message as a fellow member of the gamer community who identifies as male:
Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are?
Over the past few days, I've heard reports from the great Gamer Grapevine about members of the community and slut shaming, fat shaming, disability shaming. I've heard about bullying, insults, trolling, and death threats. Oddly enough, most of this is aimed towards female identifying members of the gaming world. I know! It's weird, right? How dare women do things in our fields, why they should just act like the crumbly rubber dolls in your bedrooms, you lonely fucks.
Listen, I'm not one to beat about the bush, especially that hedge you call a beard. Dude, those things actually go on the chin and cheeks...you're too technologically savvy to think the Amish are in chic. So as someone from the same demographic as you, allow me to say that it makes me sick to my stomach that I am part of the same demographic as you feculent toe jams. Who in the flying fuck declared you the moral police of the gaming world? I don't remember a vote being called. I don't recall putting the sanctity of our community into your Cheetos encrusted hands. Nobody sent up the white smoke and if they did they should have shared that crap. So what fucking right do you have to bash these people down!?
Now, your first reply will be this: Who the fuck am I to moralize over your decisions. To put it simply, for your simple little minds, I'm a member of the community, I'm someone who enjoys discussing games, of playing games. I enjoy going to conventions and seeing something that six years ago I wouldn't imagine: people who shared the same desires I have. Not geeks, not nerds. People. These are people who are making these games in the hopes of making a meager life entertaining their fellow gamers. These are people who are trying to improve the quality of games and the gaming community. And yes, some of them are Women. I know, I was shocked when I first found out. And you know what I did afterwards? Got the fuck over it, especially since it meant seeing something, anything, other than you. These people you are bashing for your amusement are my friends You know the drill, friends are at a premium for those of us who are socially disinclined. My friends are as close to me as family.
And some of you have been openly attacking my family. There are two women I know who have been taunted, bullied and outright had their lives threatened.. I've always seen this community, the Geek Community, the Gaming Community as a gathering of people who never really fit right in growing up. Awkward, enthused, eccentric. This community has been a haven for some of us who never really knew what it felt like to be accepted.
And you're fucking it up for the rest of us. Threats? Harassment? When did you start thinking the jocks and preppy assholes who tormented you in school had a good model for treating others? Huh? When did calling someone a slut or fat become a way of advancing your status or argument, of being cool in your small, pointless cliques? When did you become the bullies?
I don't fucking get it. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up identifying as a geek until I was out of college when I could find outlets for my geeky self. Maybe it's because ever since I started gaming I have, from the Jedi and Ren Faire circuit, the the Mind's Eye Society; Dystopia Rising and all points around, been surrounded by bold, brilliant and beautiful women. Not girls, not chicks, Women. Oh, I know that word scares you, you feeble minded fanboy. Right now your bowels are in an uproar over how these fake gamer girls this, and how dare that girl at sunday afternoon larp didn't date you that. Maybe if you took some fiber, you'd be able to flush that irritable bowel. Or maybe you'd just be kind enough to flush yourselves.
Honestly, you would think that you'd be happy that the geek world was populated more by women, if nothing else than to dispel that we're all just a bunch of zit having virgins. But maybe that's the problem, that despite the fact that women are here and you still are a virgin that you've got this anger, and you want to lash out. You're in denial, so much so that your feet are soaked through and you are seeing the fucking Pyramids. So much so that when a woman makes an acclaimed game, you have to drag her sexlife -real or perceived- to discredit her. Does it matter if it's a game worthy of the acclaim? You're in so much denial that you would attach someone who are trying to make games accessible to people of disabilities. It's fine if you disagree with them, but at what point does shaming their disabilities -real or perceived- become the point of the argument?
Boys, you're in denial, and it's time to go into the other phases of Grief. You're douchebags. Similar to the preppy jock elitist scum we all dealt with in school, I call them Guy Dudebros, because they all look dress and act alike and in the end are as generic as you can get. You, my misogynistic meatheads, have henceforth been dubbed Neckbeard Dudebros. You are the unwashed (in some cases, literally. Ew.) masses of the gamer community. You're that cyst on the neck of gamer life that smells of rancid offal and causes harmless yet annoying pain. You contribute nothing, you dedicate your pointless lives in tearing others down from your safe, crusty seats and congratulate yourself like you actually did something. You've done nothing. You've wasted your time and the times of others. Some of us have shit to do, some of which, whether you realize it or not, you actually benefit from.
And, I hate to tell you this, but quite a few of them that do these things aren't men...and I'll tell you a little bit more for free. Most of them...and maybe even all of them, don't frankly care whether you live or die. Maybe if you changed your attitude...or bathed. What smells like onions?
You need to understand that we as a Communty are up and moving in a new direction. All of us. Gamers everywhere. The internet's got us all connected and people have more access to various forms of gaming and media than they've ever been able to have. We've gone beyond the dungeon crawls in your parents den. We're playing Cards Against Humanity on Google Hangout, doing Panel Discussions in New York with panelists piping in from Denmark on Skype. We've got brilliant developers coming up with game after game and getting them published and moving through Kickstarter and Patreon.
And somewhere, you're not celebrating this. Does it threaten you? Does it scare you that your notions of what it means to be a gamer are wrong?
Good.
Because quite frankly, I'm tired of having to live by your image of being a male gamer, of being a Male Anything. I'm tired of having to witness grown men leering at teen girls at conventions and shaming them when they don't appreciate their advances. I'm tired of men shaming others as a means of discrediting their work. I don't want to live in your closed minded world. I want the barn door open and all manner of things to fly loose. If you don't want to accept that people -man, woman and all points therein and without- are out there doing things you don't like, than do the world a favor, you mouthbreathing turds. Go back to your lonely little basements and Stay There.
Some of us just want to play games, you're the ones sucking the fun out of it.
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