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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Rant: On Gaming and "Growing Up"

I've written a few versions of this post but I can't make it work without feeling clumsy or "about me". So this is the best I can do.

There has been a lot of press recently about the levels of casual misogyny prevalent in areas of internet "culture", both on the gaming front - for example this horror - but also the in the bear-pits that appear "below the line" or articles wherever they are posted, especially if its a female writer "daring" to question the status quo. And there is a lot of rubbish spouted that it shouldn't be taken seriously, or its free speech, or that its a legitimate "gamer culture" position to expect boobs in all your computer games and if they're attached to a character with say, dialogue, then we should be grateful a developer has gone the extra mile.

What makes it worse is that a lot of this gets characterised as "women vs trolls", and it shouldn't be. It should be "decent people vs Trolls". Because I'm a straight, white, middle class man, and I have all the privilege, and I'm bloody sick of the dreadful way women are generally presented - and treated - in games and around gamer culture, and I'm certainly tired about how the debate around this is conducted.

It's not censorship to expect civility in debate with people you disagree with. It's not puritanism to object to the ludicrous character designs that most female characters have in games. Its not "political correctness" to expect female characters to have roles other than Princess to be Rescued or (even more shockingly) actually be playable in their own. We shouldn't have to applaud the few examples where strong, fully clothed characters exist because they shouldn't be such a stark exception.

And ultimately, and most importantly, this isn't womens battle - this is everyones battle. Because this is the tip of the iceberg, and underneath the churning waters are battles about racism, homophobia, transphobia, and all  those other bitter prejudices that are on display in the insults thrown around in online chat. Gaming as a hobby moving into the mainstream, demanding acceptance, demanding to be treated like a grown up. Well it has got to act like a grown up, and it's everyone's responsibility to shape what sort of grown up it will be. 

2 comments:

  1. I agree that there's some horrible misogynistic comments that turn up on forums. The homophobia that crept out over the Judge Dredd 'gay' 2000AD issue was foul too.

    But it's not just geeks that are like that ... whenever I read comments threads on half the stories on the Guardian website, the casual abuse by posters of those they disagree with it appalls me.

    Those who savaged Professor Mary Beard after her Question Time appearance weren't geeks or gamers. They were just mainstream vile.

    So while [insert group]phobes in the gaming community certainly need to reflect on their conduct and learn to value others and show a bit of human decency even when they don't like something, I'm not entirely convinced that they are exceptional in their unacceptable behaviour.

    The sad fact is that the Internet has proven itself a petri dish in which some of the worst aspects of human unkindness can flourish. I'm hopeful that thyis is a sign of its infancy and it and the behaviour of those who use it will in due course mature.

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    1. oh i agree totally - there is a worrying amount of this sort of crap throughout the internet, and earlier drafts of the post talked about it a bit. its just that i tend to write about gaming and comics and stuff so I tried to stay mostly in that field.

      Also, when it comes to gaming i worry there is a feedback loop between these sorts of omni-phobic attitudes in the community and the games themselves. The Dead Island people got a mutilated womans torso into production and presented it to the world as a "cool thing", clearly without any sorts of alarms going off. they expected - and in some quarters got - applause.

      but sadly yes, it's not a uniquely geek or gaming culture problem. its just the context i've been stewing over it in this last couple of weeks.

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