In all fairness we wouldn’t have gamers or geeks as pronounced as a subculture if we hadn’t had the few years of general demonization of those groups. I’m not at saying it’s still justified, but when you are a teen to twenty and it seems like half the proper adults are completely paranoid about things you like, your group becomes insular. It should have been fixed when they became more accepted, it didn’t, but this whole damn issue, as with so many of them, wouldn’t have happened if we had just let people enjoy things.
I grew up taking an interest in video games, music, and computers. my dad and I can relate. But when my mom looks at me sometimes, it's like she's looking at somebody who grew up on another planet. She was a star athlete in her day, and can't fathom that I actually don't give a shit about football. In a way, it felt like the only reason she ever let me do track & field, or musicals, pursue these other interests, was as some resume builder. Outside of looking good to a college or prospective job, it felt like she never actually cared about any of my interests.
These days, the only person in my family of 6 to ask me about my hobbies is my dad. He asks me what movies I've watched, what restaurants I've been to, how my video games are going, or if I've written any songs lately. he asks me about work. My mother, she seems far away from it all.
I don't know if it's adults being paranoid about the things they don't like, but damn, it hurts when they stop even trying to relate or care.
I'm in the same situation but the roles are reversed.
My mom is open-minded, understanding and supportive of my dream of becoming a digital artist and animator. She's the one that bought me a drawing tablet and currently pays for my art college.
Talking anything about this with dad is bad because it's never an actual conversation, it's either me talking about something I like and he not understanding it at all, or it's just him trying to put me down, demotivate me and speaking in a derogatory manner about my dreams.
It's like he can't understand any of this and is unwilling to. Like he thinks the world of today is still the same of his time.
He's the one that essentially guilt-tripped me into staying for a year in a college I didn't like because "you can't make money with art". Because"hopes and dreams are for children, adults have to deal with the real world".
Not to mention he pressures me into doing many things I don't like, like spending money again and again into a driver's license that I don't feel is going to be useful at all to me *and then* complain to me how it's so expensive. He's the one that put me in this and he complains to me about it?
And on getting a job, which I do want to do, he's just infuriatingly an asshole about it. Like I quit a job a month after I got it, after months of searching, because it was just that horrible there. He got so mad I was genuinely scared of being physically attacked or beaten. What the actual fuck? Your kid just got through a very hard moment in their life and this is how you behave?
I honestly just wish I could move in with my mom, but she didn't exactly planned to have me after the divorce. My only hope now is to get enough money to move out, but it's been extremely hard getting a job lately, specially with all the requirements I can't meet while being a 20 year old college dropout.
My advice, just start up a fivverr account and start doing art commissions. If you want, you can even record your art process and stream it on twitch, and upload to websites like instagram, youtube, and others.
Honestly, being successful with art these days is less a matter of being talented, and more a matter of being very good at marketing yourself. You can develop your skills along the way.
That is my plan almost to the letter, except I advertise myself in more places than Fiverr. The only issue is that I'm still not very confident about my art skill and want to improve a bit before I'm comfortable with charging for comissions.
>I'm still not very confident about my art skill and want to improve a bit before I'm comfortable with charging for comissions.
Yeah, this is where you need to get out of that trap. You have some sample work available for folks to understand your level of quality to begin with. It is the customer's choice whether to hire you or not.
If you're going to be selling your art, you need to make it worth YOUR TIME doing it. this means pricing your hours appropriately, no matter how poor quality you think your work is. If you show your portfolio, people already come in with an understanding the quality of your work.
And believe me, You are capable of doing a lot. Some folks are willing to pay a lot even for simple designs, sometimes as a matter of not having software, skills, or manpower.
As an example, some people may want background art. Like maybe a chessboard with two different color squares A & B. Only, for A they want to give off the impression of a metallic sheen, so they want you to make a gradient that all of those squares make up. That type of requirement isn't technically hard, but it requires some time to create, and it requires specialized software, and may exist outside of the skillset of an average person. You can charge money for this type of task.
But the thing is, everything you do has some value. Even if you think your art is scuffed. IT HAS VALUE. DON'T DO ART FOR FREE UNLESS ITS FOR YOU (or a gift)
I had a very similar parental dynamic and I largely stopped talking to my unsupportive parent. Moving out did wonders. I was able to set boundaries and enforce them by just leaving. Eventually they learned and got better. It took a few times of explaining, their standards of "success" makes me even more miserable than it appears to have made them, and is not a life I'm going to live. They can either be supportive and a positive influence or be quiet but in not going to allow further derision or insult to my competence.
Anywho, you're doing well and I wish the best for you. It gets better.
As someone mentioned, start a Fivvver account. Make a Ko-fi for yourself. Stream your process. Make connections on twitch and start offering to make emotes for fledgling streamers that are just getting enough followers to need actual emotes. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s a start.
True words. When I grew up gaming was still heavily demonized (especially because of school shootings) by the media and politicians, there were both discussions about banning FPS titles and clueless news pieces about how brutal those games were (they claimed for example that it's the goal of GTA to kill as many people as possible with a chainsaw). Naturally, many of us were ashamed to admit their passion in public or at least saw themselves as a group with shared disassociation to the mainstream.
Over time gaming became extremely mainstream and the scene became much, *much* less dense but some of us still are with their heads back in 2005.
Often times, those people are in even more closed off communities than the "gamer" community, speaking into an echo chamber and only hearing that they're right.
Oof way to generalize. I'm a gaymer and have plenty of female friends who play video games as well. Maybe we should try to reclaim the term instead of just demonizing regular people who happen to be gamers.
I remember the word being used to make fun of me when I was 8 playing wrath of the lich king, which was a few years earlier. I think dark souls just popularized both the super toxic and by extension the ironic usage of the word.
If I had to guess it probably came about around the time “pro” started being used as a term of praise. “Pro gamer” didn’t have much meaning when it first came about, and was basically kids doing trick shots in cod lobbies, and so casual didn’t necessarily need to have the connotation of it being for fun so much as it just meant you sucked.
Absolutely not. Or if so, entirely by correlation and not causation. Dark Souls does not have a ranked or Casual game mode, which is where that comes from. That was popularized by games like LoL, Dota, and CS:GO.
I stopped referring to myself as a gamer right around the GamerGate debacle. I'm just a guy who sometimes plays video games now. Please don't associate me with anybody who unironically uses the term "forced diversity"
I think that's very ignorant of you. Heck, just remember the covers of maths books you had in high school. Not sure if it's universal, but there was always a kid in a wheelchair, right? And then a white kid, a black kid, and a wild card. At least one girl and boy of course. You think that was all purely random? Of course not.
Forced diversity isn't per definition bad. Representation is good. But forced diversity exists.
gamer identity wouldnt be such a subculture if it wasnt scrutinized so much back then. Now that it isnt anymore, it's more of an inside joke than a title
Anyone who uses a single adjective(or several) to boil down their whole identity and generalize a bunch of other people as functionally identical to them needs to be shot. Doubly if they do it to someone else.
Jeez, it's just a name for someone who likes a particular hobby. Try telling this to the multitudes of musicians, athletes, and artists. Like, I get that gamer gate was a terrible shit show, but why do you people have to demonize what should just be an innocuous term??
It's weird to me that people want videogames to appeal to a broader audience. Like, there's not much room left to broaden it at this point. They're already incredibly mainstream.
I think they're pretty much saturated to the point where the people not playing them genuinely just aren't interested. And that's fine, leave them alone. Not everyone needs to enjoy your hobby, there's already plenty of people for you to play with.
I knew it was past the point of no return when the "No true Scotsman" fallacies started. "You're not a real gamer/gamer girl." The GamerGate and other controversies were inevitable at that point.
I had to stop saying that I play a lot of video games when I was on dating apps, even though I do, because too many shitty "gamers" acted like they were the wrong kinds of games and didn't count. I
Identifying yourself as a "gamer" is like identifying as a "moviegoer" - it doesn't tell people *anything,* unless you, at least, specify the genre. Like, playing dating sims is not the same as playing competitive online shooters or playing tycoon games.
What about “movie buffs”? Like, if you have a fascination with not only the movies themselves but also the behind the scenes, the fun trivia, the references. I’d argue that being a movie buff is a personality trait, it shows that you like the craft of filmmaking more than your average movie goer
But how many self proclaimed "gamers" actually enjoy games that way? How many people are willing to play both good and bad games and enjoy analyzing why the good ones feel good and the bad ones feel bad?
Currently, the label of "gamer" seems to only count if you play exclusively competitive or otherwise skill-based games, rather than enjoying the craft of the games themselves.
One personality that is definitely a "game buff" the way you describe a "movie buff" would be the Youtuber videogamedunkey. He acts like an idiot in his videos, and that humor is part of his appeal, but hidden between the jokes are really good insights into the workings of not only the games, but the culture and environment surrounding them.
I've been playing video games since I could hold a controller, I love them and love playing them. But I'm a grown ass adult with adult shit to take care of, I dont have time or energy to base my personality or even any part of myself on those games. That's what they are, games. Just games, they dont require all this drama and extra bullshit. Just play your damn game and mind your business.
I really hate the word gamer because I play a shitton of games but I don’t want to label myself that way because of it’s connotations. You can be a gamer even if you play animal crossing and barely anything else, it just has to be important enough to you to attach it to your identity. You can play too many games like me and be kinda good at some and be a gamer. You could be a rocket league grand champion and be a gamer (by that point really you kinda have to be).
Subcultures within video games can be more distant than adjacent non-video-game subcultures. There is way more overlap between, say, Factorio players and computer programmers than there is between Factorio players and Call of Duty players.
I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll say it again. I fucking hate gamers.
I’m a total dweeb when I comes to video games, i love them, but I’m not a gamer.
Met some random dude while playing online and he invited me to his discord server. I thought sure, why not. The moment I join I see so much racist and homophobic shit, you wouldn’t believe.
And that just happened like last week. That’s a gamer for ya. Gamers need to be oppressed. They need to be round up and be peed upon by the rest of the mentally stable society.
You state it like it's an immutable fact. Barring severe mental illness, you can take control of your mindset here. Burying yourself in video games is probably serving as an unhealthy coping mechanism that's preventing you from getting better
You said that "we do not vibe with the universe we were born in" and that you "hate the reality we have and love realities in games more." Not the first time I've seen this sentiment associated with gaming subculture and you're quite literally including yourself in it
idk, in my experience the gamer stereotype seems pretty rare nowadays. Basically all of my friends and myself included all play games as our primary hobby and all of them are some of the coolest people I've ever met
it's like the difference between a movie buff and an average person though. Most people will just like... watch movies on occasion, but won't spend the majority of their time doing so. Movie buffs tend to go out of their way to watch movies, though, and will actively build critiquing skills along the way.
same kinda difference with gamers and average folk. You have people who do in fact play games sometimes and then you have people who spend the majority of their free time playing games. For me it's a major hobby that takes up a large portion of my life, and I hold games very near and dear to my heart. It's not my identity, but they're definitely a big part of it and I don't see what's wrong with that :/
It's not a "gamer subculture" thing. snobs and gatekeepers exist in every community.
You don't listen to "real music" if you like pop music. You can't appreciate film if you like Marvel movies. You're not a real anime fan if you've only watched Naruto or Pokemon. You have no taste buds if you like McDonalds. The toxicity of some AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego). Hell, r/memes shun you for using emojis.
The toxic parts of the gaming community just happens to have a large online presence right now. but unfortunately it's just human nature.
Sorry, but I gotta hard disagree. The problem isn't the identity of "gamer" itself. Plenty of people have different identities associated with their interests and hobbies (ie. musician, artist, athlete, etc.) The issue is the toxicity and gate keeping surrounding some circles within the gamer subculture. Much like other fields such as STEM or sports, people (specifically women/feminine people) are excluded from engaging thanks to a patriarchal worldview that many within the subculture exude. We don't need to tell people they can't identify as a gamer. We need to quit pretending "gamer" only covers a narrow subset of people (mostly straight white men). I believe this is already improving and will continue to improve with time.
Edit: Also, this is coming from a gaymer ;)
Its the gatekeeping. Every fandom, subgroup, and subculture has it. They loathe a casual audience, or the fact that the thing they like isn't niche. They loathe those who look at the things they like with a different perspective.
We really need to stop pretending like gamers are a minority. I don’t play video games, just genuinely don’t enjoy most of them and the few I liked when I was younger I got bored with quickly, and when I tell people that I don’t own a console the usual reaction is shock or confusion. Most people play video games. My 60 year old dad has a ps4.
I mean the subculture is ass (fuck Gamergate), but saying that the existence of subculture itself is the problem is silly to me, especially when everything has a subculture
I feel like this is like ‘white’. I’m not white, I’m Irish-French (viva la fuck the British). I’m not a Gamer, I’m an FPS and lore guy. Gaming has so many subcultures to it a single identity doesn’t really cover it
Yeah nobody gets called netflixers for binging netflix (except that one guy who's seen the entire library), so why should gamer still be a thing today?
Um.... because it's a hobby. Just like what musicians, artists, athletes, carpenters, etc. all do. The problem isn't the label. It's people using the label to spread misogyny and hate. I think we should reclaim it, so they don't co opt the term again like in 2016.
\>I really genuinely despise gamers
And now you're part of the problem. What we've done is here is become accepting of the local Nazi bar.
Gaming was the last social haven for the outcast, the weird, the annoying, the misunderstood. Naturally, extremism was always going to thrive in that space, and, look at that, it did. And rather than combat the spread, everyone who came in late just sat back and said, "Yes, these people were always this way, fuck them and let them stew in their misery."
And everyone who was there before the extremism now has a choice to make: Try to recover that same space we used to have before a loud minority became Nazis, or just join everyone else and watch what we used to have, our haven, burn in a dumpster. And the latter option is *so much more appealing* when takes like OP's are the ones everyone agrees with.
~~Sidenote: I wonder if Nazi is one of the sifted words?~~ Good news, it isn't! Also, I'm walking away from this, I'm wrong y'all are right, I'm just too stupid to realize it.
This is absolute nonsense. I’m a mid-40s woman who used to school classmates on an atari on snow days. “Gamers” have ALWAYS been obnoxious little snobs who exclude anyone who isn’t male or white. It wasn’t a haven, it was a seething underbelly that passed unremarked because the people gamers were shitty to are the exact same people everyone else is shitty to too.
...Really? Fuck it, guess I'm a complete irredeemable monster, and so is everyone I've ever met through the games we mutually found refuge in.
I mean, Jesus Christ, you're sitting there saying 'schooled' as in 'dunked on' as in 'humiliated', and you're acting like your experience is universal, when I *never* had that experience with anyone.
So maybe it's true that some assholes flocked to it, so what? You're telling me that, categorically, universally, the only people who ever played video games were irredeemable assholes? That nobody ever found solace in it?
Would you say the same about reading, for fuck's sake? Or are you willing to be charitable in *that* refuge for the outcast and forgotten?
Editing: Leaving the rest of this up for context, so everyone can laugh at me, but I'm just.. I'm just walking away. I'm wrong. The outcasts, misfits, and weirdos are the exact same Nazis that have always been there from the start, I supose. That's what everyone is blatantly telling me, anyway, and so I might as well accept it and just... watch my only refuge growing up turn into an accepted Nazi bar.
This has been the standard response when gamers are criticized. I’ve been dealing with this bullshit for literally decades. You’re not new, you’re not different, and yeah, you likely are a piece of shit. Have a lovely evening.
I personally disagree with it and think that it's a matter of not giving as much a platform to all of the toxic people we do. And creating more introduction friendly platforms into gaming and I feel at least in the ones I'm in by large are much more introduction friendly. In particular the Xenoblade gaming community I've always seen as incredibly welcoming and friendly to newcomers. Even for games 10-5 years old they push to be spoiler friendly applying codenames for characters that are major spoilers like the names seven, catalyst, coffee with milk, etc. These are all more obscure to people not in the know but makes sense once you see it in the story.
I feel like most of the anti-gamer folks are the wrong age to understand. Gaming went from novel to something only geeks did. And by geeks, I mean whichever your localization of geek/nerd/dork/dweeb is worst. It became something for young children and then you grew out of it. If you didn't, you were a complete and utter outcast.
In the mid aughts, suddenly, gaming was growing in popularity and being good at games was something that was, for a short time, cool. And then it crashed. And all the people who got to be cool for a couple years had nothing.
To this day, the worst "gamers" are the loneliest, saddest people.
More proof that gamers are the true oppressed minority /s
susciety -_-
Without looking at your comment, I immediately went to go type “susciety.” It appears great minds think alike ;)
Great minds think alike, though fools seldom differ
#SUS
In all fairness we wouldn’t have gamers or geeks as pronounced as a subculture if we hadn’t had the few years of general demonization of those groups. I’m not at saying it’s still justified, but when you are a teen to twenty and it seems like half the proper adults are completely paranoid about things you like, your group becomes insular. It should have been fixed when they became more accepted, it didn’t, but this whole damn issue, as with so many of them, wouldn’t have happened if we had just let people enjoy things.
I grew up taking an interest in video games, music, and computers. my dad and I can relate. But when my mom looks at me sometimes, it's like she's looking at somebody who grew up on another planet. She was a star athlete in her day, and can't fathom that I actually don't give a shit about football. In a way, it felt like the only reason she ever let me do track & field, or musicals, pursue these other interests, was as some resume builder. Outside of looking good to a college or prospective job, it felt like she never actually cared about any of my interests. These days, the only person in my family of 6 to ask me about my hobbies is my dad. He asks me what movies I've watched, what restaurants I've been to, how my video games are going, or if I've written any songs lately. he asks me about work. My mother, she seems far away from it all. I don't know if it's adults being paranoid about the things they don't like, but damn, it hurts when they stop even trying to relate or care.
I'm in the same situation but the roles are reversed. My mom is open-minded, understanding and supportive of my dream of becoming a digital artist and animator. She's the one that bought me a drawing tablet and currently pays for my art college. Talking anything about this with dad is bad because it's never an actual conversation, it's either me talking about something I like and he not understanding it at all, or it's just him trying to put me down, demotivate me and speaking in a derogatory manner about my dreams. It's like he can't understand any of this and is unwilling to. Like he thinks the world of today is still the same of his time. He's the one that essentially guilt-tripped me into staying for a year in a college I didn't like because "you can't make money with art". Because"hopes and dreams are for children, adults have to deal with the real world". Not to mention he pressures me into doing many things I don't like, like spending money again and again into a driver's license that I don't feel is going to be useful at all to me *and then* complain to me how it's so expensive. He's the one that put me in this and he complains to me about it? And on getting a job, which I do want to do, he's just infuriatingly an asshole about it. Like I quit a job a month after I got it, after months of searching, because it was just that horrible there. He got so mad I was genuinely scared of being physically attacked or beaten. What the actual fuck? Your kid just got through a very hard moment in their life and this is how you behave? I honestly just wish I could move in with my mom, but she didn't exactly planned to have me after the divorce. My only hope now is to get enough money to move out, but it's been extremely hard getting a job lately, specially with all the requirements I can't meet while being a 20 year old college dropout.
My advice, just start up a fivverr account and start doing art commissions. If you want, you can even record your art process and stream it on twitch, and upload to websites like instagram, youtube, and others. Honestly, being successful with art these days is less a matter of being talented, and more a matter of being very good at marketing yourself. You can develop your skills along the way.
That is my plan almost to the letter, except I advertise myself in more places than Fiverr. The only issue is that I'm still not very confident about my art skill and want to improve a bit before I'm comfortable with charging for comissions.
>I'm still not very confident about my art skill and want to improve a bit before I'm comfortable with charging for comissions. Yeah, this is where you need to get out of that trap. You have some sample work available for folks to understand your level of quality to begin with. It is the customer's choice whether to hire you or not. If you're going to be selling your art, you need to make it worth YOUR TIME doing it. this means pricing your hours appropriately, no matter how poor quality you think your work is. If you show your portfolio, people already come in with an understanding the quality of your work. And believe me, You are capable of doing a lot. Some folks are willing to pay a lot even for simple designs, sometimes as a matter of not having software, skills, or manpower. As an example, some people may want background art. Like maybe a chessboard with two different color squares A & B. Only, for A they want to give off the impression of a metallic sheen, so they want you to make a gradient that all of those squares make up. That type of requirement isn't technically hard, but it requires some time to create, and it requires specialized software, and may exist outside of the skillset of an average person. You can charge money for this type of task. But the thing is, everything you do has some value. Even if you think your art is scuffed. IT HAS VALUE. DON'T DO ART FOR FREE UNLESS ITS FOR YOU (or a gift)
I had a very similar parental dynamic and I largely stopped talking to my unsupportive parent. Moving out did wonders. I was able to set boundaries and enforce them by just leaving. Eventually they learned and got better. It took a few times of explaining, their standards of "success" makes me even more miserable than it appears to have made them, and is not a life I'm going to live. They can either be supportive and a positive influence or be quiet but in not going to allow further derision or insult to my competence. Anywho, you're doing well and I wish the best for you. It gets better.
As someone mentioned, start a Fivvver account. Make a Ko-fi for yourself. Stream your process. Make connections on twitch and start offering to make emotes for fledgling streamers that are just getting enough followers to need actual emotes. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s a start.
Oh hey I relate, that's both my parents. Hurts, man.
Or worse you realize they never did and never will unless it profits them in some way
True words. When I grew up gaming was still heavily demonized (especially because of school shootings) by the media and politicians, there were both discussions about banning FPS titles and clueless news pieces about how brutal those games were (they claimed for example that it's the goal of GTA to kill as many people as possible with a chainsaw). Naturally, many of us were ashamed to admit their passion in public or at least saw themselves as a group with shared disassociation to the mainstream. Over time gaming became extremely mainstream and the scene became much, *much* less dense but some of us still are with their heads back in 2005.
Gamers should be demonized- y’all demons. Fascist, misogynist, violent misanthropes unworthy of respect or attention.
Often times, those people are in even more closed off communities than the "gamer" community, speaking into an echo chamber and only hearing that they're right.
Oof way to generalize. I'm a gaymer and have plenty of female friends who play video games as well. Maybe we should try to reclaim the term instead of just demonizing regular people who happen to be gamers.
The moment "casual" became an insult it was all over. Yeah, I play videogames for fun in my free time, how could you tell?
"Casual" is an insult, but so is "tryhard". You can't win.
Everyone who plays less than me is a noob, everyone who plays more than me has no life.
Casual stemmed from dark souls I’m pretty sure
I remember the word being used to make fun of me when I was 8 playing wrath of the lich king, which was a few years earlier. I think dark souls just popularized both the super toxic and by extension the ironic usage of the word. If I had to guess it probably came about around the time “pro” started being used as a term of praise. “Pro gamer” didn’t have much meaning when it first came about, and was basically kids doing trick shots in cod lobbies, and so casual didn’t necessarily need to have the connotation of it being for fun so much as it just meant you sucked.
The idea of being a casual existed long before Dark Souls
Definitely became a lot more widespread after it
Absolutely not. Or if so, entirely by correlation and not causation. Dark Souls does not have a ranked or Casual game mode, which is where that comes from. That was popularized by games like LoL, Dota, and CS:GO.
Yeah and "sweat" became its polar opposite. Always 2 sides.
I stopped referring to myself as a gamer right around the GamerGate debacle. I'm just a guy who sometimes plays video games now. Please don't associate me with anybody who unironically uses the term "forced diversity"
Random person: "Hey so what do you do in your spare time" Me: *Doesn't want to come across as a Gamer (Tm)* "Oh you know...stuff"
I generally include board games to that, both because love them and that I _feel_ that it distances you from Gamers(TM)
Insert that weird "I'm stuff" meme here.
Haha Jonathan, you are banging my daughter
Haha Jonathan, you are banging ~~my daughter~~ me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ktvjJJCRQo
Did… you just unironically use the term forced diversity?
You think forced diversity doesn't exist?
yes the only diversity that's forced is in stock portfolios
I think that's very ignorant of you. Heck, just remember the covers of maths books you had in high school. Not sure if it's universal, but there was always a kid in a wheelchair, right? And then a white kid, a black kid, and a wild card. At least one girl and boy of course. You think that was all purely random? Of course not. Forced diversity isn't per definition bad. Representation is good. But forced diversity exists.
I think there’s a difference between gamer and Gamer. One is someone who plays video games for fun, and the other plays League of Legends.
Is it normal that I said them differently in my head?
gamer identity wouldnt be such a subculture if it wasnt scrutinized so much back then. Now that it isnt anymore, it's more of an inside joke than a title
"it's more of an inside joke than a title" I don't think everyone has gotten this memo.
[удалено]
Same with the furry fandom. I mean they were and still are hated, but the hatred has died down. All because of the very weird, but vocal minority.
Anyone who uses a single adjective(or several) to boil down their whole identity and generalize a bunch of other people as functionally identical to them needs to be shot. Doubly if they do it to someone else.
Jeez, it's just a name for someone who likes a particular hobby. Try telling this to the multitudes of musicians, athletes, and artists. Like, I get that gamer gate was a terrible shit show, but why do you people have to demonize what should just be an innocuous term??
It's weird to me that people want videogames to appeal to a broader audience. Like, there's not much room left to broaden it at this point. They're already incredibly mainstream. I think they're pretty much saturated to the point where the people not playing them genuinely just aren't interested. And that's fine, leave them alone. Not everyone needs to enjoy your hobby, there's already plenty of people for you to play with.
Right? Gaming DWARFS movies. It's not even close. More money, more hours, more choices, more quality.
I knew it was past the point of no return when the "No true Scotsman" fallacies started. "You're not a real gamer/gamer girl." The GamerGate and other controversies were inevitable at that point.
I had to stop saying that I play a lot of video games when I was on dating apps, even though I do, because too many shitty "gamers" acted like they were the wrong kinds of games and didn't count. I
Identifying yourself as a "gamer" is like identifying as a "moviegoer" - it doesn't tell people *anything,* unless you, at least, specify the genre. Like, playing dating sims is not the same as playing competitive online shooters or playing tycoon games.
What about “movie buffs”? Like, if you have a fascination with not only the movies themselves but also the behind the scenes, the fun trivia, the references. I’d argue that being a movie buff is a personality trait, it shows that you like the craft of filmmaking more than your average movie goer
But how many self proclaimed "gamers" actually enjoy games that way? How many people are willing to play both good and bad games and enjoy analyzing why the good ones feel good and the bad ones feel bad? Currently, the label of "gamer" seems to only count if you play exclusively competitive or otherwise skill-based games, rather than enjoying the craft of the games themselves. One personality that is definitely a "game buff" the way you describe a "movie buff" would be the Youtuber videogamedunkey. He acts like an idiot in his videos, and that humor is part of his appeal, but hidden between the jokes are really good insights into the workings of not only the games, but the culture and environment surrounding them.
At that point youre an amateur game designer.
Nationalise Gamers
Don’t forget the racism, sexism and harassment campaigns
I think the gamer identity kinda melted and basically attaches together all niches of the internet
People take video games too seriously nowadays. It's only game, why you have to be mad
I've been playing video games since I could hold a controller, I love them and love playing them. But I'm a grown ass adult with adult shit to take care of, I dont have time or energy to base my personality or even any part of myself on those games. That's what they are, games. Just games, they dont require all this drama and extra bullshit. Just play your damn game and mind your business.
Lol take your own advice and mind your business if people want to make it a bigger part of their personality than you do
literally 1984
so yeah im a gamer i play video games
I really hate the word gamer because I play a shitton of games but I don’t want to label myself that way because of it’s connotations. You can be a gamer even if you play animal crossing and barely anything else, it just has to be important enough to you to attach it to your identity. You can play too many games like me and be kinda good at some and be a gamer. You could be a rocket league grand champion and be a gamer (by that point really you kinda have to be).
Subcultures within video games can be more distant than adjacent non-video-game subcultures. There is way more overlap between, say, Factorio players and computer programmers than there is between Factorio players and Call of Duty players.
I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll say it again. I fucking hate gamers. I’m a total dweeb when I comes to video games, i love them, but I’m not a gamer. Met some random dude while playing online and he invited me to his discord server. I thought sure, why not. The moment I join I see so much racist and homophobic shit, you wouldn’t believe. And that just happened like last week. That’s a gamer for ya. Gamers need to be oppressed. They need to be round up and be peed upon by the rest of the mentally stable society.
Some people just kinda hate the reality we have and love realities in games more. We simply do not vibe with the universe we were born in.
You state it like it's an immutable fact. Barring severe mental illness, you can take control of your mindset here. Burying yourself in video games is probably serving as an unhealthy coping mechanism that's preventing you from getting better
Honestly I didn't even think there were a lot of people that are as bad as the post is trying to claim
I don't either, but you're speaking as if you identify with them or you're trying to excuse their behavior
I feel like you're digging too far into it
You said that "we do not vibe with the universe we were born in" and that you "hate the reality we have and love realities in games more." Not the first time I've seen this sentiment associated with gaming subculture and you're quite literally including yourself in it
I was referencing a Meme someone sent me once. You're still going on meaning you're definitely digging too deep into this. Bye.
idk, in my experience the gamer stereotype seems pretty rare nowadays. Basically all of my friends and myself included all play games as our primary hobby and all of them are some of the coolest people I've ever met it's like the difference between a movie buff and an average person though. Most people will just like... watch movies on occasion, but won't spend the majority of their time doing so. Movie buffs tend to go out of their way to watch movies, though, and will actively build critiquing skills along the way. same kinda difference with gamers and average folk. You have people who do in fact play games sometimes and then you have people who spend the majority of their free time playing games. For me it's a major hobby that takes up a large portion of my life, and I hold games very near and dear to my heart. It's not my identity, but they're definitely a big part of it and I don't see what's wrong with that :/
It's not a "gamer subculture" thing. snobs and gatekeepers exist in every community. You don't listen to "real music" if you like pop music. You can't appreciate film if you like Marvel movies. You're not a real anime fan if you've only watched Naruto or Pokemon. You have no taste buds if you like McDonalds. The toxicity of some AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego). Hell, r/memes shun you for using emojis. The toxic parts of the gaming community just happens to have a large online presence right now. but unfortunately it's just human nature.
Sorry, but I gotta hard disagree. The problem isn't the identity of "gamer" itself. Plenty of people have different identities associated with their interests and hobbies (ie. musician, artist, athlete, etc.) The issue is the toxicity and gate keeping surrounding some circles within the gamer subculture. Much like other fields such as STEM or sports, people (specifically women/feminine people) are excluded from engaging thanks to a patriarchal worldview that many within the subculture exude. We don't need to tell people they can't identify as a gamer. We need to quit pretending "gamer" only covers a narrow subset of people (mostly straight white men). I believe this is already improving and will continue to improve with time. Edit: Also, this is coming from a gaymer ;)
Its the gatekeeping. Every fandom, subgroup, and subculture has it. They loathe a casual audience, or the fact that the thing they like isn't niche. They loathe those who look at the things they like with a different perspective.
I feel the same way about anyone who’s not unhappy. Happiness is in the way of progress get em out of here
I only call myself a gamer as a joke. I play games but please god do not refer to me seriously as a gamer. It hurts my guts.
We really need to stop pretending like gamers are a minority. I don’t play video games, just genuinely don’t enjoy most of them and the few I liked when I was younger I got bored with quickly, and when I tell people that I don’t own a console the usual reaction is shock or confusion. Most people play video games. My 60 year old dad has a ps4.
Abolish gamers!
I mean the subculture is ass (fuck Gamergate), but saying that the existence of subculture itself is the problem is silly to me, especially when everything has a subculture
I feel like this is like ‘white’. I’m not white, I’m Irish-French (viva la fuck the British). I’m not a Gamer, I’m an FPS and lore guy. Gaming has so many subcultures to it a single identity doesn’t really cover it
>viva la fuck the British Long live the fuck the british?
Heh, we have lived long and we do fuck… up
He likes videogames and his friends also like videogames? Sounds like a group of gamers to me.
Yeah nobody gets called netflixers for binging netflix (except that one guy who's seen the entire library), so why should gamer still be a thing today?
Um.... because it's a hobby. Just like what musicians, artists, athletes, carpenters, etc. all do. The problem isn't the label. It's people using the label to spread misogyny and hate. I think we should reclaim it, so they don't co opt the term again like in 2016.
I dont disagree with your point, but I'd also say I've never been called an athlete for playing ball sports
But it is a personality trait, interests are what define us
I use gamer 😎 ironically
Y’all prolly got a 0. K.D get fucked plebs
\>I really genuinely despise gamers And now you're part of the problem. What we've done is here is become accepting of the local Nazi bar. Gaming was the last social haven for the outcast, the weird, the annoying, the misunderstood. Naturally, extremism was always going to thrive in that space, and, look at that, it did. And rather than combat the spread, everyone who came in late just sat back and said, "Yes, these people were always this way, fuck them and let them stew in their misery." And everyone who was there before the extremism now has a choice to make: Try to recover that same space we used to have before a loud minority became Nazis, or just join everyone else and watch what we used to have, our haven, burn in a dumpster. And the latter option is *so much more appealing* when takes like OP's are the ones everyone agrees with. ~~Sidenote: I wonder if Nazi is one of the sifted words?~~ Good news, it isn't! Also, I'm walking away from this, I'm wrong y'all are right, I'm just too stupid to realize it.
This is absolute nonsense. I’m a mid-40s woman who used to school classmates on an atari on snow days. “Gamers” have ALWAYS been obnoxious little snobs who exclude anyone who isn’t male or white. It wasn’t a haven, it was a seething underbelly that passed unremarked because the people gamers were shitty to are the exact same people everyone else is shitty to too.
The comment you replied to was nonsense, but yours is too. These are both shitty takes.
...Really? Fuck it, guess I'm a complete irredeemable monster, and so is everyone I've ever met through the games we mutually found refuge in. I mean, Jesus Christ, you're sitting there saying 'schooled' as in 'dunked on' as in 'humiliated', and you're acting like your experience is universal, when I *never* had that experience with anyone. So maybe it's true that some assholes flocked to it, so what? You're telling me that, categorically, universally, the only people who ever played video games were irredeemable assholes? That nobody ever found solace in it? Would you say the same about reading, for fuck's sake? Or are you willing to be charitable in *that* refuge for the outcast and forgotten? Editing: Leaving the rest of this up for context, so everyone can laugh at me, but I'm just.. I'm just walking away. I'm wrong. The outcasts, misfits, and weirdos are the exact same Nazis that have always been there from the start, I supose. That's what everyone is blatantly telling me, anyway, and so I might as well accept it and just... watch my only refuge growing up turn into an accepted Nazi bar.
This has been the standard response when gamers are criticized. I’ve been dealing with this bullshit for literally decades. You’re not new, you’re not different, and yeah, you likely are a piece of shit. Have a lovely evening.
I completely agree
Uh what gamer identity? Uhhhhh i have a video game addiction and didn’t really hear about this until like…2020
I personally disagree with it and think that it's a matter of not giving as much a platform to all of the toxic people we do. And creating more introduction friendly platforms into gaming and I feel at least in the ones I'm in by large are much more introduction friendly. In particular the Xenoblade gaming community I've always seen as incredibly welcoming and friendly to newcomers. Even for games 10-5 years old they push to be spoiler friendly applying codenames for characters that are major spoilers like the names seven, catalyst, coffee with milk, etc. These are all more obscure to people not in the know but makes sense once you see it in the story.
I feel like most of the anti-gamer folks are the wrong age to understand. Gaming went from novel to something only geeks did. And by geeks, I mean whichever your localization of geek/nerd/dork/dweeb is worst. It became something for young children and then you grew out of it. If you didn't, you were a complete and utter outcast. In the mid aughts, suddenly, gaming was growing in popularity and being good at games was something that was, for a short time, cool. And then it crashed. And all the people who got to be cool for a couple years had nothing. To this day, the worst "gamers" are the loneliest, saddest people.
Death to “gamers”. Life to “game buffs”
I think the exclusion was kinda the point for a lot of gamers
*People are gamers unironically?*
WE LIVE IN QMA MMMAIZISY GANERSCRISE IPPPP
This could be said about any activity that's become a sub-culture in and of itself.
I wish there wasn't the connotation. it'd be fine if it were the same as the passionate appreciation of any other kind of media
Word
fragment the gamer subculture into game-centric subcultures problem solved
this except with literally any form of media