this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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I think gamers as a whole, though specifically those in niche communities, need to take a long and hard look at themselves. We should celebrate the volunteers that create wonderful content for us, generally with no financial gain. Instead, commonly, there are communities that criticize and tear down every little thing they can think of. They even went as far as to doxx the poor woman. We need to be better, and we need to hold these kind of toxic trolls accountable. Especially those of us who are men, we have a responsibility to call out other men who mistreat women in the gaming industry, or gaming in general.

*Edit: I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all. My sentiment is that many of us do not think about this kind of thing, and less are willing to speak out against their friends. We need to be better about that as a whole. I appreciate you as a person if you are already of this mindset.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago

Stuff like this is why I don't tell people I game. The Gamer Stink is real and I don't want to be guilty by association. Seriously, go touch grass. The things that you're denigrating someone else for are pixels and code on a computer. Find some way to not be garbage humans.

Her music is interesting. Hope she ends up happier

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

This broad dynamic isn't new and it isn't unique either to gaming or to men. Every single creative volunteer community on the net is filled with assholes and drama llamas, of any and all genders. It's just the nature of the thing. You see the same things over and over with game modding, cracking, romhacking, emulation, manga scanlation, anime fansubbing, vocaloid production, mmd modeling, fanfic, fanart, and so on and on.

People often (generally?) are willing to invest the time and energy into whatever it is that they're going to post online at least in large part because they crave the attention they hope it will bring, and specifically, they want to be lauded for their talent and skill.

And that often runs up against the fact that an awful lot of the responses they're going to get are going to come from self-absorbed and entitled assholes bitching because they don't like whatever it is that they're getting for free, and think they have to be accommodated.

And very often, the response from the creator, unsurprisingly really, is to effectively (or even literally) say, "Fine then - fuck you all. I'm done."

And 'round and 'round it goes, and has from the start, and likely will never stop. It's just an unfortunate but pretty much inevitable clash between a personality type that's likely to create and share something online for free and a personality type that's likely to comment on something somebody else created and shared with them for free.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I don't disagree with you but I feel that it is important to recognize and call out the misogyny element in this story. The gaming community has a pervasive sexism problem that's normalized, and that part is unique in that it all comes from men.

I have only ever played three games online. The first was Final Fantasy XI, and I was part of a group/guild with nice people. It was fun!

The next was Team Fortress 2 because my husband wanted me to play with him. The vitriol and misogyny hurled at me over voice chat after two matches made me never play again.

The last was Destiny, and I turned off voice chat completely.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (15 children)

"gamers as a whole"

leave me out of this i didnt do anything.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I've been a great fan of gaming for my entire long life. But I don't play online games any more, because so many gamers are toxic. Obviously there are good individuals and some good outposts, but taken as a whole it is a toxic community.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I'm not a gamer. I play games, but I'm not a Gamerᵀᴹ. I noped out of the "community" a long time ago.

I'm a little curious where she's getting the harassment from. If it's from twitter, I don't know what to tell her. It's designed to amplify hate and anxiety. If it's from lan parties or irl shit, yeah, I haven't experienced it, but I have seen that to a degree.

edit: Wait. Is the "harassment" coming from needy fans asking her to tweak her work for their liking? That's a little different from what I assumed this was about. I'm not going to side with the community nagging her for tweaks, but if she's creating this for herself, she needs to disengage from those types. If she's creating these mods, putting them out online and expecting only positive comments, I don't know what to tell her. This is something all big modders and have to deal with.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The article glosses over the sexual harassment until the end. She says that pictures of her were distributed on discord and mentions the daily harassment and sexualization from the community.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Man, gaming communities are so fucking toxic.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I put wheels on my car which are a cheap copy of a very popular wheel because they were $500 not $2000 and I dont race. Every car meet someone has to comment that Im running "fakes" and try to give me a hard time about it. Yeah, Ive got a mortgage and a kid. Fuck off with your Supreme snapback ass hypebeast bullshit. I'm building the car I can afford.

People are toxic, even communities who preach peace and love as their doctrine have people who will whip out the moral-cock ruler and start shit over who is more peaceful and loving.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago

Thousands of hours, months of hard work. For about 300 bucks and a bunch of incels doxxing and harassing her.

I cannot fathom why she left.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Reading the article, this is a typical case of burnout. It's happening to every artist, content creator, modder, foss developer, etc. On the long term we all have to find a balance or we won't last long. And tbh, just learn to ignore the trolls and focus on the positive things and your passion or they will win. You can't take them seriously. It seems the person in the article has already found herself another passion project and could throw away the suffocating chains of responsibilty and something she did not enjoy anymore and move on. I think instances like these really show us we are all just humans and we should appreciate the things we are given.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

I think gaming is too mainstream like television/movie viewers to lump it into some type of niche group/activity these days. Especially with the increased communication and connectivity that the internet provides that brings all sorts of wanted and unwanted people together.

I'm someone who enjoys gaming, and when I play games like The Finals these days I disable chat/voice because most people are assholes. Game previously didn't have chat and enabling that turned it from what felt like a wholesome community because I wasn't exposed to their thoughts to it breaking the illusion when they were able to express themselves.

I think this is more a more broad societal issue and a worrying one of being shown what people truly think. Even a minority is a huge amount when the population is billions, so a lot of damage can be done. Games is just another avenue they choose to be toxic in along side other vehicles provided to communicate their thoughts.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (3 children)

i’m sorry that you have to deal with the outfall of this, OP. gamers are notoriously the most overly sensitive group to generalize, even when they’re meant to think “i recognize that this is pointing out bad apples in my community”. instead, they immediately start defending themselves as if you specifically named them

the sane response is to go “wow that is awful. the gaming community does indeed contain some terrible people, i am glad to be one of the good ones and will distance myself from this behavior”

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