I don’t know whether you’ve been alive during the “games make people violent” craze, where the establishment was trying to pin school shootings on a harmless hobby: The same establishment which caused the systemic issues driving youth into desperation was now blaming an escapist hobby for the issues they, themselves, caused. It’s like framing jugglers for knife attacks. Do some jugglers juggle knives? Yes. Does that have anything to do with anything? No.
Is that in any way comparable in scale and intensity to what various groups had to go through historically, or are now, no of course not. But gamers, as a wider culture, know what it’s like to be victim-blamed. The average person who picks up playing games as a hobby is not any more racist, misogynist, or drivelling rape apologia than the population average. They do it because they enjoy it, no further qualifications necessary.
But OTOH, nope. The copypasta is pumped-up to 11 when it comes to the capacity of gamers to be a community, to organise, take joint action, be a force, everything. I’d be easy to go “no true gamer” on some people but face it “gamers” as a group are still pre-ordering games and letting GPU scalpers have their way with us. Just as powerless as, say, football fans are powerless in he face of FIFA corruption. Concert goes in the face of ticket platform monopolies. We’re a hopeless case in any other aspect but whinging: That, we are masters of.
I don’t know whether you’ve been alive during the “games make people violent” craze, where the establishment was trying to pin school shootings on a harmless hobby: The same establishment which caused the systemic issues driving youth into desperation was now blaming an escapist hobby for the issues they, themselves, caused. It’s like framing jugglers for knife attacks. Do some jugglers juggle knives? Yes. Does that have anything to do with anything? No.
Is that in any way comparable in scale and intensity to what various groups had to go through historically, or are now, no of course not. But gamers, as a wider culture, know what it’s like to be victim-blamed. The average person who picks up playing games as a hobby is not any more racist, misogynist, or drivelling rape apologia than the population average. They do it because they enjoy it, no further qualifications necessary.
But OTOH, nope. The copypasta is pumped-up to 11 when it comes to the capacity of gamers to be a community, to organise, take joint action, be a force, everything. I’d be easy to go “no true gamer” on some people but face it “gamers” as a group are still pre-ordering games and letting GPU scalpers have their way with us. Just as powerless as, say, football fans are powerless in he face of FIFA corruption. Concert goes in the face of ticket platform monopolies. We’re a hopeless case in any other aspect but whinging: That, we are masters of.