Diversity, Gaming, and Internet Rage

Some days I love the videogaming community, and other days I really, really hate it.  Especially when it's filled up with idiots who not only refuse to engage with discussions about diversity, but are actually hostile to the very idea those discussions exist.  On those days, I want to strangle it to death and leave its body in a quarry.  Seriously, if you ever want a sure fire way to piss me off, show me the comments section on an article about sexism or misogyny or racism in videogames.  I can guarantee that some mouth-breathing dullard will say something that will cause my very being to constrict with rage.  Even worse is that a hell of lot of the comments will agree with him.


Seriously gamers, what the fuck is wrong with you?  Why, in 2011 - and nearly 2012, no less - am I still reading articles like this one by Leigh Alexander complaining about how exhausting to be a woman writing about games, and then tripping over comments like this?

"When the fuck did Kotaku become a soap box for group of people that feel repressed and underrepresented?   When are we going to get the article from the handicapped gamer? The one form the black gamer? Maybe the Indian gamer? How about the one form the gay, female, handicapped, black, Indian gamer? 
I thought the idea of this site was that we're all gamers, we all like to hear about games, and discuss games. 

If I wanted to read about people segregating themselves into groups and pissing and moaning because the group they most self identify with is tied to something touchy like sexual orientation or skin color, I'd read the comments section of a political blog.   What I said in the other article applies here to. Once you stop putting so much fucking emphasis on it, other people will as well. Try handling shit on a case by case basis, and I'm sure people will stop using "female" in the taglines used to describe you."

(Just so you know, the other article he mentions is this one, in which a gay gamer explains how he has been bullied and abused for most of his life because of his sexuality, and how tossing words like "faggot" around in multiplayer games isn't as harmless as some people like to think.  It's deeply personal and rather harrowing to read, and this shitehawk treats it like he's the one that's been wronged.)


You know what?  If you don't care about this kind of stuff, that's fine - not everyone wants to get embroiled in this kind of discussion about their evening's escapism.  But don't attack other people simply because they do care.  We are not being unreasonable when we urge people to be more thoughtful about the language they use.  It's not trampling on free speech - which, by the way, is not synonymous with "I get to be an asshole and you can't say anything about it" - or political correctness gone mad; it's about trying to make the world a more considerate place.  Yes, there will be people who will take it too far, but that doesn't mean everyone who says that gaming is not as inclusive as it could be, or indeed should be, is some ultra-PC feminazi whose only mission in life is to spoil your fun.  This is an attitude that the gaming community - as much as you can call a disparate group of people linked by a single common interest a community - need to ditch.  It's holding gaming back and its holding us back as human beings.


I'm just going to leave this here, because it makes the point wonderfully.