The term 'girl gamer'

My experiences with girls that play games has been as mixed as my experience with guys that play games. Some are intense, while others are calm; some are great at games, while others aren't. I do wish there were more girls that played games, though because whenever I tune into video game tournaments, I always get excited when girls clock guys in games. Sort of like how I will be all jittery if Hillary wins.

My experience has been largely the same.

My cousin is a girl who plays games. She loves JRPGs (Kingdom Hearts is her fave), the FF series, Persona, all that good stuff. Super duper calm, and really good at games. But I know this other gamer girl who is super duper intense, not as good at games (couldn't beat Donkey Kong or The Wonderful 101), and spends most of her time screaming at Dota 2. Girl gamers come in all shapes and sizes, and I greatly appreciate anyone who can appreciate video games.
 
I hate this shit.

Why is there some kind of measuring stick where girls/women have to be hardcore or they're just attention whoring jezebels who don't know CoD from Halo from a hole in the ground.

Those pictures are also insulting because they pretty much undermine the fact that a girl who capitalizes on the fact that she plays games isn't actually a real gamer or something. When I say capitalize, I mean those who participate in tournaments, but aren't raging; those who have youtube channels, but aren't faux gamers; and pretty much any girl that earns bank from playing games. The spectrum is a lot wider and diverse than these pictures are making girls that play games out to be.
 
I like to see people with more to offer - whether a funny commentary, an exceptional level of skill, or simply insightful observations and a unique way of playing a game.

But it's possible for girls to look sexy while still offering the above.

I know plenty of attractive girls in real life with cool personalities.
 
Those pictures are also insulting because they pretty much undermine the fact that a girl who capitalizes on the fact that she plays games isn't actually a real gamer or something. When I say capitalize, I mean those who participate in tournaments, but aren't raging; those who have youtube channels, but aren't faux gamers; and pretty much any girl that earns bank from playing games. The spectrum is a lot wider and diverse than these pictures are making girls that play games out to be.

I think it's just bitterness. Girls and women getting positive attention for the very same thing that alienates a lot of guys probably burns deep.
 
hate the term. girls who play games are gamers. there's absolutely no reason, when discussing people who play video games, to categorize at a lower level than that. it's not like they're unicorns. there's tens of millions of girls who play video games.
 
That image is nonsense.

Why do people get to dictate what makes a girl a real gamer or not? Why can't someone who really likes CoD be classified as a gamer?
The pic is less about cod and more about how a "gamer gurl" just looks for views, followers etc.

Note how the girl on the right doesn't play a specific game, it's just that she's actually passionate about it
 
The pic is less about cod and more about how a "gamer gurl" just looks for views, followers etc.

It wouldn't be such an easy thing to do if it wasn't made out to be such a rarity in the first place by the very same group who seems to be pissy about all the attention whoring.
 
I'm not one to question anyone's devotion to playing games but I also hate it when anyone has to point out a face about themselves that has nothing to do with the topic. "GIRL PLAYS XGAME" and "BLACK GUY PLAYS YGAME"

Who gives a fuck to both. All your doing is putting yourself in a sub category and telling the world that you don't believe that you are a normal gamer. If enough people follow that path, it'll be true.
 
I'm gonna guess this either never happened to you or it happened exactly one time.

More than a couple of times actually. I live in P.R. And since highschool I've stumbled upon this. To tell you the truth most girls here aren't into gaming at all.

im going to abort thread now lol, it's my fault I didn't make clear what I was trying to say and before I keep shitting and making my hole deeper ill take my leave. Sorry guys.
 
If we want a proper discussion maybe it's best not to throw out generalizations and images that contribute to them?

Yeah agreed, thats not helpful but you're not going to change that belief by calling each and every person out and telling them off. I have friends who aren't racist but they're so scared of being seen as coming across racist and treading on toes they avoid certain situations and everyone loses. Its going to lead to people avoiding the topic altogether, or questioning it.
 
The pic is less about cod and more about how a "gamer gurl" just looks for views, followers etc.

It's still an image accusing women of only playing those games for attention. Not only that but it's a stereotype that attractive women don't play video games which is even more nonsense.

The fact of the matter is, why are people putting requirements on what makes a gamer? If they only like CoD but also like the attention for it, does that REALLY matter? Why does that bother people so much?

I think the most problematic part of that mentality is that female gamers already have a difficult time in the gaming community so when people start supporting these comics and notions that there's fake female gamers and all that, you begin alienating them.
 
hate the term. girls who play games are gamers. there's absolutely no reason, when discussing people who play video games, to categorize at a lower level than that. it's not like they're unicorns. there's tens of millions of girls who play video games.

I find the term is only really used when the person in question is deemed attractive. At least, that's the only time it actually seems to matter. To put a real life example out there, there was a girl at my work place who was pretty overweight and dubbed herself nerdy, and whenever she talked about her hobby it was usually a basic response or outright being ignored, the moment my girlfriend would pull out a 3DS or something it would suddenly evoke a 'wow you play games' kind of reaction, most would consider her attractive or sexy.

Similarly, attractive men will be chastised much less for the hobby than the balding basement dweller cliche as well, so as usual, good looks = amazing when related to something else someone likes. I'd say this applies to anything really, music, movies, books, etc, but a hot girl who plays a wide gamut of games is treated like a rarity because in many areas, it is.

Despite what many may want, removing sex drives from the mindset will not happen, and cultures and terms will form around it as usual.
 
I find the term is only really used when the person in question is deemed attractive. At least, that's the only time it actually seems to matter. To put a real life example out there, there was a girl at my work place who was pretty overweight and dubbed herself nerdy, and whenever she talked about her hobby it was usually a basic response or outright being ignored, the moment my girlfriend would pull out a 3DS or something it would suddenly evoke a 'wow you play games' kind of reaction, most would consider her attractive or sexy.

Similarly, attractive men will be chastised much less for the hobby than the balding basement dweller cliche as well, so as usual, good looks = amazing when related to something else someone likes. I'd say this applies to anything really, music, movies, books, etc, but a hot girl who plays a wide gamut of games is treated like a rarity because in many areas, it is.

Despite what many may want, removing sex drives from the mindset will not happen, and cultures and terms will form around it as usual.

Your examples don't surprise me. But I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Human (and animal) nature to be physically attracted to the opposite sex. I'm sure all of you know how reproduction instinct works, in regards to weeding out the weak genetics.

There seems to be a certain vocal section of GAF who want to remove physical attraction from human nature (in other threads). I have no idea why.
 
It's still an image accusing women of only playing those games for attention. Not only that but it's a stereotype that attractive women don't play video games which is even more nonsense.

The fact of the matter is, why are people putting requirements on what makes a gamer? If they only like CoD but also like the attention for it, does that REALLY matter? Why does that bother people so much?

I think the most problematic part of that mentality is that female gamers already have a difficult time in the gaming community so when people start supporting these comics and notions that there's fake female gamers and all that, you begin alienating them.

^Yeah. Was going to say the same. Every time these comics are made it's this sexy/manicured woman versus an unkempt frizzled looking chick as if looks or hygiene were the main factor in a woman's qualification as a gamer. It's the most trivial of shit and it's peddled like truth.
 
Human (and animal) nature to be physically attracted to the opposite sex. I'm sure all of you know how reproduction instinct works, in regards to weeding out the weak genetics.

There seems to be a certain vocal section of GAF who want to remove physical attraction from human nature (in other threads). I have no idea why.

can we pleeeaaase not even go here with this

^Yeah. Was going to say the same. Every time these comics are made it's this sexy/manicured woman versus an unkempt frizzled looking chick as if looks or hygiene were the main factor in a woman's qualification as a gamer. It's the most trivial of shit and it's peddled like truth.

At the same time it says that guys must also be unkempt, cave-dwelling shower-skippers if they're true gamers. Like I said, it's just insulting to everyone.
 
I've been gaming for most of my life, but if I took one of those quizzes i'd bomb so hard

>.>

As you would if you for any other test like the SAT or MCAT if you didn't study.

Fiction has the right idea though. For the longest time I too have thought that bestowing the title of true "gamer" needs some form of standardization.
 
I've only ever seen the term girl gamer used seriously by streamers, it's just a way to make their stream 'unique' and different from the rest so I understand its use from a view collecting perspective since there's an audience for that.

My female friends that game are either "into games" or just use gamer.

Did I avoid the minefield?
 
It's still an image accusing women of only playing those games for attention. Not only that but it's a stereotype that attractive women don't play video games which is even more nonsense.

The fact of the matter is, why are people putting requirements on what makes a gamer? If they only like CoD but also like the attention for it, does that REALLY matter? Why does that bother people so much?

I think the most problematic part of that mentality is that female gamers already have a difficult time in the gaming community so when people start supporting these comics and notions that there's fake female gamers and all that, you begin alienating them.
Girl on the right looks fairly attractive if you ask me.

And true, the focus lies a bit too heavily on female gamers, but people tend to be always bothered when someone capitalizes too heavily on that stuff, I don't think pewdiepie is all the beloved here for example. Egoraptor also took some shit when starting his lets play Game Grumps thing.

Also while the comic does say that they're fake female gamers, it also says that they're real ones which might be a revelation for some cod kids that have so far only seen iJustine

Edit. I mean, perhaps is that just different perception, but I always took those comics' messages as "There are actually real female gamers out there" and not as "There are also fake female gamers out there"
 
No one likes Kaceytron? She is an epic troll god who I'm sure rolls in ad revenue. I love her stream.

kaceytron_cosplay_by_luciaitaliana-d74em07.jpg

Maybe I'm the odd one out here, but I can't enjoy "trolling" or "ironic" streamers. It's like people that listen to music that is terrible on purpose; it's just so far out of my wheelhouse.
 
It's still an image accusing women of only playing those games for attention. Not only that but it's a stereotype that attractive women don't play video games which is even more nonsense.

What percentage do you think those type of girls make up the gamer girl population?
 
^Yeah. Was going to say the same. Every time these comics are made it's this sexy/manicured woman versus an unkempt frizzled looking chick as if looks or hygiene were the main factor in a woman's qualification as a gamer. It's the most trivial of shit and it's peddled like truth.

I don't think that's it, though, honestly.

The intent of strips like that isn't to suggest that being a "real gamer" means not caring about your appearance. I think it's meant more to suggest an overall sense of superficiality on the part of the "girl gamers" in question - that loudly declaiming "Look at me! I'm a girl gamer!" like that is, like makeup and plunging necklines, a tack some women take to attract attention from members of the opposite (or same) sex. This isn't something that's limited to women, or to videogames, for that matter. It's the difference between the guy who's into something because he legitimately loves it, and the one who likes to play up how knowledgeable/skilled he is at something specifically because he thinks it'll help him with the ladies.
 
Girl on the right looks fairly attractive if you ask me.

^Yeah. Was going to say the same. Every time these comics are made it's this sexy/manicured woman versus an unkempt frizzled looking chick as if looks or hygiene were the main factor in a woman's qualification as a gamer.It's the most trivial of shit and it's peddled like truth.
.
It's very common in these comics to depict attractive vs unattractive even if you think the one on the right is attractive.

And true, the focus lies a bit too heavily on female gamers, but people tend to be always bothered when someone capitalizes too heavily on that stuff, I don't think pewdiepie is all the beloved here for example. Egoraptor also took some shit when starting his lets play Game Grumps thing.

Also while the comic does say that they're fake female gamers, it also says that they're real ones which might be a revelation for some cod kids that have so far only seen iJustine

Edit. I mean, perhaps is that just different perception, but I always took those comics' messages as "There are actually real females gamers out there" and not as "There are also fake female gamers out there"
I think the point is that it puts out a mentality that you're not a gamer unless you follow these strict rules and that's damaging.

Plus it seems like an excuse many male gamers use as a means to isolate women from gaming.
What percentage do you think those type of girls make up the gamer girl population?
Who knows? I'm curious why anyone would think most girls who play games are unattractive.

All the girl gaffers posting in here are very pretty and as you can see, they're all gamers.
 
It's about the discussion and how very, very tired women are of having to defend their right to game or when saying they are gamers to be automatically dismissed because they don't like a certain type of game. These conversations always revolve around that and it's utter nonsense.



Depends on the type of gamer that was quizzing me :p

Always some new rule, goalpost moved, to exclude. What games, how much you play, what you know, who gives a shit.
 
The pic is less about cod and more about how a "gamer gurl" just looks for views, followers etc.

Note how the girl on the right doesn't play a specific game, it's just that she's actually passionate about it

The problem is that all these variants on the left-side-attention-whore/right-side-real-gamer-girl meme rely on a pernicious good-girl/bad-girl split. It can't just be that there are women who play games and act the same way men do; no, there has to be a stark divide between "real" gamer women and the ones who just do it for attention, and therefore (implicitly) every woman needs to be interrogated to prove she isn't one of the latter.

Whatever broader negative stereotypes might also exist somewhere in the gaming hobby that can apply to men, none of them is set up such that every single man needs to "prove" they don't apply to him before he can be treated normally by others.
 
I don't like the term "Gamer" anyway.

They're just girls who like games.
https://help.mojang.com/customer/portal/articles/331367-employees
a lot of cynicism here.

Well the gurl gamers are not girls who like gaming. They are in the same category as guys who play games because it's popular and not because they find them fun. Kinda like how Conan have a video game sketch all about how he do not know anything about video games.

The most obvious example is the girl called Minecraftchick. Now, what is "wrong" with Minecraftchick, who became an actual Mojang employee, as Director of Fun?
She used the name Minecraftchick on youtube, and her first video was her, trying to learn minecraft. She never had played the game before and all seem to point out that she jumped on the Minecraft hyped, not because she liked the game, but for the fame and popularity.

That's what I would call a gamer gurl. Somebody who start to play game not for the enjoyment, but only for the popularity that it will bring. A lot of guys started doing this too like Tobuscus or Smosh. It's more cash grabbing than anything else for people like that. I understand why they do it, but it do not make me feel great toward them anyway.
 
When I hear "girl gamer" I just think of chicks streaming on Twitch with their cam on 75% of the screen, their lowcut shirt showing their tatas, while giggling as guys donate to her PayPal account. I mean, that's not really bad. It's annoying, but not bad. If I had sweet girl titties, I'd do it, too.
 
She used the name Minecraftchick on youtube, and her first video was her, trying to learn minecraft. She never had played the game before and all seem to point out that she jumped on the Minecraft hyped, not because she liked the game, but for the fame and popularity.

From what I can see, she documented herself getting into Minecraft from practically a point of zero understanding, and has stuck with it long enough to get that entrenched with the community. What's wrong with that? People, even the nerdiest of people, often get into things because of the hype.

Also, people make videos, put them on Youtube, and get a following. Welcome to the internet.
 
Nothing wrong with cash grabbing, when there are other people fully willing to throw money their way. It's not like they're being fraudulent about it.

I'm a very pro-capitalistic person, so good for them.
 
I don't think that's it, though, honestly.

The intent of strips like that isn't to suggest that being a "real gamer" means not caring about your appearance. I think it's meant more to suggest an overall sense of superficiality on the part of the "girl gamers" in question - that loudly declaiming "Look at me! I'm a girl gamer!" like that is, like makeup and plunging necklines, a tack some women take to attract attention from members of the opposite (or same) sex. This isn't something that's limited to women, or to videogames, for that matter. It's the difference between the guy who's into something because he legitimately loves it, and the one who likes to play up how knowledgeable/skilled he is at something specifically because he thinks it'll help him with the ladies.

Yeah, the surface-level objection to "gurl gamers" is about inauthenticity. But the worry is that women aren't being held to the same sorts of standards men are, or that the standards are rigged with an eye towards finding female gamers to be inauthentic. We've had a few threads recently on homosexuality in games, and I think the obvious comparison is to how lots of people find basically any hint of homosexuality to be obtrusive or pushing an agenda or something like that, whereas it's just normal for characters to express heterosexuality in everyday ways.

The sorts of comics that have been posted aren't portraying inauthenticity directly, right? They're using appearance and general demeanor as proxies for authenticity in ways that don't really make sense. Unless the idea is that some of these girls are actually trying to eat the controller because they don't know what it's for. So it's problematic. The male equivalent of the sort of "gurl gamer" the comics make fun of is basically just your standard dudebro call of duty player, right? That's a pretty standard type of gamer - that's the bread and butter of the industry.

Likewise the talk about female streamers. In this thread we had people ridiculously holding up a terrible false comparison between two MOBA streamers. But in general there's this attitude that female streamers making use of the fact that they are female to attract viewers renders what they're doing merely attention-seeking or makes it likely that they're not authentic gamers. This ends up feeling an awful lot like slut-shaming.
 
Yeah, the surface-level objection to "gurl gamers" is about inauthenticity. But the worry is that women aren't being held to the same sorts of standards men are, or that the standards are rigged with an eye towards finding female gamers to be inauthentic. We've had a few threads recently on homosexuality in games, and I think the obvious comparison is to how lots of people find basically any hint of homosexuality to be obtrusive or pushing an agenda or something like that, whereas it's just normal for characters to express heterosexuality in everyday ways.

The sorts of comics that have been posted aren't portraying inauthenticity directly, right? They're using appearance and general demeanor as proxies for authenticity in ways that don't really make sense. Unless the idea is that some of these girls are actually trying to eat the controller because they don't know what it's for. So it's problematic. The male equivalent of the sort of "gurl gamer" the comics make fun of is basically just your standard dudebro call of duty player, right? That's a pretty standard type of gamer - that's the bread and butter of the industry.

Likewise the talk about female streamers. In this thread we had people ridiculously holding up a terrible false comparison between two MOBA streamers. But in general there's this attitude that female streamers making use of the fact that they are female to attract viewers renders what they're doing merely attention-seeking or makes it likely that they're not authentic gamers. This ends up feeling an awful lot like slut-shaming.

So many messed up thresholds and pre-reqs.

As someone who plays Halo it gets old.
 
Well the gurl gamers are not girls who like gaming. They are in the same category as guys who play games because it's popular and not because they find them fun. Kinda like how Conan have a video game sketch all about how he do not know anything about video games.

The most obvious example is the girl called Minecraftchick. Now, what is "wrong" with Minecraftchick, who became an actual Mojang employee, as Director of Fun?
She used the name Minecraftchick on youtube, and her first video was her, trying to learn minecraft. She never had played the game before and all seem to point out that she jumped on the Minecraft hyped, not because she liked the game, but for the fame and popularity.

That's what I would call a gamer gurl. Somebody who start to play game not for the enjoyment, but only for the popularity that it will bring. A lot of guys started doing this too like Tobuscus or Smosh. It's more cash grabbing than anything else for people like that. I understand why they do it, but it do not make me feel great toward them anyway.

Would i-Justine fit in that category?
 
Edit: I don't like any of the comics posted in this thread because they grossly generalize and stereotype female gamers into a dichotomy. One seems to promote slut-shaming or inauthentic behaviour, while the other mischaracterizes women who do play video games but portrays them as overly-aggressive and/or obsessive. It's the same type of comic as "hardcore [male] gamers vs casual [male] gamers/fratboys", and I'm quite sure that people will make the same argument that merely placing everyone into a dichotomy is absolutely unfair.

Always some new rule, goalpost moved, to exclude. What games, how much you play, what you know, who gives a shit.
RPGs? Those games are for chicks cuz they're so cutesy/easy to control and/or you can make your own character with flimsy armour and poor stat distribution.

Platformers? Oh, you only like the cute easy ones by Nintendo or that mobile jank.

Shooters or even STGs? Okay, gurl gamer, you like Halo/CoD like all the rest of those casuals.

It's like you can't win, and even if you like some of the games some may assume you like because they are popular, sometimes you're belittled for liking the things you do.
 
Nothing wrong at all with the term "girl gamer", it's a logical thing to call to call oneself, given natural context.

No, it does not matter what order they phrased, it mean the same thing to anybody. People seriously shouldn't generalize a grand many because of a select few - this goes for girls, this goes for gamers, this goes for girl gamers.
 
From what I can see, she documented herself getting into Minecraft from practically a point of zero understanding, and has stuck with it long enough to get that entrenched with the community. What's wrong with that?

People make videos, put them on Youtube, and get a following. Welcome to the internet.

The term gamer gurl is somebody who want attention by playing games while she do not know anything about it. It would apply to guy too but Gamer boi sound weird.

I have no problem that she document that, 10 millions of channel were doing that back then, but I have no problem with the documentation. The fact that she do not know about WASD or anything, and creating a channel dedicated about a game that she never ever touched outside of seeing Minecraft videos is kind of my problem.

It's like if I did a channel called "Wildstarboy" Booted Wildstar and started playing, then... well I dont like the game, what do I do now? My whole channel is about Wildstar and I do not like the game.

If she did that on a channel called whatever else, I would have less of a problem. But she jumped on the train and she did not do it because she liked it, but because of fame. That's my problem. It's like starting a book club when you do not like and never read a book, just because books are cool right now.
 
She never had played the game before and all seem to point out that she jumped on the Minecraft hyped, not because she liked the game, but for the fame and popularity.

I want to note that the comparison to this that immediately jumps to mind is the Giant Bomb Endurance Run of Persona 4, a situation where four men announced upfront that they'd be diving into a game that they didn't know anything about, streamed the entire process of playing and learning the game to the world, and were widely praised for doing so.

What is it about a woman going through the exact same process that makes her choice to dive into a popular game and learn how it works unacceptable, when it's praiseworthy for men? The implication would seem to be that it's because men are "naturally" supposed to be good at videogames, so learning more about them is a positive; while women are "naturally" not supposed to like games, so trying to learn about one is her trying too hard to be something she never can be.
 
Would i-Justine fit in that category?

She would. iJustine jumped on video games because they are easy and have tons of viewers. She was obviously clueless on everything.

I really do not want to sound elitist, but unless your channel is "Learning to be a Gamer" and is you wanting to understand video games, do not start a let's play channel when you have no idea of anything.

What is it about a woman going through the exact same process that makes her choice to dive into a popular game and learn how it works unacceptable, when it's praiseworthy for men? The implication would seem to be that it's because men are "naturally" supposed to be good at videogames, so learning more about them is a positive; while women are "naturally" not supposed to like games, so trying to learn about one is her trying too hard to be something she never can be.
Like I said, it has nothing to do with her being a woman or not. It's about people jumping on video games for fame and glory while not appreciating the medium or knowing anything about it. That's what the Gamer Gurl is. It apply to both sex in my mind.
I grew up playing video games with my Mom and she is really more hardcore than me when it comes to play hours and dedication. She is the first person I saw beating Super Mario Bros Mode B. She love video games. So this has nothing to do about sex, but as to do with people jumping on the video game train.

I really do not care about it, but that's what the term Gamer gurl want to illustrate. And yes, some guys are "scared" or are being elitists because they want to keep the boy club they had since the 80's where there was few girls around. Might be because they were bullied for liking video games in school or that most girls found video games dumb when they grew up. And that now, girls everywhere play games, that might make them furious and make them feel cheated and try to push the same thing and shame them the way they were "shamed" in school for the same thing they are popular for.
 
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