Toxic Gamer Culture – Female Gamers
Every female gamer has experienced the dark side of gaming, and some in KSI are speaking up about their experiences.
This article will address the hostile and unwelcoming aspects to multiplayer gaming. As gamers we all at some point succumb to the devious trolls and hateful gamers that unfortunately exist in the world of gaming.
This article will in specific address the toxicity that this causes and why it exists with specific regards in this article to female gamers. I am not intending to define trash talking or competitive playfulness as toxic gamer culture but intend to explore the abusive behaviour that exists and crosses the border to damn right mean and intentionally abusive to female gamers.
Mia Consalvo looks at the negative aspects of gamer culture and the dark side that exists in gaming spaces on all platforms. She looks in specific at how gamer culture is inclusive to male gamers, and examines how female gamers and feminist game scholars are often treated with hostility and are often treated to abuse or considered as not real gamers.
This is not only reflected in game spaces but at conventions, conferences and social media.She suggests how these occurrences a??illustrate a pattern of misogynistic gamer culture and patriarchal privilege attempting to reassert its positiona??.
A presumption of mature female gamers is considered as non-existent and we can understand this as confirmation bias where people favor information based on their experiences or beliefs regardless of the facts.
A real issue lies in female gamers not being considered as real and legit gamers and are often targeted to hostile and unwelcoming behaviour in matchmaking.
Based on my own experiences a consistent issue that I deal with and this may be due to my childish voice but I am often succumbed to being treated as a squeaker and presumptions are made of me being a little boy and upon disagreement I often face sarcasm and disbelief.
KSI Bandit 777 explains how over the course of her gaming career she has dealt with numerous occasions of bad experiences where upon revealing her gender players assume that she is lying or insinuates sexual and abusive language. Of course we all know Bandit as someone who does not take BS from anyone and is a prime example of how to ignore and deal with such toxic gamer culture.
A blog that I came across of a female gamer named Jenny who records audio clips and transcripts all her occurrences in matchmaking and shares them on her blog shows a detailed account of the numerous insults, awkward encounters and creepiness she faces on a daily basis.
The blogpost is worth a look and gives an insight on how females are treated in online gaming spaces when playing with strangers.
http://www.notinthekitchenanymore.com/
Have you ever witnessed or been targeted in online game spaces just for being a girl. Comment below and tell us about your experiences, awkward encounters and how you dealt with it!