"Gaymers" Speak Out On Homophobia

[Nathan Meunier]

"Gaymers" Speak Out On Homophobia

A little friendly smack talk during a bout of fierce, friendly online competition is one thing, but the prevalence of vile and hurtful homophobic sentiments in online play is all too commonplace. This week gay gamers speak out against homophobia in the online gaming community.

In an insightful Gaygamer.net [http://current.com/items/89329228_gaymers], says the web is a great place to congregate and share ideas, but it can also be used as tool to harass and deal out considerable harm.

"Anonymity on the web can be a really good thing in some ways, but I think by and large it really creates an atmosphere where those people who feel like they can be really, really hateful, they have the veil of the internet to protect them," said DeMarco.

The short films' intro features real recorded audio from online multiplayer gameplay from Halo, Team Fortress 2, and other titles that's particularly telling. "I hope gay marriage never gets passed," notes one player, while several others quickly fire off a barrage of profanity deriding homosexual acts. Then there's the disturbing statement made by yet another gamer: "I want to shoot you right now. I want to hang you because you're gay. It's not nice but it's true." Ask yourself how many times you've heard similar comments during an online match.

DeMarco and others agree with freedom of expression, but they feel folks who feel the need to fire off offensive homophobic slurs and other anti-gay comments should do so in their own private spaces rather than in the public gaming forum. Last year, GayGamer.net was hacked and flooded with hate speech and threatening e-mails. It had to be shut down temporarily as a result.

Speaking in the video about issues with anonymity on the internet, Stanford University psychology professor Benoit Monin adds the web is a double-edged sword that can be used for different aims. "We can hope in a perfect world the internet would break down some barriers by enabling people to address head-on some of the prejudices people may or may not have," he said. "There's an aspect of hurting that's easier to do online, but it's possible to also do a lot of helping."



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[Susan Arendt]

Sadly, it rarely requires much provocation. It can start with a random "You're a fag!" type of trash-talking remark from one player, and swiftly devolve into a veritable flood of anti-homosexual commentary. Some of it is made in jest and with no real malice behind it, but some of it can get very, very nasty.

 

[Smiles]

I like gay people, all of the ones I've met so far are really nice and fun to be around, why wouldn't anyone want to game with them?

 

[MrBliss]

I find myself frequently taking the Xbox Live headset off when playing Halo as the banter frequently consists of bizarre, irrelevant or hateful nonsense. Anti-homosexual comments inevitably form part of this, particularly with younger players (though many older players i've encountered are equally misguided). Some of it quite similar to the things I indulged in at the playground when I was a kid, where 'gay' is more a general derogatory term rather than a way to criticise someone's sexuality. However, some is clearly very hateful and serious, but then many people have been brought up that way and don't know any better.

The ability to mute individual players is very useful, and I find teaming up with a group of people who actually want to play the game, and use the headset to discuss tactics and update team members (that's what the headset is actually intended for), tends to result in being mached to other teams and thus avoiding the rabble of immature fools who want to hide behind some sort of extreme online persona.

 

[colourcodedchaos]

Having been on the receiving end of homphobic abuse both over Xbox Live, multiplayer PC games and indeed in real life, I know how these things escalate into outright bullying. I also know how much it hurts to be told to go back to fairyland on a regular basis by members of a gaming community.

It's the reason I stopped running a forum RP on an Xbox forum. After some really vicious homophobic remarks made buy one user (whom has since been banned but for an entirely different offence), I told her that I was homosexual, that her utterances had been exceedingly hurtful, and that she should leave the game. That was a real mistake.

Immediately, her internet friends started spamming the thread with homophobia and far-right polemics about the state of the world and how everything was going shit because of gays. One of the most hateful comments was this:

Sodom was destroyed for a reason, ******!

What was the follow-up to that from another user?

Lol.

I'm glad I left there. Rant over.

 

[TommyGun465]

Im not an homophobe and I dont intend to be. i have a bisexual and a gay friend, and theyre great people. when people think of gays they think they fall in love with every man/woman they see, but thats a lie. I hang out with girls and I dont (always) fall in love with them.

 

[asacatman]

I don't use a headset much, but this sounds really bad. I thought in Britain at least, being gay is just about socially completely acceptable, but I grew up in a middle class area and live in one so it could be problem in other places or tiny villages or something

 

[Dr Spaceman]

As a white person who happens to not be gay, I treat the usage of "fag" the same way I treat the usage of the N-word. It holds similar power in that it is a term originated by a dominant group who wants to ridicule a minority.

 

[MrBliss]

I don't use a headset much, but this sounds really bad. I thought in Britain at least, being gay is just about socially completely acceptable, but I grew up in a middle class area and live in one so it could be problem in other places or tiny villages or something

I'm British too and in the real world I rarely come across homophobic behaviour but it is a pretty big issue online. Mostly it's American teenagers but not always. I've complained about some but I don't think Microsoft polices things well enough as i've also complained about people in the family zone swearing and being abusive while playing games with my nephew but nothing ever seems to get done about it.

 

[Splitter]

Luckilly I rarely encounter homophobia in the games I play online.
Usually it's done by someone who is clearly around 12, along the lines of:
"LOL, u SuCK sooOOooo mUch U muSt b gAy l0l!"
With the general response from other plays being:
"Shut up you idiot."

Actually one of the best responses to this sort of thing I got on AoM online was playing doom lords (it's sort of an RPG, but because it's on an RTS you actually get epic battles as you can change stats, sizes, etc on the scenario maker... anyway I digress).
So, one immature guy was coming out with irritating jokes, gay references, "oh noes!" every time a few enemies came into our LOS, you know really pissing us off and not only that but he really really sucked at the game. And it's pretty hard to suck at this particular scenario.
So after a while a message pops up:
"I've set my chat filter to everyone except purple, he's really getting on my nerves and we have to keep saving him, I say we let him die."
So we did.

Anyway the point of the anecdote is that although there are some dicks in online gaming, there are good communities out there who don't put up with that bullshit.

 

[Dudemeister]

Lol, Gaymers, that's a funny title.

 

[Blayze]

You can't simple say 'If you announce to the world what gender you like to hump, expect some backlash',

Actually, you can. If I were to mention any opinion of mine to a random group of people, eventually I would come across at least one person who did not share that opinion. Eventually, I'd come across people who would hate me for said opinion of mine. By not making it an issue, I don't give them ammo.

1) People are idiots.
2) People are prejudiced.
3) People are prejudiced idiots.
4) The above three rules are always correct.

Most of this seems to revolve around XBox Live horror stories, and informing Live of your sexuality is like tying raw meat to your body and jumping into a lion enclosure. You'd think people would have learned by now that the opinion of someone who will never meet you--and more importantly, of someone who is easily muted--doesn't matter at all. Then again, I've got thicker skin than most people and a healthy dose of apathy--especially when it concerns the stupid.

 

[Jhereg42]

End of discussion.

Sorry, but that is the most uninformed comment I've ever seen on this forum. We feel this needs to be discussed. My brother in law is the nicest guy I know, and while he does not go about openly advertising it this kind of stuff kills him on XBL. He traded his 360 in for a Wii because of this BS.

This kind of crap needs to be discussed, because if it is not it will just continue. And frankly if you are white, heterosexual, and male and DON'T know you are at the top of the social food chain in America then I have some beachfront property in Montana to sell you.

 

[colourcodedchaos]

This thread is gay. Do you think I get offended every time I've been called a "cracker" or a "honkey" on video games? The answer is NO, so get the hell over it, or don't play. End of discussion.

P.S. Why is gay-bashing called "homophobic" all of a sudden? I don't call someone a fag because I am afraid of them (phobic is derived from PHOBIA, which is a fear), but it's because I strongly dislike them.

You ever been beaten up because you kissed your loved one?

Chances are, probably not.

I have. The reason? My lover, my best friend in the world, is the same gender as myself.

 

[Lupie]

This is an interesting thread.

Internet anonymity reminds me of the theatrical trick of wearing a mask - once it's no longer your face, you totally lose whatever social inhibitions you may ordinarily have had. It's a shame that without these inhibitions, what comes out of people's mouths is hateful shite.

What I'm interested in now is, having watched that video, what the presence of female gamers are? I'm a girl who likes her games, and I have noticed a vaaaast quantity of gross attitudes towards chicks in gaming - I assume, and this is horrible of me, I know, that the attitudes that come across from other players (hitting on you, being overly sexual; that sort of thing) is because the people expressing them are adolescent.

Same goes for the homophobic insults. Teenagers at the stage in their life where they find out who they are, question who they are or what they're doing, and do that thing where they define belonging to a group by defining who doesn't belong.

(I feel disgustingly ageist now. I'm probably totally wrong. What's the main age group in the gaming community, I wonder? I always assumed it to be young people, like me, aged between about 14 and 20-thing. Does anyone have any statistics?)

 

[Jobz]

Being from a country where homosexuality is actually illegal and something like 99.99% of the population are extremely anti-homosexual (I use this term rather that homophobic because I believe that has more to do with a fear of homosexuals, not a hatred for them) I am happy to be one of the few who fit into the other 0.01% who really aren't bothered by it.

I have a couple of gay friends, and while I'll admit to feeling slightly uncomfortable if I see two guys kissing (We can't all be perfect) I can tolerate it and move on with my life. Gay bashing in online games is simply a result of the "Internet Fuckwad Theory" (Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad). It's no different than all the racism, sexism and general hatred toward others that goes on there.

I can't count the number of times I've heard white guys yelling the N-word and spewing disgusting racial slurs toward the black player(s) on a certain server, and of course this goes both ways. I've been called a 'cracker' more times that I can count and heard endless callings of "Yah mon", "Do you know Bob Marley?" and horrible impersonations of Jamaican accents (Which are extremely annoying and offensive) once my accent has been heard.

The same thing can be said about the male players insulting any females who have happened to join the game. Really it's no different. People want to stand out, they want to be remembered, they want people to think they're cool. And what's the easiest way to get noticed if you're not a particularly great player? Insult people. That's all it is, they want attention, and the more disgusting, rude and offensive the things they say are, the more attention they get. I think if we all just ignored them, they'll eventually get bored and stop. Treat them like you would annoying, little children. Because in a way that's really all they are.

It's people like that who made me stop using my headset in most online games, and muting anyone who I didn't know (Namely people on my friends list).