The Mythical Dudebro

[BarryMcCociner]

Alright, where are these dudebro's I hear so much about?

I hear about these dorito munching, dew doing, cod playing, snapback wearing, every AAA title buying, dudebros whenever somebody gets in a tiff about something they don't like about games, be it the culture or the corporations. However, I've yet to see one, to see evidence of one or to see the general area one might find them.

I've seen overblown parodies of this mythical figure (see: parkourdude91) and I've seen twelve year olds act in similar ways, but I doubt anyone is going to claim they never did any cringeworthy shit when they were twelve, you know, the type of thing you have to stop and cringe with your whole body about how gratingly embarrassing it was.

Yet I've never seen a whit of evidence that a "dudebro" exists in gaming, and when I ask for proof of them I've simply been told to look harder or that I'm not occupying this reality if I have never seen a dudebro.

Are they nonexistant or am I simply incredibly lucky to never see one despite a month and a half of on and off searching.

Please, point them out to me. Find one in gaming.

If this keeps going on I'm gonna start filing Dudebros along with Unicorns, Charybdis and Dragons.

 

[LaoJim]

I hear about these dorito munching, dew doing, cod playing, snapback wearing, every AAA title buying, dudebros whenever somebody gets in a tiff about something they don't like about games, be it the culture or the corporations. However, I've yet to see one, to see evidence of one or to see the general area one might find them.

You've described the typical neckbeard WoW player and the dudebro CoD player as the same person. They're both two different things.

Yeah, I'd agree the description is pretty confusing. I think the idea is that DudeBro's don't buy every AAA title - only CoD, Madden and on occasion other modern military shooters that look like CoD. Not sure they eat that many Dorito's, I'm picturing them will a beer in one hand.

The thing is, given that CoD sells x million copies more than practically every other game out there, its not unreasonable to suppose that there is someone out there buying CoD and very little else.

Perhaps an anecdote would be useful here: I'm currently living in abroad in a city with a small ex-pat community. My wife is eight months pregnant, and since, as you might guess, I've got other things on my mind, I decided to give up gaming for a month (though clearly not visiting game related web-sites). There's a younger (25ish) guy who works with us, who had previously mentioned he was interested in getting a game's console while he was here but hadn't yet, so I decided to lend my XBox to him for the month around the birth. As well as the console I gave him a spindle with about 100-150 games of pretty much all genres on it. Before leaving the room he'd already picked out Black Ops 2 (i.e. the most recent CoD I own) as the game he wanted to play, since then he's also played Need for Speed and an Assassin's Creed. He mentioned wanting to play Bioshock because he'd heard it was good, but I'm not sure if he has done.

Now let me stress this guy doesn't fit the typical DudeBro stereotype. He's educated to MA level and is generally nice, articulate and hard-working in his job. He does like his football (I don't have FIFA for him to play), he regularly goes to the gym and most importantly doesn't have a lot of experience playing video games. Its probably natural that he gravitates to the most famous games, and since he's having fun playing them (and since they are not really 'bad' games), who am I to say he's wrong. I could of course recommend some games for him to play, but I've been trying not to do that, as I'm sure it gets annoying - if he's fine playing AC why to recommend he plays Dark Souls - if he's enjoying NfS why try to push Forza or F1.

Anyway my point is that, while the obnoxious DudeBro is something of a negative stereotype, there probably is a demographic of gamers who don't buy that many games and naturally tend to play the most popular games - after all this is why they are the most popular.

 

[Fox12]

I'm an RA. My residency is about 60% dudebro. Their doors are all open right now, you can hear them shooting foreigners from here. I'm actually friends with a few. And yes, the stereotypes are true. All of them. The doritos, the mountain dews, the COD's, the Fifa's, the Madden's, the snap backs, all of it. You should see the halls on what I call "COD day." It's like a national dudebro holiday.

They're not so bad, though. Shit taste in... everything, but not bad.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

U wot m8 1v1 me

Seriously though, I have yet to meet "dudebros", as well as "screaming 12 year olds".

 

[Kyrian007]

U wot m8 1v1 me

Seriously though, I have yet to meet "dudebros", as well as "screaming 12 year olds".

You're far luckier than I am. 12 year old squeakers (children covering for the fact that their voices haven't changed yet by overcompensating with gratuitous amounts of profanity, insults of a racial or sexual nature, and 90% of the rape threats online because for some reason they think it makes them sound "mature") are the reason I very rarely game online with randoms. And even when I do, I never have any form of communication active. And "dudebros" yes, clearly exist. Visit ANY dorm or frat on ANY college campus in the U.S. and you will find the not so elusive dudebro. Actually, they're usually not so bad (compared to squeakers anyway.) I'm not big on the fps' they like, but I don't mind Madden or NHL. Some beer, some dudebros, and some videogame hockey... good times. Well, the dormrat dudebro anyway. Steer clear of the fratboy dudebro, they're only "good guys" when they are recruiting.

 

[Mutant1988]

You know... There's a lot of things I have no personal experience of. Doesn't mean that those things don't exist.

Dudebros is a thing because if they weren't, who is buying Call of Duty and all those sports games? Now, I concede that that is flimsy logic, but the sheer volume of anecdotal stories about dudebros would strongly suggest that yes - They do exist.

I don't know any, but then I'm not currently attending college or really have ever socialized with anyone even likely to act in such a way. Not a fan of loud and obnoxious people.

I have known people that only ever played games when we have gotten together at LAN parties, but I'm not sure if they were obnoxious enough to qualify as Dudebros. But then maybe the dudebro culture is more of an American thing.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

You know... There's a lot of things I have no personal experience of. Doesn't mean that those things don't exist.

Dudebros is a thing because if they weren't, who is buying Call of Duty and all those sports games? Now, I concede that that is flimsy logic, but the sheer volume of anecdotal stories about dudebros would strongly suggest that yes - They do exist.

I don't know any, but then I'm not currently attending college or really have ever socialized with anyone even likely to act in such a way. Not a fan of loud and obnoxious people.

I have known people that only ever played games when we have gotten together at LAN parties, but I'm not sure if they were obnoxious enough to qualify as Dudebros. But then maybe the dudebro culture is more of an American thing.

Wait, only dudebros like sports games? That doesn't hold up. The vast majority of people like sports, why do you think Gladiators existed? Why do you think the american Superbowl is an advertisers wet dream? That's not even flimsy logic. That's logic that doesn't even hold its own weight, that's logic so small it can't be measured in angstroms. So with a huge amount of people enjoying sports and a growing number of people enjoying games, why the hell wouldn't there be an overlap?

As for the CoD thing, you have to remember CoD is very beginner friendly, it's a foot in the door for people who aren't quite into games. It's easy to learn, easy to become a viable competitor. So therefore, a lot of people are going to be comfortable with it. Sure, I hate CoD, but that's purely because of creative stagnation. It does have value in getting more people into games.

And the thing about anecdotal stories is, well people have a tendency to inflate certain aspects of a story to make it more comical or exciting, or (and this is the part that really turns me off of anecdotal evidence) to confirm their bias and create a false stereotype, consciously or subconsciously.

Whenever I hear someone talking about a dudebro story, it's a lot like "/r/fatpeoplestories" in that I get the feeling that certain aspects of it are "too perfect" to be true. That certain parts play up to internet memes and existing stereotypes too well to be taken as entirely factual. That's how I feel about every dudebro story I've read, it's just too in line with overblown and exaggerated jokes to have me think people actually, factually well and truly behave like this.

 

[Mutant1988]

Wait, only dudebros like sports games? That doesn't hold up. The vast majority of people like sports, why do you think Gladiators existed? Why do you think the american Superbowl is an advertisers wet dream? That's not even flimsy logic. That's logic that doesn't even hold its own weight, that's logic so small it can't be measured in angstroms. So with a huge amount of people enjoying sports and a growing number of people enjoying games, why the hell wouldn't there be an overlap?

First off, I was totally super serious with that statement.[/sarcasm]

The universal obsession with sports isn't really as prevalent where I live as it is in the states. I'm speaking from an outside perspective.

My point is that someone that likes the sport would settle for buying the best sports game and sticking with it. That stands to reason, given how little actually changes from year to year with most of the major sports franchises.

But someone that cares more about the sport than games on the other hand, would likely care about the names on the jerseys and buy it yearly because that's the one thing that consistently change.

That to me suggests a shallowness (In regards to video games) that I personally associate with the dudebro stereotype.

Add also to that the competitive nature of sports and sports games and that's another check mark to the stereotype. The competitive aspect also makes fighting games (Or Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat) and games like Call of Duty common in that particular audience.

As for the CoD thing, you have to remember CoD is very beginner friendly, it's a foot in the door for people who aren't quite into games. It's easy to learn, easy to become a viable competitor. So therefore, a lot of people are going to be comfortable with it. Sure, I hate CoD, but that's purely because of creative stagnation. It does have value in getting more people into games.

You say beginner friendly, but is it really beginner friendly if it's all you ever buy? That's not beginning anything in that case.

And the thing about anecdotal stories is, well people have a tendency to inflate certain aspects of a story to make it more comical or exciting, or (and this is the part that really turns me off of anecdotal evidence) to confirm their bias and create a false stereotype, consciously or subconsciously.

Well, seeing how it's a stereotype based on personal perception, I wouldn't really trust there to be any facts to prove it's existence.

Is there a scientific definition of a nerd or is it too a matter of perception and stereotype? Do nerds exist or is it just an exaggerated stereotype?

Whenever I hear someone talking about a dudebro story, it's a lot like "/r/fatpeoplestories" in that I get the feeling that certain aspects of it are "too perfect" to be true. That certain parts play up to internet memes and existing stereotypes too well to be taken as entirely factual. That's how I feel about every dudebro story I've read, it's just too in line with overblown and exaggerated jokes to have me think people actually, factually well and truly behave like this.

It's a stereotype. There's likely a grain of truth to it, but it's unlikely that it's all true. Scepticism is fine, but ignoring the sheer volume of anecdotes and dismissing it as some kind of running joke is a bit extreme.

I do know loud and obnoxious exist, because otherwise I wouldn't have to mute so many people the few times I play games online. Are those people dudebros? No idea. But they are foul mouthed, loud, obnoxious and like to talk (Constantly) about smoking pot.

What specific aspects of these anecdotes do you find exaggerated anyway? And what exactly do you expect people to do to prove them as factual? Is that even possible?

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

DudeBros do actually exist. They're the more typical guy. Ones who like sports, and drinking beer, and you know just average guys. Heck I know some DudeBros, I even know some gay DudeBros. Basically they're the sort of person you'd expect to find in a sports bar, the kind of guys who have Man Caves, who obsess over their favorite sport. They're generally rather limited in the scope of games they'll actually play. Your modern warfare shooters like CoD, and BF2 and later, Sports games, Assassins Creed games, and the like. Basically games that are rather bland, easy to play, not the sort of thing you'd get deeply involved in for hours and hours generally.

Basically people who are the base demographic for basically everything.

EDIT!!! "Drinking bear" My brain farts are truly the stuff of legend.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

I think DudeBro has the problem that it's a label applied by people who identify outside that group so it's really just down to who declares someone a DudeBro. There are parallels to draw with other groups but... I... massively don't want to open that can of worms.

Suffice to say, I don't know if DudeBro's are a thing, but you will get snap-back wearing folks playing CoD swigging beer and talking about sport so I guess you could call them that?

Related note: Pretty sure CoD sales are made by the sheer number of under-age kids playing it. I've worked Games Retail and, my god, the number of children getting their parents to buy a game that are BLATANTLY too young to buy it makes me think they single-handedly keep Activision in business.

 

[Mutant1988]

the kind of guys who have Man Caves

Nerds can't have man caves? What the hell am I supposed to call this room then?

 

[maninahat]

The thing is, the stereotypical dude bro does not go on forums like this to discuss video games. They just don't care enough about these things to voice an opinion here, so you probably won't encounter that many outside of multiplayer chat.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

You know... There's a lot of things I have no personal experience of. Doesn't mean that those things don't exist.

Dudebros is a thing because if they weren't, who is buying Call of Duty and all those sports games? Now, I concede that that is flimsy logic, but the sheer volume of anecdotal stories about dudebros would strongly suggest that yes - They do exist.

I don't know any, but then I'm not currently attending college or really have ever socialized with anyone even likely to act in such a way. Not a fan of loud and obnoxious people.

I have known people that only ever played games when we have gotten together at LAN parties, but I'm not sure if they were obnoxious enough to qualify as Dudebros. But then maybe the dudebro culture is more of an American thing.

People who buy COD exist, but that doesn't mean they are dudebros. Dudebro might be a stereotype that doesn't exist. The only thing I know close to a dudebro is me, so maybe that is my thing.

 

[Silvanus]

IRL, you'll find them in clubs, making painfully forward attempts to flirt.

IG, you'll find them if you join a voice server in CoD or somesuch.

 

[Pax Romana]

The thing is, the stereotypical dude bro does not go on forums like this to discuss video games. They just don't care enough about these things to voice an opinion here, so you probably won't encounter that many outside of multiplayer chat.

Pretty much this. The vast majority of people who actually play games dont give a fuck about any aspect outside playing the actual game or maybe watching a trailer on youtube. The majority of gamers (even if you apply that to only those who own a console or a gaming PC) don't know what Gamergate is, who Sarkeesian is or give a single fuck about social justice. Ignorance truly is bliss. If you are on this site then likely your interest in the medium is more substantial.

Besides, the term ''Dudebro'' is usually used by those with a hint of snobbery about them, to describe people (straight white male people mostly) that like only the largest mainstream titles like COD and sports game. The same people I might add, that get their panties in a twist when someone says that a girl with Farmville on her phone is'nt a real gamer.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Just like Neckbearded Misogynerds, KillAllMen Misandrists, religious extremists, etc. etc. etc. - that stereotype exists for a reason.

Those folks are out there. You might not have met them, but lots of other people have.

 

[Shadow flame master]

I never met them or seen them, maybe it's because all of the people I know are mostly black and not white, as the term "Dudebro" only seems to apply to white people. They are most likely out there but I never really care about them.