Zenja said:
Maybe everyone could use a dose of empathy and not just one side?
Howabout actually preaching that? Or actually acting like you believe it? You've spent a lot of time in this thread railing against things I actually enjoy because they don't meet your standards of nerddom (I just bought Rock Band 4. Do you know why I first bought a Guitar Hero game? Because I'm a massive music nerd and wanted to support Harmonix, whose members include people from bands like Tribe and Din. And those games are fun, buy yourself or with friends). Have I said anything about your hobbies? Has any other girl in the thread? Has anyone in here who disagrees with you on nerd culture?
Maybe both sides are at fault.
How, exactly, am I at fault for people insisting I can't build a computer? Or hook up a home theater system or wire speakers?
What party do I actually play in being told to make someone a sammich or getting told to GTFO because I logged on with a female username, profile pic or character? Where does the fault lie when my options are drop my voice two octaves to not sound "like a girl" or just not mic up? How am I at fault for unsolicited dick pics?
Why do these problems go away if I use a male username and speak in a way that's physically uncomfortable? If I bear some responsibility, why is it only when I present as a girl that it's a problem? What, particularly, is Amy doing that "Totally Not Amy" isn't?
Maybe you aren't an innocent victim but yet another casualty of that black and white warfare?
Or maybe you've literally just defined victim blaming.
The very idea that any and every girl is part of a "war" should be absurd right off. But on top of that,t he notion that we hold any responsibility to shoulder blame for actions taken against us is just....
I didn't assume only straight sales
You did in the only part I care about. You made a factually incorrect statement about the readership levels. I don't really care about your weaboo assertions.
Yes but when other joined in before, we celebrated the existance of the 70s movies. We didnt demand Luke Skywalker be made a woman or that Darth Vader be made a black man in the sequel. We were fans of what it was, not what we wanted it to be. We accpeted the culture for what it was, not what we wanted it to be. There is political warfare going on inside this culture today telling people that they arent socially acceptable enough to be considered nerds/geeks.
Unlike Star Trek, which had political messages and which lost whole affiliates for them. Or that interracial kiss which lost them a good chunk of the South. Yeah, nerd culture sure never demanded things before. Should I bring up the campaign when Spock died? The demands to kill off the second Robin? The outrage that was the new versions of Star Wars and the prequels, which had nothing to do with women or blacks?
Nerd outrage has been a thing longer than we've been alive. It seems the only problem is now that it's not confined to whites and males.
No that's because the term gamer girl was drug through the mud at the hieght of the whole sexist gaming thing and people refused to hear any other reasoning beyond "sexism". That mentality still exists today believe it or not.
That's retroactive reasoning, and in no way true. Suspicion of women has outstripped any sort of cultural attitude towards male fakes since the 80s.
We have a history of talking about the Ghostbusters movie and that's it.
Untrue, though you've managed to insert it into more than one conversation when I said nothing about it.
In every case online as it is so impersonal, you should assume the worst case scenario as it being from someone so outcast that they have zero social skill. As such I am offering the notion to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Well, OTHER people. You assume that I am complicit in my own harassment and ask me to shoulder the blame for it.
Neither Phasmal nor I have got the benefit of the doubt from you. Again, you keep preaching that "both sides" should offer empathy, but provide it to only one side. And state that one side should be offering it.
I have severe social anxiety. I am nerdy and awkward and insecure. I get so stressed around people I periodically throw up from stress. Combine that with PTSD. I kind of have a tendency to want to isolate myself. Being attacked by nerds online for a female username, or for daring to play "their" game, or being accused of being an outsider doesn't help. But you're not affording me empathy. You're not preaching that people like me be understood. You're telling me to read other people's posts and insisting I'm not a victim and that I should shoulder responsibility for my own harassment.
This sets up a standard that its okay for nerd guys to behave badly, and does so in what I would think is a horribly demeaning and insulting way. More importantly , it puts the entirety of the burden on me. I have to handle abuse and antipathy with perfect aplomb, while the nerd boys get to be nasty and hide behind fragility. I always have to be the adult. They don't. I have to have social skills. They don't. I have to have thick skin. They don't.
How on Earth do you think this is "both sides" having a part?
Also, I am not asking for empathy for myself.
Well, except you used the term empathy, for people in this community, and used yourself as an example.
Being diplomatic hasn't got us anywhere. Because it allows the community to not change by virtue of "assume they have zero social skills." Your solution outright requires us to be permissive. And any criticism, any talking point, no matter how mild, is treated as an act of war. You've used the word yourself multiple times in this post. This is war to you.
The problem is, it isn't for me.
You call it black and white, yet that is extremely black and white.
I just want the right to fucking exist and enjoy my own hobbies. Somehow, this makes me culpable in my own harassment. I want the same respect you have demanded for others, for being a 30+ year veteran of nerd hobbies. And anyone who truly believes that "both sides" are at issue would respect that. But that's the problem. "Both sides" implies there are two and only two parties, in this case "us" and "them." You have othered me, lumped me into this camp of people who would hypothetically demand Darth Vader be black.
You prominently stated you are a Christian. I remember someone in the Bible saying that one should remove the beam from one's own eye before addressing the mote in their neighbour's.
Fair enough. But you will find that demanding respect rarely works. That is precisely why you can't stand them if I am not mistaken.
You are mistaken. The problem that I stated here was that I had people ten or fifteen years younger than me demanding I recognise that they were "here first," as you put it, even though they were not, while not affording me the same token. More importantly, I do not use my status as being older and quite possibly geekier than them to diminish them or claim they are fakes.
When I find someone is a Doctor Who fan, I don't start grilling them on the nuances of regeneration through the years. I am happy to share my interest with someone, even if their first season was the latest season (or series, if you want to be particular). I really don't give a crap whether someone cut their teeth on Amazing Fantasy 15 or Civil War, though admittedly, there's a lot less to talk about with the latter. I don't care whether someone has been playing D&D since its Chainmail roots or if 5E was their first dungeon crawl, and I really don't care which bathroom they use while playing it.
And since I brought up Stan Lee, he's attributed with the saying that every comic is someone's first. To dismiss outright people who are newer than you, or for not being passionate about the same things, strikes me as hypocritical. I was not alive when OD&D dropped, or when Doctor Who first came out. There are people older than me and younger than me and that's fine.
But when someone in high school tells me I'm a Johnny-Come-Lately, or when they insist I'm not really into video games? Why does he get to make his claim to geekdom, while mine is invalid?
There's a double standard being preached. That's what I despise. "I'm a true geek because I've been doing X for fifteen years!" Well, for a lot of things, I've been doing it twice as long.
You're right. Sympathy costs nothing. So when do we stop being dehumanised as the other side of a war and start getting some?