Good Evening Steemit
I'm writing this post because I am frustrated. I am frustrated because something I love has disappointed me to the point that I'm not entirely sure it (the thing) can come back from it (the thing it has done). I'm being intentionally cryptic. I'll let the secret out at the end but for now, so you keep reading I'm holding the perpetrator and, I'll call it the event, close to my chest.
As many of you know, I'm a girl gamer. Not a G.I.R.L[1] gamer although there are plenty of them floating around, I'm an actual female of the species. I played WoW for years, ran a 300 strong guild with my hubby on a smallish private international server. By the time I quit the first time the entire server pop. knew I was a girl, knew I was Ironbrewers girlfriend. My other half had single handedly dismantled half the guilds on the alliance side, sucking them up into Terrorstorm.
We were a family, us and the guild. When you spend twenty odd hours a day, seven days a week with a gang of people it's hard to not care about them. If one of our guildies was getting camped by a hordie everyone online would descend to defend. I suffered from my fair share of being camped[2] but I honestly believe I was never camped for being a girl, I was being camped for being in Terrorstorm.
If you haven't guessed the event is gaming related. There, I gave you clue, now would you kindly keep reading.
You might also know that I'm a massive fan of a certain Australian soap. I wrote a post not too long ago trying to persuade people to watch it. It's been a huge part of my life, it's one of the places I go when my life is really shit. I've been there a lot lately given my Mum's health situation even though, they themselves are currently running a Cancer storyline.
As in most soaps that have a large cast of families they often use school projects to introduce storylines for their teenage cast members. Last week one of them was given an assignment to play some console games and write a presentation about how women are portrayed in the media. Yup, they are running a gamergate[3] storyline.
It's not the first time that they've tried to slip some feminism into Neighbours even though it's thought of as a fairly conservative soap. When I say conservative I'm talking nuclear families, straight edges - this character smoked weed now his life has fallen apart, this character is an alcoholic and now he's having an affair and now oh shit he's had a heart attack and realises what a fool he's been and rings up his ex wife and tells her he loves her then BAM they are back together. Sorry got a little carried away.
It's stupid shit like this which makes me love Neighbours
So yeah, the gamergate thing. Basically this character called Piper had a bad experience with an ex boyfriend (it's explained in this video) then replayed the experience in a computer game which she had been given as part of her assignment. This being a soap she immediately jumped onto her successful, established vlog "Pipe Up" to explain exactly why she thought games were sexist without any thought to the consequences. This internet savvy young lady did not predict what happened next - that's okay, this is Neighbours, characters are allowed to be more flawed than normal for the sake of plot. Anyway.
Many of her followers were supportive however some were a bit nasty. Piper, being a seasoned vlogger, very sensibly chose to ignore the haters, that is until her teachers appeared.
SK - Oh Piper, why do you look so happy? Haven't you seen the comments on your video?
EC - Look at them Piper. Look at them right now and remind yourself of how awful the world is.
PW - OMG I've been trolled!
This isn't a direct quote, I'm paraphrasing because if I had to watch it again to get the proper quote, I would probably end up tearing the last of my hair out
This prompted Piper to start responding to the comments. Her phone buzzed constantly with replies, so much so she wasn't paying any attention to her boyfriend. In the end she contacts the site admins and asks them to deal with the "GAMERS"[4] who have been harassing her. This done, Piper and boyfriend happily turn their phones off and enjoy eachothers company for the rest of the day. Along comes brother of said boyfriend.
AB - Why haven't you been answering your phone, Piper? Haven't you seen what's happened to your Vlog?
TB - We stopped the nasty gamers so we're having so internet free time
**Piper turns on phone, fiddles with it then we hear her voice**
VideoPW - This is a very special message for a very special guy ...
PW - OMG the GAMERS have doxxed me!
I'm a gamer and I don't go into online chats and deliberately try to hurt people nor have I ever doxxed anyone. Sure I have quite a dark sense of humour, I've even created some quite dank memes (hello fellow kids) but the community that is attacking Piper right now isn't the community I know and love. They aren't the people who came to save me from being camped in Stranglethorn Vale and they aren't my nephews who I regularly play Super Mario Bros. Wii with. It's not the people I laugh with in the comments of OutsideXbox videos and it's certainly not Rob Pearson of Playstation Access.
We're allowed to be horrible to each other. It's like the code or something ...
In case you haven't worked it out already the "thing" is Neighbours and the event is the blanket blaming of gamers for a thing that only a small proportion of them do and blaming games for it happening. What about the parents? What about peer pressure? What about the objectification of people that happens on this very show??[5] The only thing I think that can save this for me is if it turns out 4chan are the culprits (which to be fair they often are) and that gamers come along and save her in some way. Seiously Neighbours, get your facts straight.
[1] For those who don't know in MMO chats (and probably other places) G.I.R.L stands for Guy In Real Life
[2] When your enemy stays near your corpse and kills you over and over as you respawn
[3] I typed gamergate and google didn't even question my spelling. I hate this world sometimes ...
[4] Now you know
[5] Seriously and you know what, it wasn't a woman who was being objectified, it was a MAN. A former male stripper trying to get a start in the marketing business forced to strip for a gang of giggly drunken women so he can get a contract. I mean, really ...