I find the whole term “gamer girl” misleading and filled with presumptions and stereotypes. Typically, the term “gamer girl” either refers to a pretty and slutty girl who posts pictures of herself online holding game controllers or gaming in a skimpy outfit or an unattrative nerdy girl who is portrayed as a lonely nerd who will never have a boyfriend.
The reality is quite far from that. Girls who play video games could all be called gamer girls, but I myself consider gamer girls to be the same as gamer guys, actual gamers. People who spend a lot of their time playing games that are considered to be “proper” games. E.g. Halo, Assassin’s creed, Fallout, TES, WoW, Witcher, Call of Duty etc. Not games like Plants vs Zombies, Sims, Mario Kart etc. Why aren’t games like these considered proper games then? Well, that’s a whole other matter. Back to the original concept of this post, gamer girls.
There are tons of memes and “funny” pictures circulating the internet about gamer girls, that enforce one or both of the stereotypes for gamer girls.
I personally dislike girls who make themselves seem more attractive to boys or men with their gaming (or claimed gaming), posting pictures of themselves in a tight tanktop and hipster shorts while playing, or holding up their brand new copy of a game or a controller. I think it’s ridiculous for girls to seek attention by combining a cute or sexual appearance with games. Why even combine the two? And there’s quite a huge cap between even text posts certain girls make about their gaming habits.
“Gaming time again! So many people cannot believe a girl like me playes video games, but I’m a gamer girl at heart forever 😉”
“Damn this stupid quest, I have done it over and over and I keep dying.”
Which sounds more like something an actual gamer girl would say? I don’t understand why you have to emphasize that you play games? Sure you can talk about it in social medias if you want to, but the things you say tell a lot about your actual playing in my opinion.
The fact that people emphasize everywhere that they play games bothers me. It’s like a cry for attention “LOOK AT ME I’M A GAMER!”. I dislike it when guys do this too, but I can’t help feeling most annoyed by it when pretty girls do it. I admit I am strongly affected by the stereotypes surrounding pretty girls who spend a lot of time getting dressed, putting on their make up or doing their hair, those generally trying to look pretty. I have a hard time believing it if those types of girls actually play, instead of just saying they are. And from what I have seen, a whole lot of them actually don’t, or they play something for one hour and claim they have played for days on end when actually they hate the game. I have nothing against people who do not play games, who do not like games, to each their own, but I do not see why people would pretend they play games just to get attention. That’s just ridiculous. Why lie that you are something you are not, or that you like something you don’t? If people think a certain way about you once you tell them this, then what will happen when they find out the truth? You will look like a liar, a pretender and a moron. But yeah enough of that. The bottom line is that there are tons of pretty, attention seeking girls who claim to be gamers and the stereotypes for gamer girls rely heavily on these kinds of examples which is bad for the real gamer girls out there. This makes it even harder on the actual pretty gamer girls to be considered seriously, it’s already hard as it is being just a girl in a scene where guys dominate things, let alone an attractive one.
The other kind of gamer girls stereotypes rely on gamer girls being unattractive, sloppy, nerdy and socially unskilled. People who just spend their time in their room, eating junk food and playing all night long. Of course there are girls like this out there, just like there are guys like this out there, but I find the whole stereotype absurd since it applies to both sexes quite equally. Does gaming make you instantly unattractive? Of course some gamers do not seem to be as attractive as some other people who do not play games, because they don’t care how they look, they rather spend their time and effort on their games, their friends, their comfort. But it is not true for every person who is a gamer, so why is it presumed as a fact? I must admit, shamefully, that I often rely on this stereotype when females are concerned. I think of a woman who plays games as someone unattractive or someone pretty average, not a beauty queen type of girl. But this is based on my previous experience, although some of it is based on the image I have come across the internet. But it is wrong of me to think this way and I realize it. I just need to work on it.
It is odd that guys especially, or maybe they are actual gamer girls in hiding who do this who knows, want to emphasize that gamer girls are one of the two stereotypes of girls. The pretty pretenders or the ugly nolifes, period. When in reality, gamer girls, just like gamer guys, come in all shapes and size, some do make up, some don’t, some spend a lot of time on their personal style and some just put on the first clothes they find. I think averagely, most gamer girls are actually somewhere in between these two opposites.
It is also very dissapointing to see guys not consider girls as good players. Sure, I bet many guys are better at games than girls, but it’s not something that’s written in stone as fact. I have come across many guys smirking if I say I play games as well as many guys making stupid and sexist remarks if a girl wants to try a game. “Oh you will suck anyway” “Girls don’t like games like this”. For some reason, I bet most of the negatives stories and stereotypes about gamer girls have been made up by guys, who consider gaming to be a masculine thing and something they are very proud of and don’t want to be invaded by girls. Maybe they are afraid they will lose some of their manliness or pride if a girl is better than them in a game? Perhaps, perhaps not, I am just writing down thoughts that spontaniously come to my mind. Whichever the case, I have seen a lot of guys act biased towards girls when games are concerned, and some making rude and sexist remarks while they are at it.
I am personally trying to get rid of stupid ideals I have for people who are gamers and who are not. One of my friends, who is a very pretty girl who spends a lot of time doing her hair and make-up as well as choosing her clothes to perfectly match each other and her jewelry, told me she would love to try Skyrim “because it looks cool”. I am ashamed to admit, but my initial reaction to this was that I would let her try it, but she would probably just spend an hour on perfecting her characters face and then stop playing once the real game began. In the end I was very wrong, she did spend almost an hour on her characters face, but she is a perfectionist at everything I must add, and once I explained the controls, she happily started playing. At times when she got too scared, she had to use her “panic button”, which was the tab button to access the menu to take a breather every time she faced a scary enemy, but after a while she stopped doing this altogether. And I remember I did something like this as well when I started first person games years ago, the enemies scared me so I had to escape to the menu a lot of times as well. In the end she asked for the game as a present from her brother, and when I visited her a while after, she was on her second character, a two-handed weapon wielding huge nord man at level thirty-something and finally I realized I was dead wrong. My own prejudices against girls and girls who like to play came in the way and I should have seen the outcome earlier on as I know my friend very well. But stereotypes and prejucides are rooted very deep and can only be changed through proof and personal realization.
I don’t even know what the point of this post is, maybe my point is that girls who play games should not be steoreotyped so heavily and people who do not play games should not use it to make them more attractive. If you play games, then you play games and good for you, hope you enjoy it. If you don’t, then it’s fine, hopefully you will find something else you are passionate about. Either way, real gamer girls are just like any gamer guys out there.
Note: I consider myself to be somewhat a gamer girl, although not a hardcore one. I do my make-up, my hair and try to dress nicely on occassion, although in reality I spend most of my time in sweats and t-shirts without any make-up and my hair in dirty tangles. I bet some would argue that I am not a proper gamer, since I don’t play all kinds of games and my tastes heavily lie on Bethesda’s games like Skyrim, Oblivion and Fallout 3.
Before I change my mind. Or my mind changes me. 