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Why are gaming nerds so terrible?

I’m apparently spending a lot of time wondering about the psychology of terrible people.

I am late to this and only catching up but the misogynistic storm raging in the gaming world about indie game dev Zoe Quinn is insane and terrifying. It’s not the first time this has happened and it certainly won’t be the last. It’s always depressing to remember that something you love so much can have such a disgusting and toxic culture.

But why the hell is gaming so uniquely ugly in this regard? The world of entertainment is a misogynistic place. In competitive fields where individuals are vying for attention (such as film or electronic music), women are generally paid much less or consistently overlooked. It’s quiet, effective and nasty. Video games, apparently, are a different bag of oranges. Why can’t they just quietly drown women’s dreams like everyone else? Why does it have to be so incredibly explosive and violent?

I have a guess, and it ties into what is basically the unraveling of traditional nerd culture.

Continue reading “Why are gaming nerds so terrible?”

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The UCSB shooting

Oh my god, I just woke up and didn’t know about this. I’m so upset, fuck. I’ve been getting more upset by misogyny as time goes by, and especially over the past month, but then this had to happen.

It sounds like the shooter had high functioning autism, which is not by itself mental illness, although something else must have been there. (The Sandy Hook shooter was similar.)

But the post is correct: the cause here is the fucked up attitude from PUAs and other misogynistic horrible people. There are definitely other issues, such as the proliferation of guns (mass shootings are definitely the crime of our time, these things move in trends) and how society treats people who are not neurotypical or have mental illnesses.

But what we need to talk about right now is misogyny and entitlement and the cultural expectation that men should get something for nothing.