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OMG Girlz Don't Exist On Teh Intarweb!
The Escapist has a brilliant article penned by a young woman who has to deal with blatant disbelief at her existence. Why? Because there are no women on the internet. From the article: "This is the story of my internet life. (I'm not quite sure if it's a good or bad thing that I have an internet life, but internet life it is.) I'm a girl, I play games and I exist on the internet. Or so you think. Time after time, I get told I'm not a girl and that I don't exist. It's happened so much that I'm beginning to think that it's true. So, I spend some time getting to know them. Who are these mysterious creatures called girls if they don't exist on the internet? What does this mean for the men of the internet?"
or why he's pretending to be a chick, but everyone knows there are no girls on teh internets.
The Internet is highly stratified. That one of it's strongest attractions, to allow dilut interests to assemble and give them forum.
Women are made from sand, and would we want something made of sand on the internet? If you've ever taken a laptop to the beach you know - sand and computers don't mix.
Note that this initial disbelief may soon be followed by, "OMG BOOBZ!!1!" so caution is advised.
"Men of the Internet"
THERE'S a calendar I wouldn't want for Christmas.
nos laetus epulor qui would domito nos
Facebook You do however need to verify you go to a uni to be able to sign up and see them! Mmmmm... hot young co-eds. (Or you could always look at myspace)
...she gets her professionally taken pics plastered all over The Escapist.
Way to prove you're a girl, I suppose. Still, so much for the "I don't show my pic to random people" thing. Couldn't get much more random than that!
Who cares? Actually I have some very good friends who play Wow that are female - of course I've known them for years from playing a mud we all frequented, But neither I or my close friends have any problems with girl gamers, after all we're all here for the same reason - to have fun.
"What use is power to the Keeps of Balance?" -Disnt of Nightmare LpMud
My wife went through this recently. She plays WoW... a lot. She's a female, NE rogue and has been in a guild for about four months now. They talk all the time and she's said many times that she's a woman and all that. Well recently, on their guild website they were posting pictures of themselves and people were shocked that she was actually a she. I suppose they figured she was really role-playing it up or something.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
they are bots. derrr!
They can put it on calendars. I just won't buy 'em.
Now if they're in a Playboy special, we should really start killing the hostages.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Hell, my mum is and always has been a heavy Red Alert gamer. Prior to Westwood selling up she played online all the time. The other day I stumbled across an old spreadsheet where she'd been collecting player stats.
I never understood the problem really. I've always treated people essentially the same regardless of what gender/skin color/physical attractiveness/fame they were.
My mom is 40 years old and she has a level 37 Warlock on WoW. I messaged her on MSN after reading this asking about her experience. She is not shy about the fact that she is a woman and she has used vent now and then and she hardly ever gets a reaction like this article describes.
I dont know what server she is on or what internet she is using but I have been in many raids with women and have never heard anything quite to that extent that she is complaining about in this article.
All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be. -PF
While it's difficult to get accurate stats on the real percentages of men and women playing games, I'm sure that different types/styles of games will tend to have a greater or lesser amount of the various sexes.
I'm not surprised to see more women playing games , as the games evolve into more of a social type of situation. I, for one, like this development, as it seems to cut down on the amount of trash talking that young teenage boys tend to do, and also broadens the game strategies (men and women definetely think differently, not that one is better than the other).
..........FULL STOP.
It doesn't really matter unless you're hitting someone up for something sexual. That's the nature of it, anonymous, with handles designed solely to put continuity into the communication. We're all just text, judged solely by what we say.
But yea, there are girls on the internet, girls on slashdot, girls in WoW. There seems to be a minority of them that identify themselves as such, but hey, that goes for everything: gender, race, religion, etc.
It rarely matters. I've been the only guy in guilds/clans, one of a handful, one of many, etc. Never find this out or really care until enough bonds have formed through the anonymity to actually give a rats ass about the other's actual real life personas.
And of course, the internet is also populated mostly by people that use the anonymity to be jackasses. Post your pics! Mexican Jewlizard! yada yada. You get to see people as they are, socially, with basically no consequences or prejudgements.
It's a wild, wild place, and we likes it like that.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
C'mon, enough with that content-less, unreadable dribble meant for low-resolution monitors. This is about as bad as Roland.
I think their version is far more amusing.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
...Zonk wouldn't exist on "teh intarweb."
It isn't that there aren't any on the internet, its just that the men who pretend to be women far out number the actual women. That WoW for example. How many female characters on it do you think are actually men? Sadly, it may be the majority. To make matters worse, there is no good method of proving you are who you say you are. If you post pictures, people can just say that they are just of someone else.
Speaking is NOT communication
When I first started playing online games (Descent 2, Quake 2 timeframe), I found that the reaction I would get for being a female gamer would be based on what group I was talking to.
:)
- Clan/Guild members would automatically believe me, and I rarely got any odd treatment for being a female.
- Denizens in channels I'd frequent would be more reluctant to believe that I'm a female, and very often ask for pictures. When I would refuse these requests, I'd get the aforementioned flood of "U R a D00D lolololz"
- While actually playing the game on servers, I'd almost never mention that I'm a female. I learned to do this because whenever I would mention my gender, I'd get the pix requests tenfold, and the excessive chatter (sometimes inquisitive, but most often crude) would deter me from the action and ruin the experience.
This list, of course, has some exceptions. While part of a online gaming clan, I was once a ranking officer of a section of the guild responsible for playing a particular game. During a clan match, one of the members found that one of our other members was cheating, and brought the questionable screenshot to my attention. While I was in the process of bringing this to the clan leader, I was subject to a rather vicious attack, one that focused mainly around the fact that I'm female, and of course must be a "camwhore" or "extremely fat and stupid", of which I am neither. He still got ejected from the clan, but not without dealing the damage and attacking me in front of 100+ clan members.
What has all of this taught me? There are times when I can be proud of being a female gamer, and other times when sticking my neck out like that will end up with my head rolling. I learned that it's far easier to just let my gender be a mystery while playing online, instead of letting my gaming experience being ruined by asshats.
With the increasing popularity of MMORPGS, however, many female gamers are now playing games online. These female gamers are now encountering the same treatment that I've been used to for years, and are quite taken back by it. Hopefully this flood of female gamers will bring the fact to life that female gamers do exist, that we do play, and that we just want to play.
We shouldn't need to provide a picture to prove who we are.
Just no girls on slashdot.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
Mostly Men Online Role Playing Girls.
How we know is more important than what we know.
There's women ALL over internet, it's just that they all live inside the porn sites that the men visit.
People in online games and in IRC are the dregs of humantiy. I'm not sure why you expect them to not be sexist or retarded.
But no one really cares. I guess that is the advantage to being in a gaming community with an average age of around 25. We're a FPS community, we use TeamSpeak, but whe a woman gets on the channel, she is just another player as far as we're concerned.
I am surprised that the women haven't formed their own internet by now. Guys get stupid around girls enough as it is. Adding in the fact that many of the guys escape to games because they have problems relating with people, let alone females, it only gets worse.
I, thankfully, haven't freaked out too much when the person on the other side revealed themselves to be female. On the other hand, there have been a few times where people were roll playing as a female and later revealed themselves to be a guy. It wasn't quite a crying game type of situation, but it was enough of a shock for me to still remember...
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
With a name like 'Whitney Butts' you just know thats a guy!
There's some sort of weird perception on this site that women dig sensitivity or whatever the fuck. You'll find this idea taking root anywhere large number of unused penises congregate. The strange this is how this idea continues to take root, since its adherents obviously don't reproduce.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Simply put: This is an to-be disputed rant about a targeted audiience. It's far from all encompasing and can't even generalize on any experiences outside of the expamples she had given. She might as well have just ranted about immaturity in teenage kids.
Move on.
Unique.
First off, my snippy comment: The quality of the writing in 'The Escapist' is worth every penny I paid to read it. Same for the design.
This democratization of mediocrity is what I hate about the internet. Since when is someone whining about teenage boys being imbeciles worthy of Slashdot commentary? Because if you read the article, that's what is going on here.
I don't know about the rest of you, but the general awkwardness of teenager boys around teenage girls isn't really 'News for Nerds' or 'Stuff that matters' in my book.
Sorry for being harsh.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Wow, I just realized that I have never been on the internet. I guess I never realized that the whole of the internet consisted of the World of Warcraft. How could I have missed this? I mean, what other explanation is there for why no girls on World of Warcraft could equal no girls on the internet. It's all so clear to me now.
-> Fritz
Spooooon!!!!!
Mostly Men Online Role Playing Girls.
[In my best Curly imitation]: Hey! I resemble that remark...nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Seriously, most of the time I prefer to play female characters in FFXI because they look nice and I feel like it brings some balance to the gender proportions of the game world, even if most of those females are males in real life.
Most of the time the question of rl gender doesn't come up, but if it does I just tell the truth, that's just my style.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
... she's really a bot.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
How else will you explain the fact that most woman claim to like them, but then ignore us and take of with the nearest macho? Clearly we don't exist.
I am a Dude but I have a sister that plays games, upgrades her own computer, and can use the internet very well, she actually has an login on slashdot! nickname lisaalex93
Thats right she was born in '93 she is 11.
She named a kitten of hers Yoda.
She plays RedFaction, HalfLife, and even makes her own levels for FarCry in CryEngine sandbox.
No I won't send pictures but she is 100% real. I swear on my Athlon XP.
Its all well and good being irritated by the reaction men have to women on the Internet, however, it is often justified.
In a small IRC channel I used to frequent a lass joined. She spoke a fair amount, and made some friends there and yes she got the 'You got pics' thing.
I dunno why people try to make out its to check the sex of the person you are talking to. Not like youve got a hope in hell of pulling someone whos usually hundreds if not thousands of miles away. I just want to check out a nice pair of... eyes.
Anyway, seedy imaturity aside, she did have pics and sent them about the place, they looked reasonable enough and nothing more was said on the matter.
For what was probably well over a year she was involved with the channel and made good friends with more than one guy there even arranging to go out with one and actually move up to his place. Only thing was, some other guy came in to the channel and started asking questions. Turns out he had a thing going on with her as well and was fairly devestated that she had gone and dumped him. She promptly vanished at this point as did both boyfriends. For a while we were all speculating on what was going on. Until the first boyfriend came in and he had apparently been doing some research. (A little worrying really, just how obsessed was this guy with some lass hed never even spoken to.) He had found that the person at the address she lived at was a guy.
Surely not! There was no way most of the channel was gonna believe this was genuine after all there were quite a few people in the channel who had been friends with her for ages. Still had a heck of a good laugh with the idea. Needless to say it was about to get funnier.
One of the other guys in the channel thought maybe he could get to the bottom of this by checking her livejournal. He was confused to find a livejournal not by her but by a bloke called Brian. A 16 year old Bisexual no less. A quick check with old and new livejournal showed that the old one had been carefully changed in to the new one with all refrences to his female persona removed or changed.
Oh and just to make damn sure non of this was wrong or fabricated we managed to get in touch with his best friend who admited she'd (Or maybe he'd who knows.) heard him mention something about the IRC channel before. Well and truly busted.
I laughed good and hard about all that (Shed persuaded the whole chanel she was a romanian hotty for more than a year!) but there was a more serious side. Ignoring boyfriend number ones stalker tendancies and the embarasment to boyfriend number 2 who I dont think has ever returned to IRC. There were quite a few people added to that group of internet users who wouldnt be ready to believe the next person to come along and claim the're a girl.
If your reading this Brian it was a laugh ill give you that, but over a year? I think you may need to see a head doctor.
Oh and an amusing concidence in all this. His IRC nickname was Whitney.
EVERYONE knows that girls only exist on Xanga and MySpace...
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
We're posting stories about how a girl complains no one believes she's a girl...a girl with a really, really horrid looking website. Is it that slow a newsday? Didn't Microsoft do anything wrong today?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I have run into this on occassion. Although I rarely play games online with people I don't know, I find often that on IRC, for example, if I mention that I'm female in a room that I don't frequent I will often see people who seem suprised that I'm female. I find this happens most often if I stop into a Linux or programming room to ask for help on something.
Of course, most people never take it beyond some sort of exclamation of suprise. I've found that people who message asking for pics, etc, are generally trolling for cybersex anyway.
I do find this behavior strange because of all my friends IRL the majority of the my female friends at least occasionally visit IRC or some other type of chat room, while I only have 2 male friends who ever use IRC, one of whom only visits clan channels to talk strategy, etc. before matches in whatever FPS they play now, and the other only visits Linux help channels occasionally when something it's working right.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I think this girl needs to spend her time convincing her female friends that video games are a fun and aceptable form of entertainment. There really are nto very many girls "on the internet"... and its not because they are inherently bad at video games, or because boys dont believe they exist. The only girl i know, that play video games is my step sister, and thats likely just because she grew up with me and my brother. Of all the other girls i know (yes, i know more than a few) i cant think of anyone that plays videogames, atleast mroe than once or twice a month for a few minutes. The problem here isnt with the boys, as i see it...
My hand touched her hand. Her hand touched her boob. By the transitive property, I got some boob! Algebra is awesome!
... Have you ever passed through Livejournal, Myspace, etc.? It's more than half, more likely 2/3 women (and girls.) Take a look at one of those pages that shows the last 50 images sent to livejournal. You're going to see lots and lots of women. Most of them taking pictures of themselves in the mirror.
Do you think women don't game? Sure they do, check out the Pogo and Yahoo games. Quite a few women there too.
How about AIM? Would instant messaging even exist if not for chatty teen girls?
And then there's ebay, and shopping, and...
This isn't 1994 and the internet's not the geek ghetto it was. Women have wholeheartedly embraced it, especially of course the younger generation. So what's the complaint? Is it that women don't like FPS games and MMPORGs, except for those exceptions that prove the rule? Guess what, the sexes tend to be kind of different, and maybe, perhaps, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
...and her name is John Romero.
Ohmygosh! Liar! Adults don't exist on teh intarwebz!
I'm a girl and I've been playing games online for six years. I've never had any problems with people "not believing" I'm a girl who plays video games. Perhaps it's because I don't spend any time worrying about whether or not anyone I meet online thinks I'm a girl or not, I just am who I am.
I don't believe the author faces any serious questioning of her gender online.
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that there is a prominently feature picture of a girl on the first page of the article, when so much of it revolves around people demanding a pic? Am I to believe that she's worried we won't even believe she's a girl after reading the article without such a pic?
She probably sucks at video games too.
---
I support spreading santorum
Cause Im really a girl and I dont exist. Seriously, this is the dumbest I have read on /. so far and that includes most all M$ articles. The girl is being a cop out, and just wants some attention. So yes, some of us game and some of us play with computers in our spare time, and wow, some of us even read /.
Personaly, I dont like attention wh0res or wannabe in the spotlight's. I grew up as a tomboy and Im pretty sure if this were someone I knew irl, her face would be smashed in.
Sorry such a voilent post, but then again 'Im a girl and I dont exist', so dont mind that its 4am and I cant sleep or that Im a mean german, just stop reading now.
The Internet:
Where men are men, women are men, 13 year Old girls are FBI agents.
"The test of the morality of a society is what it does for it's children." -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
its not that we dont believe there are women on the internet, its that we dont believe the people who claim to be women, women are like deer, you see them from your car window when your driving through the countryside, or sometimes - once in a while - you hit one head on and it smashes your car up.
http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2003 -02-25
http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2003 -05-26
ResidntGeek
WoW has seperate servers for roleplaying- the vast majority of the servers are populated by folks- like me- who don't give a rat's ass about pretending to be something I'm not and just want to play the game. The race, gender and class are simply choices towards that end- playing the game.
I imagine many other MMORPG's have a similar distribution of players.
That being said, who you really are isn't terribly important to playing the game, so revealing such details about yourself is wholly optional.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
While I am aware that relationships can become more varied, that only becomes an option for me once I've gotten to know somebody well as a person.
That's the kind of reaction I guess you'll get in the genres that're still mostly played by male players - especially the combat oriented testosterone fueled games like first person shooters (or to a lesser extent, most MMORPGS). But half the users of the Internet are female, and in fact they're the best customers for a lot of the "casual game" genres. I doubt she'd get that kind of reaction in Spades and Hearts gamerooms, or in places like Puzzle Pirates or A Tale in the Desert. I know on my own Furcadia, 57% of the players are female, and half our company's staff are women. Of course if her favorite types of games are the male dominated ones, she's going to run into those kinds of players & reactions. It is a shame, but they're not universal all over the net and in all games.
Furcadia - A free online game with user created content, DragonSpeak scripting, & more.
Some chick takes a joke way too seriously and writes five pages of crap about it. Man, the reason why /. posts Escapist articles all the time is so clear to me now...
Rob
Personally, I would love to meet a girl who played video games like I did, but they tend to either not be my type, or are never single.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I personally prefer to play as a female nightelf because of all the hot chats with other lesbian nightelves and all the free gifts from human males. . .
http://www.bash.org/?491664 -- This explains the situation with "women on the Internet." There are too many clever people on the Internet. /gg
The entire current issue is about women and gaming.
In case you didn't notice, every issue has a theme and is not a mish-mash of completely random bullshit.
C17H21NO4
I play FFXI (Final Fantasy MMORPG) and at least half of my friends list is female, and over half of the "linkshell" (like a guild thingy) must be female.
79% of my MSN contact list is female.
My MOTHER, who is an eBay queen and 'leet warez haxor' is, so I'm told, a female.
My three best geek pals (web design guru, game master, anime queen) happen to be female.
Not to mention my little sister, who has a veritable LEGION of friends who are constantly online.
I wonder what internet this daft tart lives on? Or is she just perpetuating a sterotype that no longer applies just to get a moment in the spotlight?
C17H21NO4
It's very obviously a model. Not that the writer couldn't look like that, but: 1) I very much doubt she'd choose to appear posed and dressed that way. 2) The Escapist isn't the kind of magazine to run a photo shoot for that sort of article. They're expensive and logistically tricky for a small, free 'zine to use.
Aww! This shatters everything I ever thought about myself! *looks down shirt* But... but... guys don't have those! Y_Y
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2003-06- 30&res=l
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
Are why men don't believe there are "real" girls on the internet. The few that are on the internet are usually completely socially maladjusted attention seekers.
Just like the men secretly know themselves to be.
The first thing I thought of was this web comic I found a couple years ago http://www.thatstrife.com/gothboy/0020.asp
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
<_<
...well, they certainly don't exist on Slashdot, or World of Warcraft.
>_>
Having gamed for 17 years (I'm 24) and with a dad who could make a sailor blush whenever he does DIY and a few uncles who make sailors blush by the simple action of breathing, I often get called a "he" and get people trying to virtual kick me in the nuts. OK so I guess it's cause I'm a bit of a tomboy at heart and use androgynous char names but that's no excuse.
This almost makes me want to see their faces when they finally realise that I am a woman and that "kicking me in the nuts" doesn't work.
I sometimes have acome across the males that demand my pic but since my gaming profile has a link to my site (with respectful pic) they soon shut up and start being nice.
I agree that it has a lot to do with maturity. People my age don't give two craps that I'm of the feminine gender. The little boys that fawn over me get the contempt they deserve. Harsh I know but the either learn to respect their fellow gamers or they get highly ostracised
There have been many times when dealing with people that I wished I could kiss my own butt goodbye
If you look at MMO statistics, there are many more men playing women (mangina) then there are actually women playing. Thus assuming every female is male until you know better (ie voice verification + pic) is a good idea.
Who cares? So you're telling me that the internet is a mecca for people who do not always have the most developed set of social skills? This is news how? People judge us based on our look/gender/race/age every single day and I'm a little surprised that we make such a big deal out of it. From reading the article, it is clear that many of the individuals that Miss Butts is interacting with are still in their pubscent stages and need to grow up a bit but how is that any different than your local mall? Are they rude, are they offensive, are they juvenile? Yep, and it'd probably do a lot of these guys some good to go interact with human beings in the flesh but there is nothing "unique" about this particular situation nor are the problems discussed in the article in any way unique to the internet.
I'll be the first to admit that ten years ago, I was one of those obnoxious pubscent kids who didn't know how to talk to a girl who was shocked/impressed/intimidated by the idea of playing a video game with a girl but I can happily say that I've outgrown that stage. Let'em outgrow it, surround yourself by people who don't care and stop whining about life is fair; it's not fair that I have to pay for drinks at a bar but I deal with it.
"[Teleios]: I don't show my pic to random people."
Uh, what's this article then?
Here's a newsflash--they don't know how to handle themselves around girls in real life, either!
i know how to "handle" myself just fine, if you know what i mean, and i think you do.
Pfftt! OK....It is only an alt. But, it's still my paladin's name. And its a male character, played by a male.
Not ANOTHER article about how "Not enough girls play games".
MOST GIRLS DON'T LIKE VIDEO GAMES, NOR ARE THEY SEXUALLY ATTRACTED TO MOST OF THE GUYS WHO PLAY THEM TOO MUCH. DON'T BLAME THEM OR SOCIETY FOR THAT FACT. GOD MADE THEM THAT WAY. GET THE F&*# OVER IT. IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE GIRLS STOP WRITING DOPEY ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE, PUT THE JOYSTICK DOWN, DO SOME PUSH UPS, AND GO SOCIALIZE WHERE THEY HANG OUT.
Girls exist on internet. My actual girlfriend was met thanks to internet. I played Everquest and other MMORPG for long time and there were many girls there. Of course is more difficult to see them play FPS games... for some reason... ;)
Computer Games
This is another reason I am glad my WoW guild uses TeamSpeak. ;-) Unless they are guys that suck helium whenever they hit "Press to talk," there's a fair number of women in our game, and there's no quesiton about their gender. (And a fair number of them are married, and their spouses are in the guild, too.)
:-)
There's the usual assumption that someone is the same gender as their PC, if only because it's the norm, and not the exception, at least as far as I have experienced so far. If I find out differently, it just takes a moment to adjust mentally, usually for voice recogintion or in the case when it's someone I've know in Real Life for years ("Wait, Fratboy Mike's playing a chick. I hear him belch on TS, but he's got a female PC. OK, this will take getting used to..." Yes, it's a stereotype, but that's because he plays that image up on occasion in RL). The advanced sophisicaiton of games doesn't help if they are well made, as poses, body movement, etc. are signals as to what gender a person is. ( http://journalofvision.org/4/5/2/article.aspx )
The only time I find Gender Bending truly awkward in an MMO is gramatically. When a male player is playing a female character, or vice versa, it takes a moment to sort out the grammar. "She can pull, she's the tank... he? Dammit, which do you prefer?"