There's way more to it than that (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Monday, November 05, 2018, 13:40 (2006 days ago) @ Harmanimus
edited by CruelLEGACEY, Monday, November 05, 2018, 13:47

Not to get too socio-political, but a lot of it is related to thr gender and “social standing” of people who were able to play video games. The entitlement in communities is usually directly related to the toxicity toward people who aren’t the core entitled demographic. Even if women make up about half of all game players there is still toxicity because they are not that core entitled group.

Usually the entitled group is made up of “that guys” and are self professed fans of things. This walks hand-in-hand with gatekeeping because if you are not like them you must not be a real fan. So the moment you make an accessible product not catering to their desires then you done goofed and the vitriol will spill. You get that in movies and comics and tabletop communities a lot, too. It is all bad.

This is the exact kind of explanation that you get when you begin with an ideological presupposition, then work backwards to fit everything into it. Is "entitlement" part of the issue? Absolutely, in some cases, to varying degrees. But there are a load of things going on here.

First and foremost, we're dealing with the internet, and the negative effects that anonymity has on social interactions. Largely speaking, most people are jerks on the internet some of the time, regardless of who they are or who they are talking to. This is a HUGE part of the equation, and more often than not, interactions that get labeled as "sexist" or "racist" or any "ist" are fundamentally just people who want to be mean because they feel they can get away with it. They jump to the most obvious avenue of attack that presents itself to them. If I'm a woman, they'll say something degrading to women. If I'm gay, they'll say something homophobic. If I'm of a specific race, they'll insult my race, or my height, or weight, or age... it's not that they are ideologically against any 1 group, it's that they'll attack any and every group because they are trying to be mean.

This behavior is obviously bad and toxic and destructive. And it often presents itself on face-value as sexist or racist or homophobic, language etc. But going after it as such is usually missing the root cause.

The next big issue is that when people like something, they're generally against having the thing that they like changed. A lot of the supposed "entitlement" drama that I see around nerd culture just comes down to nerds being nerds, combined with the "people on the internet are jerks" rule I mentioned above.

Remember when Hugh Jackman was first cast as Wolverine? X-Men fans flipped out, because Jackman is 6'2" and Wolverine is supposed to be 5'3". To those fans, casting Jackman was a sign that the filmmakers weren't familiar enough with the characters to be trusted to get anything right. Now, those fans were clearly wrong, but not for any of the malicious or discriminatory reasons that get thrown around today. I would be the first person to point out that Hugh Jackman's height isn't intrinsically critical to his ability to portray the character. Just as I would also point out that someone with dark skin can do a fantastic job portraying Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter play. But, I'm not going to jump to the knee-jerk assumption that everyone who does protest is doing so because they are racist, just as I wouldn't assume that X-men fans complaining about Jackman's height really just hate tall people. I would assume that the vast majority of them just have a picture in their head of what a character looks like, and that picture is 1 part of the puzzle that makes up the thing that they love, and they worry when those pieces get changed. The argument to make in the face of that attitude is "think harder about the specific piece that you're worried about, and whether or not it actually matters".

Ultimately, I think the issue of "change" is where the majority of the tension comes from in these situations. The majority of fans of any game/book/movie love to have new fans join them in celebrating the thing that they love together. What they don't want is to have the thing that they love changed in order to attract new fans. And this trend is often misdiagnosed, then made worse by the fact that a significant portion of the people expressing their concerns do so poorly, or rudely, or aggressively, because they're being jerks on the internet. And that is precisely where the "gatekeeping" phenomenon comes in. Marvel comics over the past several years is a great example. Marvel looked at their readership and thought "it sure would be great if more women bought our comics... let's do something about that." Totally valid observation, and a great goal. But rather than creating new content to achieve that goal, they took a bunch of their existing franchises and characters and changed them (swapping sex or race or both). Fans complained because their favorite characters and books were suddenly being transformed, and then the whole argument between the self-described "real fans" and everyone else takes off. This is utterly predictable and understandable, and not due to widespread discrimination among comic-book fans. That's just what happens when you take something that people love and change it.

Bob Dylan fans got angry at him when he started playing electric guitar. Buffy fans complained about Season 4 because they weren't meeting in the Library anymore. Dr Who fans flip out every time a new Dr Who appears. And Blizzard fans freak out when Blizzard announces a game that doesn't fit the mold of what fans expect and love from Blizzard. Is it good behavior? Absolutely not. But to try and address the problem by splitting people along the lines of gender or "social standing" is utterly missing the point, and usually just makes things worse. The whole world is collectively learning how to handle online communication. Places like Twitter are suddenly being treated as the place to gauge the pulse of public opinion and morality. I hope that as time moves forward, more and more people will grow up learning to conduct themselves with as much care in their online interactions as they do with their personal interactions. Or perhaps more people will begin to realize that life is better without Twitter or facebook, and then their won't be anyone left to feed the trolls :)