5 Stereotypes About Gamers That Will Not Die

I, along with many other I presume, have heard many stereotypes about all sorts of people; Asian people all know martial arts, black people steal, all cats are secretly plotting to overthrow humanity and become the dominant species of Earth (I'm still not ready to give that up yet), but the most persistent one seems to be that of the gamer. There is a TIME op ed by Christina Hoff Sommers about 5 feminist myths that won't die and that gave me the idea of writing this article so lets get to it.

1. We are all overweight 

Fun Fact: After playing Gears of War 3 the broness of the game compelled me to take this picture..and grow a beard

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard this, hell if you go on the #gamergate or #describeagamerinfourwords tags on Twitter you'll no doubt witness people making this claim. This is something I take offense to, not because fat people are terrible or anything but because they are implying that gamers as a whole are lazy and lack dedication to anything other than their games. While it is true that some people develop an addiction so severe where they don't do anything, but this is nothing more than detractors of gaming trying to ascribe something deemed socially bad as a strictly gamer thing when it clearly isn't,, nice try though.

2. We are all virgins/We all need gfs

What a bunch of lonely losers

Oh boy, where do I begin with this one? This stereotype most likely stems from the notion that a) only guys play games (which I will be addressing next) and b) that we love our games so much that we either forfeit carnal pleasures, are too socially inept to have sex with another person or that we are so physically undesirable which is why we dive head first into virtual reality. There are not enough words in the English language to convey all the ways that this is not true. There are plenty of gamers (including myself) that are not virgins, hell some of the most famous gamers around have gfs and are married so I highly doubt that they are virgins...unless that's there thing. What's so bad about virginity anyways? Does it make you less of a person if you don't have sex? Why are you so interested in the fact that someone doesn't have sex? That's creepy man, you go get a hobby, may I suggest playing video games? The "we all need gfs" is heterosexist and leads me to my next point..

3. We are all heterosexual white males

@IvyTwisted from the #notyourshield tag is clearly a white male

This one confuses me the most, you have many sites, including none gaming sites, going crazy over the fact that women are the largest demographic in gaming and yet we only see that when they want to show that the "boys club" of gaming is over. Wanna know what happens when they need gamers to be the enemy again? We all become cishet neckbearded white males. That happens without fail, in fact it happens so damn much that there is a #notyourshield on twitter with the explicit purpose of showing that we are compromised of all races, orientations and beliefs. I am a hetero black male...pretty sure my touching of a controller doesn't suddenly change my race though it is convenient for detractors that I don't exist as to further their agenda.

4. We all hate women (love that misogyny so much)

Of course I picked these two, duh

I need to say something...*puts on flame resistant suit*...I do think that Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn get harassed and face misogyny. *checks to see if blog is in flames* Ok still with me? That all being said I also believe that the majority of their harassment isn't from gamers but from the internet. You see, gaming detractors absolutely love online trolls, they really do, because it gives them the ability to conflate that community with the gaming community since we are apart of the online community ( well everyone is really but they like to ignore that), giving them the ammo to say stuff like "gamers hate women". The thing is, the criticism that is levied against these two isn't due to their gender but rather what they do/say, at least when its coming from the gaming community for the most part. If you have played games and watched any of Anita's videos then you absolutely know why she would get criticism, she has mastered the art of cherry-picking and misrepresenting her opinions as facts; Zoe is getting flack mostly due to the fact that there is evidence linking her to corruption...oh and her not so great actions after being found out ( which I won't link to but Twitter has all that info). Point is, it's not about them being women, that is an argument that they have created in order to avoid any consequences for their ludicrous statements...do we remember Jack Thompson and how he literally had shirts made about him? I didn't see any game journalists coming to his aid, if anything they joined in on the hate so maybe the real sexists are the ones calling us sexists even though most of our complaints are not sexist....sexisception? sexistception? I was trying to be clever but failed.

5. We all eat Doritos and drink Mountain Dew

The irony in this picture is over 9000!..that's still relevant right? the "over 9000!" thing?

I know this may seem stupid but that's exactly why its on this list. I don't even know why this is an actual thing but it is, there is this perception that we all inhale Doritos and Mountain while having an all night Halo sesh....I don't even drink soda and if I did it would probably be a Fanta or Sunkist or something ( crap now I want Fanta...way to go me). This is the perfect example of how video game journalist and the media have created the image of the gamer and speaks to how they treat us; we aren't a fanbase for them, we are just machines to feed propaganda to...ugh..just no to this whole idea.

Ok so that's my list, if you want to add to it, make your own, tell me how completely stupid I am or whatever, feel free to comment. Seriously though, fucking Mountain Dew? Wouldn't it make more sense to make it Powerade or Gatorade? Ah forget it I'm gonna go play Dragon Age or something.