Gamers, do you find it weird how so many women tend to quit hobbies based on bad experiences from the community?

[TheSpaceGnome]

I enjoy playing video games online, and no amount of online toxicity from trolls will ever prevent me from talking to new people, making new friends to game with, using party chat or game chat, or playing in online sessions.

Insults from strangers do not effect me, and if someone is spamming me with trolling messages, I just block them.

I hear a lot from women who game, that men do not understand what it's like to be a woman online, but the things is, we do.

We go through the same receiving of insults, the same harrassment, the same unsolicited flirting and spam, the same exact garbage you go through online, and we actually get way more insults than unsolicited flirting (usually for doing good at games and having some poor loser on the opposing team get toxic over it), so its actually MORE toxic for guys online.

But 99% of us just aren't offended by any of it, we simply don't care enough about the opinions of strangers (certainly not enough to let them push us out of our precious hobby).

So why do you care? Why do you cave to internet trolls and hide yourselves offline or quit gaming?

[CloudMassacre]

I don’t find it weird. I’ve pretty much fallen out of gaming because I don’t like the direction games have been going in for the last like seven years. I remember having a girl friend ai gamed with online way back in the day and it was a semi constant issue with dudes being super pervy and gross when she would talk, so we just stayed in a private party. And then Halo 4 came out and the community I was with just sort of fizzled out because we all just sort of lost interest.

[TheSpaceGnome]

Halo 4's community fizzled out because halo 4 is garbage, as is halo 5, and even more so infinite.

343 has no clue what they are doing because microcrap hired call of duty devs who admit to hating halo to work on the last 3 games.

As for dudes being pervy, about 80% of the women who join party chats I'm in are pervy, it doesn't bother me. 99% of the time it's hilarious, even though thus far none of them are women I'd be interested in.

it's just words, it's not like she is going to reach through the tv and grab my penis and give me internet stds ersomething, so getting upset over it or quitting gaming over it just seems dumb to me.

[CloudMassacre]

I don’t think people have to do something they don’t enjoy if they don’t want to. Like, I got tired of the super competitiveness and the turn from good gameplay to good graphics and micro transactions. I Could just keep playing, but I don’t enjoy it anymore. I find myself going back and playing old games I actually like. And there would be people saying “you don’t have to buy anything, you can just play how you want” but that doesn’t change how I feel about it ya know?

[TheSpaceGnome]

Not playing because you don't enjoy a game is fine, the only thing I think is dumb is letting people control you or remove you from an activity that you do actually enjoy.

Microtransactions are trash, I've quit series over it, but never over the community (well... minus the servers being empty and having no matches as a result, but thats not really my choice, I'd still play those games if they weren't dead).

[TheSpaceGnome]

I'm just tired if seeing rants online from women about toxicity online, most people are toxic shitholes, online or off, and I'm not living in a bubble over it.

[FilmGuy93]

Women just tend to care more about social approval and acceptance than men do. The insults and the battering just wears them out after a while.

[TheSpaceGnome]

Social approval and acceptance is worthless outside of dating and the legal system.

[FilmGuy93]

Yeah, but think about how important those things are to women's existance. Most women wouldn't have a chance of functioning in society without an aggressive legal system, and dating/social jockeying is a huge part of how women demonstrate their worth, by mating with the most desirable men they can.

The dating part is true for us too, but less so than it is for women.

[TheSpaceGnome]

Thats not what I meant, I meant people should only care about their own opinion of themselves, and their SO's opinion of them, and that they aren't doing things that society deems illegal, and in all other respects, aside from maybe not pissing off your boss at a job, social approval and acceptance is worthless.

[DizzyDesii]

I mainly gamed 2001-2015 and had never played online. Only time i gave it a try was like in 2020 for mario kart on the switch. But those people couldnt even talk/chat while playing. So yea if i were still into gaming, I still wouldn't go online and part of that is because I prefer storylines/solo freeplay and other reasons is because I do see how people are insulted and trolled. I quit my other hobbies of writing/drawing because of hand cramps

[TheSpaceGnome]

That last part about hand cramps, what on earth are you doing while drawing to cause it to cramp up? I've never once had that happen and I've been drawing almost daily for 3 decades. Only things I can think of is gripping/pressing too hard and moving the wrist fast, but your not supposed to do that.

[DizzyDesii]

I think im going to have arthritis or carpal tunnel issues like my mom and grandpa. They were artists who also had to stop

[TheSpaceGnome]

Carple tunnel is caused by rapidly doing the same exact movement with the hand over and over, without moving the arm, while also tensing the hand or wrist. Never ever do that. Aleays keep your hand loose and relaxed whe holding or pressing something, don't grip the pencil tight, don't press hard, and reposition your arm a lot.

[TheSpaceGnome]

always*

[TheSpaceGnome]

it's never supposed to not feel comfortable.

[DizzyDesii]

I felt i was active though lol. I assumed its something genetic

[TheSpaceGnome]

Anyone can get carple tunnel or arthritis, the genetics claim is just bs doctors say because they don't know why you specifically got it, and they don't want to seem ignorant.

Rule of thumb, if it hurts, stop, I've never kept going if I'm in an uncomfortable position, I move my arm a lot when drawing, the angle, the tilt, the pressure level, all changing every few seconds, I'm never doing repetitive movements enough in the same pisition to even get carple tunnel or arthritis.

[TheSpaceGnome]

I don't even do that kind of repetition when doing competative gaming.

[DizzyDesii]

It hit even worse months ago when having to type a lot for my last job

[TheSpaceGnome]

I refuse to type for long periods without a flat keyboard, a desk I can lean my arms on, and wrist support cushion.

The way people normally type on raised keyboards with no arm support is really bad for wrists and fingers, becuase you are having to support hand and forearm weight, while also arching the wrist up, while also pressing down repeatedly using your fingertips, and thats not a position that arms evolved to do for long periods.

[DizzyDesii]

We were forced to type on early 2000s laptops and i feared it could be a nickel issue

[Juxtapose]

I have a female friend who has created a profile that is gender-neutral and another that is an openly female profile.. guess which one got more harassment?

[TheSpaceGnome]

Probably neither, based on experience in other women doing the same.

[Juxtapose]

All the women I have known that performed any experiment similar to this have found that they have gotten way more harassment as women.

[Juxtapose]

Most of my exes have had to keep gender-neutral profile names just to avoid sexual harassment and I have only gotten sexual harassment when people thought I was female for some reason.

[TheSpaceGnome]

Odd, The women I've met do not get harrassed more than my guy friends do, and some of those women have lewd anime chicks or flirty pics of themselves as avatars.

[Snakeyes7]

I wouldn't stop gaming because of it but in my experience, the games you play online get repetitive anyway.

Perhaps they would be more interested in strictly campaign games like I am but I guess they don't really think of that.

[SeekingVirginWife]

Get rekt ez please. I pwn women so hard in online games. it's not even funny that they rAAGEE QUIIIT!