Tough Crowd

Remember that The Guild episode where Tink and Codex are at Mega-Game-a-Rama-Con and try to impress the guys by simply being hot women? Of course they fail, until Tink finally finds that shy, geeky guy who's never seen a girl and, quote, "embraces a stereotype", so they can exploit him. Everyone who is in any gamer community or games actively probably knows it indeed is just a stereotype. Gaming is not exactly a marginal hobby anymore. It's not such a shocker that some of those millions of gamers are beautiful women. People get mad if something of the sort is even suggested. And here's your proof.

Suicide Girls Facebook page is a goldmine of angry mobs. Certainly you would think people would just drool over the girls happily, but that is not the case at all. People are incredibly critical and often comment on the girls' looks and such. However I have never seen the page going in such flames than when it's all about defending the gamers' honor. 

There was a time, earlier this year, when a Suicide Girl appeared in a photo, said to be a gamer, wore a game related shirt and held a gun wrong. And what was the response? RAEG!

Gamer girls got annoyed when "fake gamers" approached. They instantly wanted to clean the reputation of girls who game and let people know they are gamer girls themselves.

People immediately knew why this theme was chosen. Because of the stereotypes.

SG posted another picture later, a more accurate one. Even with that picture, even now when she wasn't mutilating her fingers on the chainsaw she got shit, because people do have a great memory when it comes to things that shock them.

Thanks guys, that's great, we got it. 

Recently the same thing happened again. Same page, different girl. This one didn't pose with a gun, but with a controller and a pair of glasses, and was of course immediately a poser fake gamer bitch. She wasn't holding the controller wrong. In fact she wasn't holding the controller at all. And that was exactly the problem.

The controller looked brand new and wasn't on? Are you kidding me? Sure, that picture was lazy as hell just adding the controller there and not asking her to hold it, but come on... If the controller was on would this be any more believable? Would you think she'd strike a pose in the middle of a gaming session anyway? Maybe someone else, a non-gamer, wrote the caption on the pic? And maybe the controller is brand new (a hilarious accusation btw) because she wore out the old one? Surely those are not the reasons why people got angry. The actual problem is this picture looks cheap and geek targeted and reminds people of those gamer girl pics on the internet that are pure porn wrapped in console wires. Girl+gaming is a fantasy, a gimmick to attract attention the a naked body of the said woman. It annoys, understandably. So people get fed up by this imagery and feel free to assume Gogo Suicide here is fake as well. In fact one of the few nice things said to GoW girl up there was that at least she wasn't Gogo.

Harsh.

It is quite clear gamers are the only ones who care to be this pissed off. No, it's not about any other hobby or form of nerdom, because meanwhile on the very same page:

Skater chick gets fairly little shit and suspicions about her skating skills.

Another puts a Batman shirt on and is well loved.

Third takes a picture of herself through a dirty mirror in a droid top, is praised.

Fourth wears a Sheldon shirt. No one suspects her love for Sheldon. 

This one poses with a violin. People say they like a musically talented girl.

By the way, the girl from the GoW pic was Bob Suicide. She has given some interviews on her gaming hobby and done ratings and reviews. But this is not what people really want to know. People want to find a reason to point fingers and prove they are better than some stupid models. People are incredibly bitter to gamer girls, from already said reasons and apparently because girl gamers have accomplished to get attention in the media. Partly because of the assumption all gamer girls use their sexuality to get cred, girls are also annoying and can't really play. Either people are elitistic as hell and want to define what being a gamer really is so that this girl can't possibly be one

or they just straight out tell that girls suck and should stay out of games.

Nasty shit this.

I'm sure SG knows people get excited when seeing a pic like that, they wouldn't produce these sets if that wasn't the case. But this is a tricky situation. Gamers get hurt because they think they are disrespected with a fake gamer model and expected to get impressed. Girl gamers get mad because they think only models in video game sets get attention and get to represent the picture of girlgamerism, and badly so. Suicide Girls might simply want to embrace their love for their favorite hobbies, hand on saw or not. At least that is what I hope, and not "look at me boys, I bought this ridiculously expensive gun replica just to fool you and get your money". I can't know though. Suicide Girls is a fantasy factory, and you'd think people to recognize what they're fan of. But no, the faith for a real girl gamer to appear is low, and fakeness indeed does ruin everything.

I am familiar with the internet and still I'm kinda shocked how strong a reaction this caused. Not the reaction itself, maybe, but the hate and dedication that aims to busting the 'sexy and fake'.