myth of the sexy gamers

lilmommamaddie · January 2014

Hi there! I'm sure everyone has heard the myth that girl gamers don't exist. But that's not as debated these days as the myth of the "modest sexy gamer girl/guy"

What are YOUR opinions on the myth? Do you believe it? Why or why not? Do you by definition find YOURSELF attractive at all? </p>

Don't be shy! spill your guts.

***if I have offended anyone please contact PM me so that I may personally apologize to you. Or if you simply want further conversation, you are also welcome.***

ambisinisterr · January 2014

I've met many female gamers in my time playing games.
And many of them were jaw droppingly good looking.

The stereotype that all gamers are zit covered nerds that live in the basement is just inaccurate. I have met people who were as young as nine and as old as seventy-two.
I have met responsible parents and grandparents as well as less mature teenagers.
I have also met jocks who play every sport they can as well as full on tech nerds.
I have met the imitation females as well as beautiful girls who were embarrassed to play video games.

My best friends is a perfect contradiction to that gamer myth. She is a mother of two and is drop dead gorgeous.

The unfortunate grain of truth is that some people do try to pretend to be female to get different treatment from other players. But in all of my time playing video games this is a huge minority compared to the myth that every female character is a male and ugly no matter what.

As for myself, I just go with the flow. I don't think I am attractive but plenty of girls have so I just shrug and accept they see something I don't. I am six foot tall, 200 pounds and clean cut. The first question I get when I enter a doctors office is whether I play football or another sport because I appear physically fit but I am proud to be the stereotypical computer nerd.

rhoric · January 2014

My girlfriend is a console gamer and she is sexy, a mother of 2 beautiful daughters. A co-worker of mine is also console gamer mainly call of duty, i would say she is beautiful, she is also a mother of 2.

As for myself, 225 lbs, 6'1", shaved head, clean shaven. Get called handsome all the time. I look younger than what my age is. I am a computer nerd also. Built my own system before.

dandare · January 2014

Well not only console gamer-girls are sexy if we're at that I guess. Though yeah: lately it's becoming quite popular thing.

Other than this: my ex-tag-team-partner in F.E.A.R. and later F.E.A.R.2 was/is one of probably best looking Asian girls I ever saw. Not to mention her voice, which could be used for Revy of Black Lagoon at any time... I miss coop or vs matches with her, but we both have less time to talk lately, not to mention playing (despite her being an actual pro beta-tester... my dream job. At least one of

. Though in Japan if you're as good as her it's possible job. In Ireland: I never even saw any position for such work T_T )

So in short: heck yeah! Sexy gamer-girls are as much true as... sexy girls at all. Not mention many gamer girls are quite: imaginative, crazy, intelligent and eager for most astounding conversations. Though they do might be a bit 'rare card' type.

Same thing in fact I notice in 'otaku' realm of existence, although 'otaku girls' should be noted 'crazy' at least thrice ;P

I do not know about male part though. I never in fact put any insight in this particular matter. Maybe since none of them can be voice of Revy?!

Somehow voice fetish influenced - Angry Neko Elf

ladymythos · January 2014

Sexyness is extremely relative. Some like them big, some like them small, some like them old, some like them young. So what is sexy anyway? Personally, I do want a nice-looking body, but what use is it to wake up to a supermodel every morning, if you can't stand him or her? but if all you want is a nice person to look at while playing games, isn't that why we have games in the first place? Or put it this way: Over the last ten, fifteen years, how many non-supermodels have you seen as the main character? (supermodel in this case being well trained, curvy in the right places etc. Not necessarily picture-perfect.)

So with all that in mind, I think the so-called myth is ridiculous. Of course there are very skinny girl-gamers, who like nothing more than to sit in the darkness, all alone in front of the computer hour after hour. Sure, there are obese girl-gamers who can barely fit through the door. But these are the minority. The majority of both male and female gamers are average, just like you an me.

vividspectrum0 · January 2014

There are quite a few sexy females who play various RPGs in my area. I'm not one of them... but they ARE here.

kreatyve · January 2014

For this, I have 2 words. Felicia Day. I rest my case.

But seriously, though I'm sure there are tons of women other than Felicia Day who are gamers and very hot, but there are probably just as many that are overweight from sitting at the computer doing nothing but gaming for hours on end. Not that big isn't beautiful. But the same also applies to men, I'm sure.

tang56 · January 2014

Plenty of attractive female and male gamers. After all everyone has to have a hobby.

therumancer23 · January 2014

Hmmm, well I think this represents a touchy subject. As the old maxim goes "there is an exception to every rule" therefore there are going to be some attractive girls who are gamers out there, though by definition they are not going to be common and the stereotypes hold. Simply speaking in saying anyone claiming to be a girl, especially an attractive girl, is lying is a safe bet and mathematically speaking your likely to be accurate like 99.9% of the time, and really in the case of that .1% deviation you can always apologize.

I'll also say that this argument can vary depending on how you want to define "gamer". In the current era relatively normal people have gained an appreciation for things normally associated with geeks and nerds, but do not immerse themselves fully into the culture or lifestyle. On the video game front people like to use a literal interpretation that anyone playing a game is a "gamer" and thus you can claim almost anything using the label. Typically this is a response intended to deal with labels like "casuals" and those who are more seriously into gaming who dismiss them by not conceding them the label. If you want to paint it with very broad strokes, a majority of human beings, at least in the civilized first world, has played a video game or been online with one nowadays. Thus you could say point at any sex kitten (model, <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> star, movie star, singer, actress, etc...) and say "she's a gamer" and be correct. Heck even someone's grandmother probably put a dime into a pinball machine at some point.

Using the term "gamer" in it's intended context, and how these discussions are generally intended, then we're back to that .1% rare to the point of might as well not existing exception. A "gamer" being an ultra-hardcore person who pretty much immerses themselves in geek culture as a lifestyle, with a focus on gaming. Basically a mad genius type figure, very similar to someone like Einstein (who allegedly pooped himself frequently since using the bathroom would detract from his concentration and experiments) albeit not involved in anything viewed as being useful to society as a whole, especially seeing as being a gamer becomes more a matter of knowledge and dedication as opposed gaming ability and skill.

As a general rule, the whole gaming lifestyle involves behavior that is not condusive to being attractive, involving sedimentary lifestyles involving in gaming, research, or time on 'breaks" spent on other things that are geeky, and of course the consumption of foodstuffs that tend to be quickly prepared so as not to take away from the person's focus (Ramen, microwave burritos, hot pockets, etc...). This leads to most gamers very much fitting the stereotype (as sociologists will point out, stereotypes are true when dealing with groups of people at a time... the entire science is based on it, and is exploited by advertisers and such to great effect every day), being either morbidly obese, or painfully thin, oftentimes pale, and when they bother to groom properly maintaining easily maintained hairstyles and such like the classic "neckbeard" which tends to develop simply because shaving (even occasionally before going out) takes too much time. The style then typically includes things like baggy T-shirts and long coats (if they can find/afford them), and maybe a Fedora for the faux-intellectual look. Clothing which is easy to just throw on and wash/maintain.

In short the more you move along the pole from "casual" to "serious gamer" your likely attractiveness decreases.

It should also be noted that the "faux-geek girl" thing started in part because of girls who prey on hardcore geeks, either being used for promotions and running businesses (booth babes, etc..), or so called "cam *****s" who prey on the lonely at a distance, with various degrees and combinations of those stereotypes. As a result you see quite a bit of paranoia among hardcore gamers about girls and their motives in general, especially among those who have been burned. Simply put, gaming is an expensive hobby (all forms of geekery generally are) and one way or another someone who is a hardcore gamer is making it work, and thus they have become targets.... a resource to mine.... while oddly enough being an intelligent enough group to realize and resent it, which is something a lot of other similarly targeted groups have never been able to do. Of course this DOES work to make the hardcore even less popular, especially when they run into the actual exceptions and react defensively.

I'd also point out that as much as I like her, I do not consider Felicia Day to be a true "geek girl" though she does genuinely like a lot of that stuff. She's an actress who seems to have started with a bit part on "Buffy" but never went anywhere. She however got some internet fame doing her "The Guild" thing but then brokered it back into an acting career, having appeared on shows like "Supernatural" and "Eureka", as well as doing voice work for video games like "Fallout: New Vegas". But then again that is part of the problem, since you could be wrong here, it can be very difficult to tell genuine love and immersion, from someone who has simply learned to exploit a target audience really well without meeting Felicia Day "off camera" so to speak and getting to know her, who could tell? Queue paranoia....

Probably not a popular answer, and one that wlll probably get a lot of flak, but that's my opinion and observations on the subject.

dandare · January 2014

therumancer23 wrote: »

Using the term "gamer" in it's intended context, and how these discussions are generally intended, then we're back to that .1% rare to the point of might as well not existing exception. A "gamer" being an ultra-hardcore person who pretty much immerses themselves in geek culture as a lifestyle, with a focus on gaming. Basically a mad genius type figure, very similar to someone like Einstein (who allegedly pooped himself frequently since using the bathroom would detract from his concentration and experiments) albeit not involved in anything viewed as being useful to society as a whole, especially seeing as being a gamer becomes more a matter of knowledge and dedication as opposed gaming ability and skill.

I can not 100% agree with that observation. Especially about gamers being only the type focused on 'knowledge and dedication as opposed gaming ability and skill'. There is an immense group of gamers currently rather specializing in preferred type of games (strategy, FPS, arcade fight etc.) who although tend to dedicate large portion of their life to loved hobby or in many cases: their actual source of income, they still exert mostly their nowledge gathering or dedication to a rather simplified/cornered topic of their 'type of game'. Thus we have a true pro-gamers who even make a living out of it either by joining up the contests or being employed by developers but still does not totally immerse in what we known 10+ years ago as geek culture. In fact they many times have quite interest in many other cultural things such as music or art (mostly) due to actually rolling age of information and easy access to many cultural goods in so called 'meantime'. I may assure you I meet lately many people like that. Mostly they are about in their 20s and growing 'casual gamer' economic influence lead to rather easy creation of such people seeking for some source of income while staying true to being fully-fledged gamer.

therumancer23 wrote: »

As a general rule, the whole gaming lifestyle involves behavior that is not condusive to being attractive, involving sedimentary lifestyles involving in gaming, research, or time on 'breaks" spent on other things that are geeky, and of course the consumption of foodstuffs that tend to be quickly prepared so as not to take away from the person's focus (Ramen, microwave burritos, hot pockets, etc...). This leads to most gamers very much fitting the stereotype (as sociologists will point out, stereotypes are true when dealing with groups of people at a time... the entire science is based on it, and is exploited by advertisers and such to great effect every day), being either morbidly obese, or painfully thin, oftentimes pale, and when they bother to groom properly maintaining easily maintained hairstyles and such like the classic "neckbeard" which tends to develop simply because shaving (even occasionally before going out) takes too much time. The style then typically includes things like baggy T-shirts and long coats (if they can find/afford them), and maybe a Fedora for the faux-intellectual look. Clothing which is easy to just throw on and wash/maintain.

Although it is 100% true to your every casual MMO grinder who would not leave a moment available for grind... or simply for addicted people... still it's quite untrue statement.

I must agree we're having more and more addicts nowadays with overgrowing hikikomori (google if not acquainted, it's probably best term) problem after all economical crisis we experienced world-wide (more or less) but I must say: real gamer do not act like that. It is much more good for your own abilities to actually stay in the at least average health. Of course there are some times when you just lack time since something more interesting than preparing good dinner happens but you do not act like it in a long run.

This becomes more and more apparent in fact as you spectate some of the less or more important official game competitions. The gamers there do not look as 'geeky' as few years before, and many really good rank (sometimes even worldwide) look... plainly good. Of course even if they are girls, they still wear mostly a lousy T-shirts and unlike hostesses rarely do any make up but they still many times seem quite sexy. In fact it's really rare lately to meet either 'thin pale' or 'obese' top rank gamer. They might not be muscular like culturists but at least few seem competitive with some pop-stars

Summing it up: 1% is truly unprofessional statement. As econometric Bachelor I grieve once people state such things without doing proper research on at least 1000 units from population (in this case more like 100 000 would avoid problems with liability since population is HUGE nowadays). Although there is a tiny seed of true in what you say

Eating (healthy) Ramen - Angry Neko Elf

myth of the sexy gamers

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