Today’s article was just a short one, and engaging in what makes everyone roll their eyes: seeing something happen on Reddit and writing an article about it.
To cut it short:
- Billie Eilish (famous singer) uploaded a picture of her old Nintendo DSi in gallery of images, to her Instagram account
- Someone shared that on Reddit
- Half of the comment section slid straight into shitty gamer dude Hell (the other half did not)
- Some man on Mastodon attacked me
- Post removed from Reddit when moderators spotted the comments
…this is a fast-forward of the oddness, but if you want to read over my ramble here, and see some shittiness, the link will help:
https://gardinerbryant.com/you-dont-look-like-a-gamer/
I see this shit all the time, and it is not only exhausting, but something no one should see (no matter their identity) should be subjected to. Anyway, read on if you’d like!
People on the internet discriminating around the most irrelevant details.
You know what grinds my gears? Tooling doesn’t help. In communities like reddit or lemmy, downvotes mean your content will be more hidden. When a dumb-wagon is formed the good content goes to hell. And people use the downvote as a disagree button. It’s annoying.
The you don’t look like a gamer line has always been so tired. If someone plays games, they’re a gamer — no gatekeeping DLC required.
Yes and no. I’m sorry I refuse to count someone who exclusively plays Candy Crush on their phone as a “gamer”. I mean I’m not acting like it’s a exclusive title, but there is a reasonable minimum. You wouldn’t call someone an artist because they drew a stick figure doodle on their school notes.
By the logic everyone would be everything.
wait is this article really complaining that someone said they don’t care about her complaining about shitty people on Reddit?
presumably the point of leaving for some of us was so we don’t have to hear about stupid shit said by its remaining users
like giving a fuck about what’s left on X
anyway my wife has more console games than I ever had and most cater to her demographic over mine
what a dumb thing for the original reddit users to try and gate keep in this day and age
it’s not the 90s, women game in mainstream
that said the whole lying by rich and famous people for pointless gaming cred is real, just look to moron Elon and Path of Exile
Pot meet kettle
Missing the point in so many ways, you’d think a stormtrooper wrote this
which point?
I’m sympathetic about her complaint over reddit but nothing with mastadon had anything to do with her being a woman
“Calling women fake gamers, larpers, attention-seekers, or outsiders for visibly enjoying games is gatekeeping. It turns a hobby into a status boundary and makes gaming spaces worse.”
That’s the point I got from GPT-5.5.
I disagree with the conclusion - I don’t think gate-keeping is bad. I used to think it wasn’t, but I see a lack of gate-keeping spaces, on both a local and national level, as the cause of certain issues. Go create your own damn hobbies with sparkle-ponies and hot-Antonio-Banderas lookalikes. Just leave mine alone.
What loosers. This is why there are safe places online. All it takes is one weirdo too. Social media, Reddit, even here. Theres a reason you should never reveal your real name on the internet. And apatently gender jeez. Wtf.
Gateeeping is strange people.
That’s the weird thing. Shouldn’t people be thrilled that someone shared their love of a console? The gatekeeping is just the weirdest part of all of this. The new (and thoroughly shitty thing) is ‘larping’. It was all over the Sony PSP communities I scroll through, over the last few months.
I swear if I roll my eyes more at people’s actions they’ll just roll on out of my head.
That’s the weird thing. Shouldn’t people be thrilled that someone shared their love of a console?
This applies to all gaming I feel. We all have a hobby in common, so why be shitty to one another? Like I get light trash talking (about the match specifically at least) but as someone with more CS hours than I care to admit, there are just a lot of unwell, and even just incredibly bitter/unhappy people out there who use games as a means to take it out on others.
There’s a reason in CS and competitive shooters/games you pretty much never hear women on comms unless they A. Join with you B. Are already in the server with a group of people they know. As an aside being a “gamer” seems to vary wildly from being a title worth protecting from ‘posers’ to derogatory every five seconds. It’s all very reminiscent of the “oh yeah, name their last 10 albums” shit.
We need better safe spaces. There we need to put those people, and then lock the doors. Safe.
This guy had a great analysis video, complete with interviews with victims, of toxicity towards female entry into male spaces. He goes historically into how video games were first age-neutral, then Nintendo made them “toys”, and toys were for boys, slowly leading to the space having a toxic exclusivity problem.
One of the best bits (which I unfortunately don’t have a timestamp for right now) is when he talks about his own experience as a kid, and how he inadvertently tried to exclude a family member when she started playing the game better than him.
Thanks for sharing this! It’s good to also hear men bring these issues up.
how he inadvertently tried to exclude a family member when she started playing the game better than him.
Yep, that is a big part of the reason. There was a study where they showed: the top players weren’t as misogynistic as the bottom players when a woman played with them. So the conclusion is that to a lot of people they are really fragile and lash out because they aren’t as good as they like to be and fear losing ‘status’ if women would join our hobby.
Sadly I can’t find the study at the moment.
Years of playing multiplayer have taught me why girls play muted. And I do what I can but often that’s just getting some sweaty dude at the bottom of the leaderboard banned. It’s so often the same ones that are silent until the match is over and they’re blaming everyone but themselves.
Dickheads like this are the reason I don’t like telling people I play games. People that attempt to put others in boxes are the worst
I too, hate boxes.
Good read! Thanks for sharing your work.
The comment section (in part) quickly becomes less about the device or shared memories, and more about performance: who is “allowed” to be associated with gaming culture, and on what terms.
Yuck, disgusting reddit behaviour.
I’m glad to report that my experience here in the fediverse has been quite plesant as wimmin folk with an interest in discussing games. ! I have to give a shoutout to my favourite comm !soulslike@lemmy.zip and our wonderful
overlordmod @v4ld1z@lemmy.zip and the folks over at the community for creating a cool and welcoming environment for everyone.Thank you so much for the shout-out - means a lot to me. Trying my best 💜
I’m quite surprised that in all the time moderating the community, I’ve barely, if at all, had to remove comments or posts due to toxicity of any kind, let alone misogyny or other forms of sexual discrimination. And that’s quite telling for a video game genre that’s so full of elitist #Gamers™ who bombard you with toxicity for playing a game a “wrong” way or having a different opinion about which game occupies which spot in an arbitrary ranking. Although, these issues primarily accompany reddit’s toxic neckbeard community, which we’re rid of for the most part
ok forgive me for being old but they’re saying “larp larp larp” like they’re saying she’s “Live Action Role Playing” being a “gamer” cause she took a photo of her old DS? am I right on that one?
Misery loves company.
Whenever I see stuff like this online that’s the first thing I think of. These people are all miserable, depressed, and alone. The most basic and simplistic forms of joy from others sends them into a “woe is me” rage. They then MUST ensure said person or whomever defends said person be brought down into the same misery hole they dug for themselves.
And you can’t just say “oh just ignore them” I’m sorry but no, you can’t. I’m sure OP has tried taking that route several times but again these peoples entire lot in life is to ensure you become as miserable as they do. so you can’t ignore them.
So what do you do? you keep living your life. Enjoy whatever the ever living fuck you want to enjoy, post about it online, let the miserable cunts try to knock you down, post more. post A LOT more. infuriate them, let them attack you. respond to their posts with a simple “k.” or “cool story, bro” or “thank you for the feedback!” kell em with kindness or just an out right virtual pat on the head. “great post champ!” all that. Show them that you’re happier then they are and will ever be.
ok forgive me for being old but they’re saying “larp larp larp” like they’re saying she’s “Live Action Role Playing” being a “gamer” cause she took a photo of her old DS? am I right on that one?
As a way to gain attention (because she’s an entertainer, and entertainers live for attention - that’s their whole gig!), yes.
I don’t think it’s misogynistic to say a female entertainer may be “larping” to gain some attention. I bet that’s her actual DS - it does have a picture of a young her.
I just don’t really care about people on insta, and I only care about reddit insofar its users aren’t acting retarded, which most of them do.
It can’t be larp if it’s real
I removed their comment and warned a ban for the future. I’m not putting up with that word being used as a casual put-down, that is not on for this community.
Thank you for looking out for your community’s health ❤️
I think the trick for that sort of thing is rather than trying to circumvent or silence those voices, you just gotta ignore them until they eventually snowball into cringe lol
Kind of like how it used to be considered cool to dunk on people for being religious online, but now it’s pretty much the opposite
ok forgive me for being old but they’re saying “larp larp larp” like they’re saying she’s “Live Action Role Playing” being a “gamer” cause she took a photo of her old DS? am I right on that one?
My favorite bit is how Billie somehow ‘larped’ so hard she managed to invent time travel, went back to when she was a kid, took a selfie of herself with that DSi, used it as the image on the screen…then went back to now
I fucking hate this ‘larp’ shit, it is so, so, so tiring to see in these communities. I figure it has to be kids.
If this happens to a celebrity posting about a 20 year old Nintendo game system, I can only imagine what it’s like for your average female logging into modern competitive shooter.
Gamergate never went away. It was the precursor to the youthful fadcisti, in many ways. We need women in these spaces to help diffuse the malignant culture. They’ll remain targets of harassment tho, so it’s up to everyone to police misogyny, and racism for that matter, too.
Guys, guys, it’s 2026, gamers don’t need to look like unhygienic basement dwellers anymore, get on with the times!
What if I like it?
I think the telling thing is that these angry gamer dudes are awfully lonely and would kill to have a girlfriend who shared at least some of their interests.
This kind of self-face punching comes from such a low self esteem that they have to reject the idea for fear of rejection in reality.
And then they go looking for every other reason to explain their loneliness epidemic.
Yeah, it’s not a clever or new observation to point out that the men who are mad they can’t meet women are the same ones who make being a woman in nerdy spaces suck, especially online gaming (but also plenty of irl spaces, my ex was a female magic the gathering judge and oh boy did she get treated poorly). But it is something still worth mentioning.
This also gets worse when genuinely nerdy women are anything other than the equivalent of the worst stereotypes of nerds. When you ask the question why wouldn’t some women of all sorts have been Tolkien heads or been playing ttrpgs since they were teenagers (or have always wanted to try), or been gaming since they were kids, then this behavior gets even more absurd.
If led Zeppelin could be super into Tolkien, why can’t Billie Eilish be a gamer? If Henry Caville can be as nerdy as he is, why can’t a similarly attractive actress be equally nerdy? If some of the guys at the game shop grew into their face and got into working out, why should you assume that that’s not a possible story behind a pretty woman who decides to come in?
Yeah, it’s not a clever or new observation to point out that the men…
Eh, thanks. I mean, that’s a bit of a harsh way to start a reply to a comment you then go on to agree with.
Ope sorry if it came off critical, I meant it in a form of “this has been said many times and yet it continues to bear the repetition that you engaged in and I’m about to”
Ah, my bad, no harm done and thank you for explaining that, it really is appreciated.
I find so much online discourse has become performative contrarianism that I’m probably a little over sensitive to it.
I like this place precisely cause of people like you two!
Thank you for sharing names. Easy blocks and reports. The irony was clearly lost with this guy and his concept of “compassion”.
Must still be practicing.
He said the concept of compassion for a reason though.
A recent Reddit post in the r/NintendoDS community, titled “Billie Eilish via last Instagram post,” is a small but telling example of how these dynamics surface in otherwise ordinary gaming spaces. While the post itself is fairly innocuous: it just shows Billie Eilish and a Nintendo console associated with nostalgia. The comment section (in part) quickly becomes less about the device or shared memories, and more about performance: who is “allowed” to be associated with gaming culture, and on what terms.
Are you positive it’s about women and not celebrities? Personally I’ve never seen or heard about anyone’s disbelief in women being gamers. However, I have absolutely seen and heard about a lof ot people’s disbelief in anything celebrities do for attention.
Not necessarily saying Billie is full of shit. Just celebrities in general, and she happens to be one.
I mean, I’d imagine that you wouldn’t know those kinds of people. But it’s very much real. While it no doubt encompasses celebrity gatekeeping, it’s at least as much about women in gaming as well. Gaming was associated with boys as part of a campaign to bring it back from the brink, and that’s manifested a culture of misogyny since. Gamergate’s continued smoldering is evidence of that
Personally I’ve never seen or heard about anyone’s disbelief in women being gamers.
Rule 30 of the “Rules of the Internet”
The only celebrities I trust to be gamers are those like Henry Cavill who have the bills to show it. Not because what gender they happen to be.
Good lord you cannot be this naive in 2026
Seriously. Have they talked to a woman about their life experiences? More importantly, have they ever actually listened to a woman?
Okay I’ve read the article (although probably too fast) and the part where harassment can also be ‘exclusionary humour’ is like. Hit me in the brain.
I am female and visibly so. I use to frequent a local game store before it closed. And while I was mostly welcomed there (father would have raised hell if anything was overt, he knew the owner well) the amount of inside jokes, the “oh you wouldn’t understand”, “it’s fine” when I’d ask what they were talking about was just :<
But at least I meet my husband there. He’s cool. He loves sharing nerdy things with me.
I think the root of the problem is a pathological need for social control. Excessive wealth accumulation, sexism, racism.
The piece of information that makes me choose not to engage in this behavior is understanding the value of my own life and by extension the lives of others.
Psychology doesn’t consider a lot of this a mental illness because the behavior confers benefits to the person performing them. But if I assume abusing women online is irrational.
Then this is a child development problem.
Based comment.
