What would you do? social gayming question...

pingu666 · 2 Dec 2013 at 14:00

Play tribes, to busy to hurl insults etcc

redstar1 · 2 Dec 2013 at 14:22

I wouldn't worry too much about it. It's only kids who tend to abuse in that way so find a mature gaming 'clan' and you won't have a problem.

Chances are no-one will care, they'll be trying to nail the member called Ilubpwnies21/f/sweden even though its really a 46 year old fat guy from mexico.

Nemeses · 2 Dec 2013 at 14:33

Think most gaming communities don't care, yeah there is always some idiots about, but you will find them in every walk of life

Just because people use the term gay when describing something negative it doesn’t mean they are describing *you* in a negative way. Regardless, as long as you are comfortable with your own sexuality who the hell cares what others think anyway?

This.

The term gay means happy, long before it was used to describe a sexual orientation, so for the life of me cant see why anyone would moan about is being used to describe something else.

If one section of the population can hi-jack it so can another, seems fair to me.

redstar1 said:
Chances are no-one will care, they'll be trying to nail the member called Ilubpwnies21/f/sweden even though its really a 46 year old fat guy from mexico.

Damn you got me

barmyllama · 2 Dec 2013 at 15:32

JeditOjanen said:
Calling things gay because you don't like them is totally ga- oh, hang on.

I'm not gay so take this with as many grains of salt as you like, but my advice would be to not tell anyone. Not because it's a shameful thing, but because sexual preference is utterly irrelevant in online gaming. The sort of people who think it isn't fall into two camps: homophobic idiots and homosexual idiots. You don't want to associate with the former group or be associated with the latter, and you can avoid the attention of both groups almost entirely by keeping it to yourself. If you make friends online then by all means tell them if you want to; if they give you grief over it then they're not really friends.

E: sorry, I'm talking about individual interactions. If you want to find a community of gaymers that's entirely different, and there's a few of them knocking about if you look.

Quality post and pretty much spot on.

People will always use what's different about you compared to them to insult you with. The one thing gaming does is allow you is anonymity, which means you can be anything you want to be as far as the gaming world is concerned.

I will say that I belong to a demographic that no one sticks up for and you don't hear a single one of us complain about it.

I'm a white, heterosexual, atheist, middle aged man.

You'll hear plenty if stories of people who claim they've been discriminated against because they're a woman, homosexual, disabled, Afro/Caribbean, Asian, Hindu, Christian, old, young, etc.

No one sticking up for me but me.

FrenchTart · 2 Dec 2013 at 15:36

barmyllama said:
Quality post and pretty much spot on.

People will always use what's different about you compared to them to insult you with. The one thing gaming does is allow you is anonymity, which means you can be anything you want to be as far as the gaming world is concerned.

I will say that I belong to a demographic that no one sticks up for and you don't hear a single one of complain about it.

I'm a white, heterosexual, atheist, middle aged man.

You'll hear plenty if stories of people who claim they've been discriminated against because they're a woman, homosexual, disabled, Afro/Caribbean, Asian, Hindu, Christian, old, young, etc.

No one sticking up for me but me.

I'm also of that demographic. I take issue with the line of thought that all white men "have it easy so they don't have a right to complain about anything" but I also can't remember any time that people have used a word that describes our demographic as an insult. You (and I) do not suffer that kind of discrimination so it's rather spurious to bring it up.

spudbynight · 2 Dec 2013 at 15:42

eyetrip said:
The reason? I'm gay, and pretty much everything that's bad/rubbish gets described as "gay". There was actually a bit of this on consoles too (possibly worse, but it's been a while since I game socially on console)

Language evolves. The word gay now means "rubbish" within certain parts of society. You may be unhappy with that but remember the word used to just mean "happy and carefree" but its meaning changed.

Brendan O'Neill of Spiked writes an interesting piece on it HERE

Purdy · 2 Dec 2013 at 15:52

I have to say, I can't recall someone using 'thats gay' as in 'thats rubbish' since I've been like 14/15? Do people still do it?

I don't think it should be too hard to differentiate between who is using it as the meaning of something being crap or rubbish and who is genuinely a homophobic nob.

Best thing I can suggest if you really don't like it is find new people to game with, I'm fairly certain out of the large number of people I've played with in the past while I can't recall any using that phrase often if at all.

eyetrip said:
So, am I likely better moving to a "gay" community for my online/social gaming?

Whatever you do, don't do this.

RoganTheGypo · 2 Dec 2013 at 15:52

Get used to it. 9/10 people don't mean offence. Don;t class yourself as gay instead be homosexual. Follow the trend, change its meaning.

FrenchTart · 2 Dec 2013 at 15:54

spudbynight said:
Language evolves. The word gay now means "rubbish" within certain parts of society. You may be unhappy with that but remember the word used to just mean "happy and carefree" but its meaning changed.

Brendan O'Neill of Spiked writes an interesting piece on it HERE

Yeah. This is a fair point really.

The South Park episode about calling biker gangs "fags" was quite well done I though - if incredibly blunt as per their usual style.

tom_e · 2 Dec 2013 at 15:58

I'm on the chunky side but it doesn't offend me when someone calls someone else a fat ****.

bushmins · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:02

J05H86UK said:
Didn't the word gay originally mean "happy"?

If you don't like people using the that connotation of the word, politely to ask them to stop using it. If they refuse or continue they are obviously not worth your time or energy.

Josh

Btw - good work with they the "gayming" thing. Much lolz

Stolen by homosexuals then stolen from them by the youth.

barmyllama · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:10

FrenchTart said:
I'm also of that demographic. I take issue with the line of thought that all white men "have it easy so they don't have a right to complain about anything" but I also can't remember any time that people have used a word that describes our demographic as an insult. You (and I) do not suffer that kind of discrimination so it's rather spurious to bring it up.

Perhaps there's not much discrimination going on, but if there was any then there aren't any campaign groups or laws in place to protect us like there is for almost everyone else.

And besides don't we have take the blame for everything instead.

redstar1 · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:23

J05H86UK said:
Btw - good work with they the "gayming" thing. Much lolz

I'm pretty bummed that I never thought of it.... wait...

Martini1991 · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:37

bushmins said:
Stolen by homosexuals then stolen from them by the youth.

But the OP wants it back!

To the OP, I'm pretty sure when you're gaming people don't give a damn about your sexual tendencies.

eyetrip · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:38

spudbynight said:
Brendan O'Neill of Spiked writes an interesting piece on it HERE

Article on internet says "Get over it". Listen up gays, it's time to move on

Really, adopted by the youth of today or not, makes it no better. It simply came about as a means of insult. Anybody on the receiving end knows it.

eyetrip · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:45

Martini1991 said:
But the OP wants it back!

To the OP, I'm pretty sure when you're gaming people don't give a damn about your sexual tendencies.

It's not about people caring about my sexual tendencies.

If it was people throwing around derogatory terms about people's race, would that be acceptable or not?

I grew up in a country where we had awful words to describe certain ethnic groups - I wouldn't dream of using them because they are horrible and hurtful.

This is only different in that a word that was used for describing gender preference (by whomever thought to do it), was intentionally twisted to be an insult, which has grown in usage.

And I acknowledge that some don't even intend it as hurtful, but it does sting a bit.

GIBURROWS · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:47

Is everyone weak minded nowadays?

fozzybear · 2 Dec 2013 at 16:57

edit//
Nevermind. Must not acknowledge the troll.

elmarko · 2 Dec 2013 at 17:09

People who are actually homophobic don't really seem to use the term gay either, language evolves & for better or worse it now means rubbish - even if its route is in the connection between homosexuality & negativity it no longer means that for a vast majority of the population.

Obviously as somebody who doesn't suffer from the same kind of prejudice in life I cant say i know fully how you feel, but id say there are real battles to be fought against homophobia & children saying 'rubbish/gay' isn't one of them - as in 99% of cases is nothing to do with homosexuality.

wndsr · 2 Dec 2013 at 17:26

Let's say I am slightly more familiar with the term and honestly, it doesn't bother me in the slightest when people use any words. Heck, our TS is a constant wave of offensive language that could offend pretty much every demographic of society.

The key difference is whether or not somebody actually has a genuine issue with who you are. People's use of any words has never bothered me, it's their intent that I've had a problem with.

I really wouldn't let the use of the word bother you. Take what people say with a pinch of salt and if you think somebody is being truly abusive with intent to upset you, remove yourself from the situation. That's one of the best things about the internet over 'real life'.