View Full Version : "OMG Girlz Don’t Exist on teh Intarweb!!!!1"
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/17/27
I was linked to this article by a friend of mine, and as much as I thought it would be an interesting read. It actually scared me. Are people that play online games and the likes really that short sighted? Is the stereotype of MMORPG players true? That they're nothing but a pair of pre-pubescent teenage boys who'd never in their wildest dreams would have the guts to get off their computer chair and actually talk to a real life girl? I didn't actually quite belive that before I read this article. Or well, of course I knew that some of them were like the stereotype. But from what the article reads, it seems like there's a lot more of them than I first thought.
What are your thoughts on this article? Have you ever experienced something similar to what is described in it?
Depu Techiikue
16-01-2007, 01:16
O M G, LIEK, I AM A GIRL, CUZ I'M LIKE, LIPSTICK HOMIES WITH TSUSHI! LIEK O M G!!!
lol, but seriously, I can see where's coming from. And I agree with her, a very large portion of people online don't consider girls have similar interests and can kick ass in games and stuff too. For example, I've lost to Lady Krytyear in Warcraft and in Medal of Honor, and I've played Medal of Honor since 2001! And I was seriously trying too. >_<; lol
Speaking of which, when I was playing with her online, I was like "I love yoooou" to her and this guy goes "Wtf are you gay?" And at first I was like "?", completely forgetting he knew nothing about her. And the guy just automatically assumed Lady Krytyear was a guy (her name on the server was Death Wolven). He was like "you just said 'I love you' to a guy, wtf man that's gay!!"
I was just in disbelief at the idiocy. So, having personal experience on the subject, I can definitely relate. :p
Sephiroth912
16-01-2007, 01:38
omg, thats really true xD
what's even funnier is when you're a guy playing as a female character and they actually think you're a real girl and you're all hushhush about it. It can have VERY amusing results sometimes xD
what i think distubring is, Guys dont get accussed of being a guy when pretending to be female, but when a girl is girl they get accussed...
in wow, my guy friend was female, and he got the items, I got nothing and I was the real girl..lol
Sephiroth912
16-01-2007, 02:43
On that note, I'd like to add how it's kinda sad that boys try to impress online people who may not even be girls in the first place (I know it goes against the idea of the thread, but they ARE out there >_>). Even sadder are those who actually try to get involved with the actual girls online and such.
Whitney Butts?
I gotta say this article is fake, it's too outrageous to not be
rakusu_klein
16-01-2007, 09:35
Like... OMG WTF, how pathetic, etc...
I'm a girl, and I experience stuff like that in the articel as well.
I play KalOnline, and the moment I said in my alliance that I was a girl, they all went: NO WAY?!
They just couldn't believe it.
They let me come onto TeamSpeak, so I did.
And as in the articel they thought I was either faking a voice or using my sister to speak up.
Then, my prayers got heard :D
One guy just actually believed me once he heard my voice.
He had quite a high status in our ally, so then everybody started believing me... at a slow pace though.
At one point even more girls spoke up, saying their true gender.
Now our alliance has a lot of girls, which we all know of, and everyone is accepting us.
That makes playing Kal a lot easier and more fun.
Lolz, I even got populair :)
When I get sinned, the whole alliance will go after him :D
Dr. Aeyze
16-01-2007, 11:54
That was a pretty interesting article and I can definately see where they're coming from (even if it is fake, it does ring true in some points) WoW has a terrible male:female ratio (from what I've seen, especially playing Horde, when I played for a month in December I played horde, probably only every 1 in 10 characters was actually female, let alone whether there might actually be a real woman behind the screen.)
Personally, I can't stand it when people make a big deal about their gender. I'm not sure how to put it, but when men-pretending-to-be-women/women make a big deal about it with ulterior motives to take advantage of the situation. I hate people who do that, but then again, some people are so ignorent they might somewhat deserve to be taught a lesson, meh.
I never make any deal of being female. If someone asks, I'll tell them (if they ask politely that is, in a genuninely friendly fashion). For the most part if someone calls me a guy or "he" then I probably won't even bother to correct them, I'm not fussed really. It doesn't bother me, if someone else corrects them then meh xD I don't mind, so long as they don't kick up a fuss about it.
One last thing that really irks me is the stereotypes of any girl or woman that plays games. Most of them are very unfounded, for example "girls suck at this and that..." I'm sad to say that on FFXI I am probably one of the better paladins in the game, most certainly making me a better player then a multitude of guys.
"Girls who play games are outcasts of society. Fat/ugly etc." Mmm, I dunno about anyone else but personally I live a very healthy lifestyle and probably partake in more physical exersize then any of the obsessive MMORPG players out there, and I'll be the first to admit that pretty much all of my female friends who play FFXI at least look great ;D
Anywho, I don't think FFXI really compares to WoW. The Male:Female ratios in both games are a lot different I think, FFXI has a pretty good one, though it is of course skewed towards male, everything is D: But I think about 1/3rd of my friendslist on FFXI is female :3
"Girls who play games are outcasts of society. Fat/ugly etc."
Funny thing is that can also be applied to SOME of the male gamers out there. Not necessarily all, but some lol.
Well the article seems kinda of fake, but still it happens. Liek I saw it happen a few times when I was playing WoW and when I was playing Guild Wars but it wasn't as bad lol. Yeah I knew a few guys who purely played female characters for the free items and help xP. I'm not sure what's worse: the fact that people helped them because they were "females" or because that was their reason for playing a female char lol.
I know/seen/read of lots of WoW male players who often have girlfriends/wives who also play WoW with them. Atleast when I was playing WoW the ratio of male to female wasn't that bad, clearly there were more males but a (real) female wasn't that rare.
rakasu: Wow seriously? lol. When I play Guild Wars, more of the serious PVP aspect heavily requires the use of Ventrilo or TeamSpeak and i've played with/know several female players who liek had no problem talked over Vent/TS or had any abuse from anyone else about it lol. But yeah that's pretty stupid (as in the guy's reactions). Liek yeah they must be pretty desperate xP.
Lady Krytyear
16-01-2007, 18:39
I've lost to Lady Krytyear in Warcraft and in Medal of Honor, and I've played Medal of Honor since 2001! And I was seriously trying too. >_<; lol
And to think....that was only the second day I played that game XD!!!
Anyways, I've had similiar issues on WC with me being a female to the point where I just let them assume I'm a guy, because the reactions were just plain out irritating. Same thing happened on a few other games I've played. =p
Like... OMG WTF, how pathetic, etc...
I'm a girl, and I experience stuff like that in the articel as well.
I play KalOnline, and the moment I said in my alliance that I was a girl, they all went: NO WAY?!
They just couldn't believe it.
They let me come onto TeamSpeak, so I did.
And as in the articel they thought I was either faking a voice or using my sister to speak up.
Then, my prayers got heard :D
One guy just actually believed me once he heard my voice.
He had quite a high status in our ally, so then everybody started believing me... at a slow pace though.
At one point even more girls spoke up, saying their true gender.
Now our alliance has a lot of girls, which we all know of, and everyone is accepting us.
That makes playing Kal a lot easier and more fun.
Lolz, I even got populair :)
When I get sinned, the whole alliance will go after him :D
Hence why many guys pretend to be a girl, because guys are so desperate they treat females like royalty. But I have learnt from my mistake, if someone calls me a he I just dont bother anymore, especially in FFXI, I always get called a manthra so I just /laugh.
My RL Gender shouldnt matter to people playing a game anyway, we're all there for one reason and thats to play the game. Some people take these games way too seriously too, with all these elitists, i mean we all get pissed off if someone plays bad, but then you got other people that just treat you like shit for no reason. XD
btw: I am female, so dont think this means I am not >:O
Dale Anthony
16-01-2007, 22:20
This is kinda why I stay away from MMORPG's. If I wanted to meet a real girl, I'd stay offline. You know me, I'm the kinda person who doesn't really believe much in stereotypes but rather people as individuals. It's sad to think that guys get a kick outta the fantasy of having boobs, how wonderful. In all honesty, are these the people who later become drag-queens?
MMORPG Gaming, is great fun but it's not wrong to play as the opposite sex. However, it would be alot nicer if people weren't so sad as to pretend they were female as I've had plenty of experience with in online games. Most girls turn out to have a hairy chest and balls...in other words, they're either as previously said, pre-pubescent teens or 40-year old virgins. But what the heck, it's a game. Games are for fun. Who gives a damn who plays them, really?
Example -
[Enter Stupid Anime Based Character Name Here] - Hi, my name is Susie! I love hairdryers and guys with swords. (Real name is Dave and he lives in his Mum's Basement...probably in his late thirties)
Whitney Butts?
I gotta say this article is fake, it's too outrageous to not be
I did some looking around, and if it's because of the name you think it's fake I'll have to prove you wrong, 'cause Whitney Butts actually do exist. D=
http://rec.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_sectionalt.phtml?site=70&id=314&colid=4212
http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/07/omg-girlz-dont-exist-on-teh-intarweb/
At least those two links says so. Yeah, I went a tad off-topic in my own topic, but yeah..
>_>
^ rofl @ comments in 2nd link.
Even the article there is somewhat fake and stupid, it does however still bring up an interesting point about girls in SOME parts of the internet (more importantly games and MMORPG's, you'll rarely find anything like that if you go to half-decent forums and whatnot).
Damn, so the article is real, but it's so incredibly sad..
The girl writing the article makes a valid point, but at the same time she goes about it in a slightly stupid way imo. She seems to kinda give more attention to it than it really deserves.
You're a girl, and people don't believe you? Too bad for them, as long as you're not the one gender-confused, lol. Shouldn't make a difference anyway, people should like/dislike you for your personality and your personality alone, not your damn gender.
I've had people think I'm a guy lots of times (in fact, anyone here remember back at the old HHN people thought I was a boy, and I got made mod of the Boys forum by accident? LOL xD), I'm not too fussed by it, I'll correct them but I'll leave it at that. In MMO's though I find it's better to just leave it, a lot of sad fanboys/men out there that drool over the fact that a female character has real boobs behind the pixels. lol
If I ever play another mmo I'm gonna play a male character, problems solved. 8D
LanceVarsconi
10-02-2007, 09:21
Well, maybe it's not a big deal to some. But I gathering it gets rather annoying to have your existance questioned when you're just trying to enjoy a game or have some fun. It's rather rude and disrespectful, and there's only so much a person can take. Not everyone is capable of shrugging it off, and that's perfectly fine. Can't be all like you, right?
I understand, though. It's not just the disbelief that women do not play games or be online at all.... Lots of girls on the internet ARE men pretending, which sadly leads to the general ignorant masses believing that all online girls are fake. I know someone is probably going to come up with "But hey Lance, you pretended to be a girl too, right?". The answer is yes, I was once so foolish that I did. I did not enjoy it. Rather, it gave me a better understanding of what (some) girls have to go through on the internet. This article, fake or real, is one of those things. Maybe that's why it seems "deep" to me.
Personally I don't see what the problem is. Why is it so shocking to meet girls on the net? I've met them, been friends with them, played games with them... *shrugs some*
Well some guys just play girl characters because they'd rather look at something nice (even if they are pixels? lol) or well whatever. Others play them because they are a girl and god knows what they do with their character and others do it for the free stuff and help lol. And yeah it is pretty sad how guys (esp. in WoW as i've seen) hit and stuff on girls online, even worse they sound liek 14 year old kids lol.
Liek this one time I was in this group (it started as a raid, as we raiding Crossroads, but after it kinda failed and some people left, we did a dungeon) and we went to some low level town outside of Stormwind (city-area) where there were lots of people cause of the carnival-thing and there were like 3 girls in my group and liek they were just randomly dancing and stuff and liek a few (not all at once, diff times) starting dancing near them and hitting on them lol. I started acting gay towards them (not just using emotes, talking obv. lol) until they went away lol. But yeah, pretty sad.
Lol my brother did that pretend to be a girl thing on runescape. i hate it when guys do that on MMO's it gets annoying and very gay at sometimes. i remember when i was playing my character on flyff and i had a guy pretending to be a girl follow me for an hour two asking for free stuff and me to buy them stuff (farming items makes you ****ing rich in flyff) so eventually i said allright and walked through the arena and attacked them and killed them and left. later i recieved a message going "is that how you treat girls?" my reply was "no, only guys pretending to be girls get that treatment".
but girls do kick more ass at games than guy's i was playing counter strike (on terrorists team). and there was one girl on the team and all the guy's were swarming her going like "i must protect teh princess" and shit. we lost the round and on the next one she got the bomb and told every one to wait. so we did she left the room and all the everyone flipped out then 3 minutes later we won the round. i laughed and said "well i guess she's better than all of us."
AngelicWings
10-03-2007, 15:47
In my oppinion, if females didn't exist on the interweb, I guess then my existance wouldn't mean anything. If people truly believe this, then I'd say let them. To be honest, I rather people look up to me as a male playing an MMORPG. I really dislike it when that the first question someone asks me, are you a boy or a girl, and do you have a boyfriend, is a girl? It annoys me so much when males hit on females like that. An MMORPG, is not a dating game, or a hook up place. But at least when people think I am just a guy (I don't lie about it when they ask me, I am just saying for an assumption) I get treated with more respect. Also, another thing I've noticed that most males would stereotype females as being non-aggressive, that annoys me a lot. I don't like them underestimating me.
But what I am trying to say is that, if a male is being a female, or a male being a male, vice-versa for females. Let them be that, let them do what they want, let them believe what they believe. No one can define whether you are that person or that person, only you can. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. Just be happy with who you are.
*Fly High to the Sky*
~AngelicWings~
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