It seems to come up every few months or so: another round of people on social media proclaiming what is wrong with their hobby and how, by God, they're going to do something about it. The problem with that is that none of us own the tabletop RPG hobby outside of the play that happens at our tables, or the games that those of us who are publishers or designers create and publish. No one gets to impose their worldview or morality upon others. I don't want people thinking and gaming like I do, and I certainly don't plan on thinking or gaming like others do at this point in my life (or, really, any other point for that matter).
There's crappy things in this world, I know because I have experienced more than a few of them. I've been homeless. I've lived in half-way houses for people with mental illness. I've survived sexual abuse. These things suck. However, no matter how loudly someone cries out about things, a scantily clad elf chick in the art of a role-playing game hasn't actually hurt anyone, or caused others to go on some rape spree. This latest round of my hobby pronouncements seems to have been triggered (yes, that was intentional) by a panel at PAX Prime by the people who run PAX and the Penny Arcade webcomic. Yes, they put out a poorly thought out, and possibly insensitive, comic strip that used "rape humor" in it. To be honest, even as a rape survivor, I have a hard time getting upset about this comic, or the attitudes of the people who made it or their fans. Why? It had nothing to do with the women who decided that what they did to me was an ok thing to do. Hearing or reading the word rape doesn't cause me to flashback to my childhood. Why? Because I spent a lot of time dealing with what happened and getting help so that what happened to me doesn't own me.
I will admit that Penny Arcade isn't a part of my personal hobby, but that's only because the few times that I ready it I was underwhelmed by the whole thing. Sure, I'll read it occasionally when someone links to it on Twitter or G+, but I'm not interested in engaging it, or the fans of it, because it has no relevance to me, my life or my geekiness. I do not let the media that I consume define who I am, I let who I am define who I am.
I'm not going to boycott any of the PAX conventions because I have never gone to one, and I'm not interested in going to them. I can't actually boycott something that I don't actually plan on being a part of. I see people griping and complaining all the time about how terrible the fandom of computer games can be. All that I can think is "Thank God I don't play computer games." I don't want to belittle the experiences of those people who deal with this, because it sucks. However, a big part of the problem is that society and culture in places like America sucks..and the rest is just symptomatic of that. We have cut the important things like the fundamentals of education to such a bare minimum in this country that we're raising generations of idiots, people without any sort of fundamental training in even the social graces because parents think that handing off their idiot children to understaffed and underfunded schools is going to prepare their children for life and the world. That's not happening, and the fact that we have young people who think it is ok to make comments like "nice tits" or "I bet she can suck a dick" to women is just one of the many symptoms of these problems.
Why are we raising generations of women who have body issue troubles? Because we keep sending the message that the female body is somehow wrong or hurtful by saying that there's something wrong with seeing a woman's body on magazine or book covers, or the art in role-playing game books needs to be neutered and non-offensive to everyone (whomever that "everyone" might be).
We are raising generations of Puritanical people who are offended by the idea that people may be having sex, happily, and might want to talk about it, or worse talk about it in games. Sex is a good thing, people...after all without it none of us would be here right now. :)
I don't know. I just find this whole thing to be frustrating. Not the fact that there are things that I don't like in things that are my hobbies, but that there are those who would let those things define them and let these things ruin an otherwise good, fun experience. I have long said that gamers, as a group, would be much happier if they stopped worrying about what other people are doing at other tables in other gaming groups. I have a hard time getting outraged because someone else wants a game that is either sexy or sexist. I just don't have to consume it, or make it a part of my life, because unless I engage with it it isn't suddenly going to increase the amount of sexism that I have to deal with personally.
Really, I wish that I had the privilege of naked elf chicks and what happens to them being the most important thing in the world. However, I'm down here dealing with stuff that I have to deal with...whether I like it or not. Ultimately that ends up becoming more important to me in both the short and long run of things.
So, yeah, there are things out there that I don't care about, and those things don't figure into my hobby, but there are also a lot of awesome things that I do care about that do figure into my hobby. Guess what? The awesome outweighs the crap, so I interpret that as a winning situation. And this might not be the answer that a lot of people are looking for, but if there are things that are that bad just disengage from them. I'm sorry if there's bad things in your hobby that are making you sad or mad, but you'll pry my hobby from my cold, dead hands first.
There's crappy things in this world, I know because I have experienced more than a few of them. I've been homeless. I've lived in half-way houses for people with mental illness. I've survived sexual abuse. These things suck. However, no matter how loudly someone cries out about things, a scantily clad elf chick in the art of a role-playing game hasn't actually hurt anyone, or caused others to go on some rape spree. This latest round of my hobby pronouncements seems to have been triggered (yes, that was intentional) by a panel at PAX Prime by the people who run PAX and the Penny Arcade webcomic. Yes, they put out a poorly thought out, and possibly insensitive, comic strip that used "rape humor" in it. To be honest, even as a rape survivor, I have a hard time getting upset about this comic, or the attitudes of the people who made it or their fans. Why? It had nothing to do with the women who decided that what they did to me was an ok thing to do. Hearing or reading the word rape doesn't cause me to flashback to my childhood. Why? Because I spent a lot of time dealing with what happened and getting help so that what happened to me doesn't own me.
I will admit that Penny Arcade isn't a part of my personal hobby, but that's only because the few times that I ready it I was underwhelmed by the whole thing. Sure, I'll read it occasionally when someone links to it on Twitter or G+, but I'm not interested in engaging it, or the fans of it, because it has no relevance to me, my life or my geekiness. I do not let the media that I consume define who I am, I let who I am define who I am.
I'm not going to boycott any of the PAX conventions because I have never gone to one, and I'm not interested in going to them. I can't actually boycott something that I don't actually plan on being a part of. I see people griping and complaining all the time about how terrible the fandom of computer games can be. All that I can think is "Thank God I don't play computer games." I don't want to belittle the experiences of those people who deal with this, because it sucks. However, a big part of the problem is that society and culture in places like America sucks..and the rest is just symptomatic of that. We have cut the important things like the fundamentals of education to such a bare minimum in this country that we're raising generations of idiots, people without any sort of fundamental training in even the social graces because parents think that handing off their idiot children to understaffed and underfunded schools is going to prepare their children for life and the world. That's not happening, and the fact that we have young people who think it is ok to make comments like "nice tits" or "I bet she can suck a dick" to women is just one of the many symptoms of these problems.
Why are we raising generations of women who have body issue troubles? Because we keep sending the message that the female body is somehow wrong or hurtful by saying that there's something wrong with seeing a woman's body on magazine or book covers, or the art in role-playing game books needs to be neutered and non-offensive to everyone (whomever that "everyone" might be).
We are raising generations of Puritanical people who are offended by the idea that people may be having sex, happily, and might want to talk about it, or worse talk about it in games. Sex is a good thing, people...after all without it none of us would be here right now. :)
I don't know. I just find this whole thing to be frustrating. Not the fact that there are things that I don't like in things that are my hobbies, but that there are those who would let those things define them and let these things ruin an otherwise good, fun experience. I have long said that gamers, as a group, would be much happier if they stopped worrying about what other people are doing at other tables in other gaming groups. I have a hard time getting outraged because someone else wants a game that is either sexy or sexist. I just don't have to consume it, or make it a part of my life, because unless I engage with it it isn't suddenly going to increase the amount of sexism that I have to deal with personally.
Really, I wish that I had the privilege of naked elf chicks and what happens to them being the most important thing in the world. However, I'm down here dealing with stuff that I have to deal with...whether I like it or not. Ultimately that ends up becoming more important to me in both the short and long run of things.
So, yeah, there are things out there that I don't care about, and those things don't figure into my hobby, but there are also a lot of awesome things that I do care about that do figure into my hobby. Guess what? The awesome outweighs the crap, so I interpret that as a winning situation. And this might not be the answer that a lot of people are looking for, but if there are things that are that bad just disengage from them. I'm sorry if there's bad things in your hobby that are making you sad or mad, but you'll pry my hobby from my cold, dead hands first.