2008.03.31
Being Female & Growing Up Playing Video Games
No, the following post isn't going to be some kind of cry for girl gaming or any of that shit. I'm not going to get into a rant about how girl gamers should be equally treated as guys because come the fuck on - that ain't going to happen. Equality issues happen all the time. Where I live men get passed over jobs many times just because the people hiring always hire skinny ass Asian girls that look five but are magically twenty-one (What the hell? Is this a localized hentai game?) because they'll bring in more business. I'm simply going to talk about how it was like being a girl that played video games.
As a child I'd often go out with family and friends just to play video games at arcades. A great deal of us were female. It wasn't such an issue back then. Video games were seen more as entertainment anyone could enjoy and wasn't yet mainstream and marketed to be cool. Nor was there the cry "OMG VIDEO GAMES ARE ART!"
Do I recall any incidents I'd be treated differently simply for being female? Well there were quite a few incidents that happened solely because I lacked teh wang. When arcades were huge I'd always be locked inside one of them just wasting quarters playing every damn game I could. I recall there was a time I beat this guy's ass in Samurai Shodown 2 (Can't recall which character I picked. Most likely the love of my life Genjuro Kibagami) and he gave an irritable response "I can't believe I lost to a girl. There's so many girls in this game, maybe that's the reason why girls like it." Well I guess the most amusing thing about that to me was that the kid had long hair and looked like a girl. Fuck I thought he was a girl until he mentioned his disappointment. There's also been several other times I've been insulted just for being female when it came to beating guys at fighting games in arcades. Hearing stupid insults like "She plays like my little sister! She just presses buttons!" Well your sister must be good because you just lost to me six times in a row! At this time girl gaming was seriously rare. I recall a female classmate of mine in fourth grade waved and bragged to her sister that she knew me. I was just standing in a long ass line to play Tekken 2.
As far as me being a girl gamer in Japan goes - NO ONE GAVE A FLYING SHIT. No one made a big deal or anything. I can't recall any single time when I went to the arcade where someone made a big spectacle about me playing a video game. Of course, because there's no cry for attention over there when it comes to females playing video games. It's normal. Now before any Japanophiles reading this think "I NOE! DATZ Y I WAN JAPANEEZE GGRRL!" NOT ALL GIRLS play video games there. DO NOT THINK you can hit on any random Japanese girl by saying "Hey baby wanna try your hadokens on me?" While many play video games of course not all of them do. Just when a girl does - everyone treats it like it's normal. No fucking girl gamer clans or whatever kind of bullshit girls like to do here in America. No crazy fucking women waking up one day thinking "OMG! I MUST BE THE SPOKESPERSON FOR ALL FEMALE GAMERS IN THE UNITED STATES! I MUST BE THE ROLE MODEL TO HELP OTHER GIRLS GET INTO VIDEO GAMES! I MUST MAKE VIDEO GAMES LOOK COOL TO OTHER FEMALES!" (And back in the day everyone thought Joan of Arc was crazy. At least she was fighting for a cause that mattered.)
People in Japan just didn't give a flying shit.
The only people that did bother me in arcades were those sleazy guys that hang around arcades just to hit on girls (since a lot of girls also go to the arcades to take sticker pictures) and yakuza. Yes, yakuza men went there too for the same reason the sleazy guys did, just to hit on girls. The only times I was ever bothered at arcades in Japan was by these guys. They didn't give a damn about me playing video games. They'd just often wait around till I was done playing to hit on me and hopefully bring me home, rip my clothes off, and drop me off in my porch naked when they were done with me. I was actually almost kidnapped by a group of sleazy guys one day after getting done with playing KOF 00' but that'll be a story left to be told another day. The only time a guy ever did get excited to see me play video games was when I bought Suikoden I & II. But that was merely because he was surprised that someone like me would be playing his favorite series too, not because he thought that I was too stupid to be playing a video game who let me out the house bitch go make me some rice.
I guess another thing I should mention is my situation when it came to guys. Guy gamers didn't like me. They were intimidated by me. Most didn't like me because I didn't look like their precious anime girls. I didn't really have any gamer friends at all when I was growing up. Oddly if I did, no matter how geeky they looked, I knew far more games than they did and it was a little hard to talk about games to them. The majority of them only played FF7 and up. (As for me the first question I always asked when I met a gamer was: "U pL@y P3R$o|\|@?" Though nowadays I won't get any fucked up faces for a response because of Persona 3. It was like asking if anyone played Final Fantasy before FF7 came out.)
When it came to dating and shit - well I didn't date. (Speaking only of my situation with American guys.) Most of the guys that asked me out happened to be the "cool guys." I recall being friends with this one "cool guy" for about two years. He asked what I've been doing lately. I listed a shitload of games that I was playing and mentioned that was my hobby. The second I said that it was like he just took two steps back, turned around, and ran the fuck off. He didn't speak to me again. Same thing happened when I was a new kid in Guam. Guys wanted to know me. When they found out I played video games that was the end of it. I recall one time when this guy asked me what I was into. I thought about lying in my head but I just flat out told him the truth: I play video games. It was like saying "I'm gay" or telling a Christian you're an Atheist. He simply wasn't having it (his response? "Wow. I've never really met girls that play video games before..." *shifty eyes*) and of course he didn't talk to me again after that.
There's of course no denying that girls playing video games in America is seen as strange. I recall many years ago, 1997 I think, this guy let his daughter who looked about five play Tekken 2. These two teenage boys just kept watching her in amazement that she got up to the second stage with King. After she was done they told the guy that his daughter was talented. Uh. Yeah. Anyway.
Though my experiences as a girl gamer are changing the more video games continue to evolve and suck because all they ever do is make good graphics and shit game play now. Because what am I noticing now that they're marketing video games to be cool? I see a lot of girls who don't actually play video games play them just to be cool. The worst part of it is when those "GRRL GAMERS" get in my face and try to act like they're better than me just because they're playing a fucking video game. Uh. How do you think I became blind? What do you think I've wasted a great deal of my life doing? I recall even a family member I was close to when she was a child grew up to be one of those "GRRL" gamers and constantly treated me like I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. Girl must've had amnesia or some shit, I recall her making fun of Final Fantasy Tactics when she was a kid simply because they walk in place.
As far as being a woman who plays video games goes - I'm not going to act all cutesy "OMG I'M A GRRL GAMER TOO! I PLAY VIDEO GAMES AND LOOK GOOD IN A BIKINIZ LOL." Well not unless someone slaps me with a wad of bills at least.
I still find it absolutely hilarious how girls in America try to be spokespeople for girl gaming. That's as bad as those Jehovah's witnesses that knock on your door trying to get you into their religion and preach about Jesus. They never go away either. Just imagine my shock being an American living in a Japanese house in Japan (well since there's military bases there - not every American that lives in Japan lives outside of the base boundaries) finding English speaking Jehovah's witnesses at my door. Don't tell me that's what these girl gaming spokespeople are going to do in the future.
"LOOK AT ME! I LOOK LIKE ONE OF THEM SKINNY BROADS IN MAXIM! BUT I PLAY VIDEO GAMES TOO! LOOK! HALO IS FUN TO PLAY! COME PLAY WITH US! DON'T STAND OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE! JOIN THE GIRL GAMING FUN! DON'T LET YOUR BOYFRIEND HOG THE XBOX 360! ROFL NOW YOU CAN FIND ANOTHER WAY TO IRRITATE THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOUR BOYFRIEND. DON'T JUST HOLD OUT ON SEX. MAKE HIM WAIT ON USING HIS GAMING SYSTEMS TOO!"
Now, no, I'm not trying to be the other version of a girl gamer. The "girl gamer anti-hero" who insults the living shit out of girls that use sex appeal to boost their popularity up in gaming communities and prides their selves just because they use their words and scores to get their points across. If I didn't look like a fucking demon I'd be doing that shit too. I just wouldn't be a girl gamer spokesperson. I almost entered that Miss Video Game pageant till I thought of the 0.0001% possibility that I actually won. Fuck, I wouldn't want to be a spokesperson for that. I just wanted the money to buy new games!