this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2024
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I think gamers as a whole, though specifically those in niche communities, need to take a long and hard look at themselves. We should celebrate the volunteers that create wonderful content for us, generally with no financial gain. Instead, commonly, there are communities that criticize and tear down every little thing they can think of. They even went as far as to doxx the poor woman. We need to be better, and we need to hold these kind of toxic trolls accountable. Especially those of us who are men, we have a responsibility to call out other men who mistreat women in the gaming industry, or gaming in general.

*Edit: I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all. My sentiment is that many of us do not think about this kind of thing, and less are willing to speak out against their friends. We need to be better about that as a whole. I appreciate you as a person if you are already of this mindset.

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[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

This isn't even about gaming, necessarily.

Girls who code are rare. There are probably more AFAB coders at my work than those who identify as female. And a hell of a lot more men.

And I'm in a progressive city in a progressive state.

I work in IT, and I think there is one woman out of 50 employees on my corner of the org chart, and that's the CIO's admin assistant.

I'm certain it's culture, and it doesn't just go for programming, it goes for almost all of STEM. There was a recent "Stuff You Should Know" episode about toy chemistry sets, and they made it a point to talk about the marketing, and how it always was with boys, for boys. My son, 8 year old kid, says "that's just wrong! Girls can do all that stuff!". He's got it figured out.

[–] LordGimp@lemm.ee 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

As a welder, I've had a female coworker ONCE in 15 years working in the industry. My current work doesn't even have a bathroom for women in the same building as most of the workers. If we did hire a female welder, she'd have to walk across the parking lot to the administration building to actually use a women's bathroom.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

There are probably more AFAB coders at my work than those who identify as female.

Did you get this backwards?

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

No...but I am being hyperbolic. I definitely interface with more transmasc and nonbinary coders than I do with cisgender female coders. This may also be because, again, cultural reasons.

There certainly are more cisgender female coders, but they are still a minority group by a big amount, and they tend to not draw much attention to themselves.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was asking because the usual stereotype is than many younger programmers are transfemme.

[–] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Which does not reflect my experience in the working world at all.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

That's fair, I was just making sure I read you right. 💜

[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 99 points 3 days ago (23 children)

I don't want you to feel like you're getting it from all sides but...

I apologize if I insinuated that all gamers are guilty of this kind of behavior, that was not my intention at all

You really gotta ignore those "not all gamers" type of posters. They are literally adding nothing to the conversation. If you are a normal person who doesn't harass women only, then you should also be a normal person who doesn't take offense when the community as a whole is criticized.

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[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 50 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Welcome to the world of making software for random people, almost certainly made worse by she being a woman.

As others pointed out, most people do appreciate it, but they tend to be silent about it, whilst a small minority are demanding little whinny bitches (in a non-gendered way) who think they're owed service and some are even trolls.

To those reading this, I suggest when you get something you like for free you at least give some feedback that you liked it and, if the person has some kind of sponsoring scheme going on and you really like it, consider contributing, if only to incentivise more of the same.

Those on the other side are people too and they will appreciate it.

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[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 172 points 4 days ago

The only interaction I've ever had with authors of mods and such was sending them thanks for their hard work. Sad.

[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 150 points 4 days ago

Good for her for making the right decision for her own wellbeing. Too many sad little fucks on the Internet who spend all their time harassing others. Pathetic existence.

[–] SendMePhotos@lemmy.world 52 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

"I poured many years of my life into this, just to feel empty. In quitting, I have found my real passion, and have been obsessively working on music. I've even released my first ever album, SPIDERWEB PRINCESS, which is filled with my darkest, most genuine feelings from all of my experiences. Nothing I've ever done has ever been so meaningful to me. I have so much of myself to share with the world, and I'd much rather be remembered for something I actually enjoy."

Apparently her new passion is music. SPIDERWEB PRINCESS

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[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 73 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

I don't understand people who "demand" things from volunteers. Open source devs, modders, and still recently content creators are/were treated like public service workers, by some.

Imagine if we went around treating artists as if they were obligated to please each of us individually with their every piece? I'm very happy to see this attitude improve with streaming and youtube, where creators are more and more met with care and support when they have to step away for a bit or retire entirely.

It sadly seems like this modder was eventually putting in tremendous effort, in a vain attempt to please absolutely everyone using her mods. But that isn't a good reason to work for free.

Any work I do for free, is something I do because I want to, but this modder explicitly says she did work she didn't want to do in order to please fans. And I can't help but ask, why? (I know why, but someone should have cared enough to show her she is allowed to just say no, and do whatever she prefers.)

The blurb about her doing music is how you're SUPPOSED to feel doing something for fun. I'm happy that she found her way to something that makes her feel that way.

[–] LwL@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People do this with artists too. Especially the moment you offer anything in the way of free commissions for a specific community and such.

Many forums had gfx threads, where members who enjoy putting together banners and such would offer to make something for those who asked. A good friend of mine ran one in a certain game's forum for a while and the absolute entitlement in which some of those people acted (in regards to speed and nitpicking about minor things) was disgusting. It was maybe 1 in 25 people but it soured the whole thing for her, understandably so. The moment you give people a little finger wrt their requests, one of those people will take the whole hand. The same likely applies to modding.

And I'm sure being a woman doing gaming stuff isn't helping because there's way too much sexism in gaming culture, even though there are also a lot of subcommunities that are super welcoming to everyone.

[–] Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago

The moment you give people a little finger wrt their requests, one of those people will take the whole hand. The same likely applies to modding.

I suppose that depends on which finger.

[–] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 26 points 4 days ago (6 children)

it doesnt even have to be a mod, just free. See what happened with AetherSX2(android ps2 emulator) and how a bunch of people kept pestering a dev till he basiclaly quit working on it on mobile because they ask for a lot for something that was literally free.

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[–] ramble81@lemm.ee 57 points 3 days ago (4 children)

This is the sexism that we saw come out during the election. We thought the country was getting better but they were just quietly simmering but connecting online.

I said that with an American slanted focus but sadly it’s worldwide too.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

We thought the country was getting better

Who the hell thought the country was getting better? No one I know. This is the same weak basket of deplorables excuse the DNC used for Hillary Clinton’s loss. Because they’ll blame anyone but themselves for their failures.

The Democrats fail because they’ve embraced grinding neoliberalism for an entire generation, because they abandoned the working class long ago. The DNC crushed Sanders—twice—because even a little social safety net, as a treat, is a bridge too far for them. Why the Democratic Party CANNOT and WILL NOT be Reformed

I said that with an American slanted focus but sadly it’s worldwide too.

Fascism isn’t on the rise in the US in particular and the West in general for no reason. The cause is ever-worsening neoliberalism, which is monopoly capitalism in decay. I wrote about this two months ago, but I’ll spare everyone the copypasta and just link to it.

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[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (2 children)

IMO the vast majority of people that use community mods are pretty thankful and just enjoy them despite any issues the mod has so long as overall it works well. They just play and keep their mouths shut.

There are a few that offer real and constructive criticism.

And the rest are the vocal trolls that just hate on everything. Unfortunately if they aren't "fucking your mother last night" on whatever game chat you might be on they're busy trashing on the "unplayable" game they've spent 500 hours playing in the last several months or on the forums berating the modders' efforts. They're just hateful people and hating on women in general is par for the course, if one dares participating in gaming they're just another target for their shitty incel behavior.

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)

If you’re assumed to be a male, the trolls attack you if you don’t carry them. Fine, move on.

If they find out you’re female, they attack you just for existing. You can move on but It is relentless.

There is a difference in gaming experience when it comes to trolls.

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[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 40 points 4 days ago (3 children)

People are asses sometimes, but whenever these conversations come up, I wonder: What do you even want from us? How are random people on the internet supposed to hold random anonymous trolls on the internet “accountable?” You can call them asses, but so? What if they don’t care? They’re anonymous. You could get mods to ban them, but if it’s a free service they can always make another anonymous account. It’s even more confusing in the context of something like an online game as opposed to a forum. What are you supposed to do about someone being an ass when you’ve probably never seen them before and probably won’t see them again?

[–] Beardsley@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I mean, call them asses. Maybe they don't care, maybe they do, but we keep the problem relevant by being vocal against this kind of thing. To not do anything at all is to encourage trolls.

[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

The phrase is "don't feed the trolls", not the contrary.

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[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 36 points 4 days ago (8 children)

now before anyone gets misled by some of the reddit threads gamesradar linked to, some quotes from the relevant reddit thread:

I worked extensively on most of her mods. In the period immediately following the Daegon 2.0 controversy, I tracked down several recurring trolls (people here might remember them as cycling through Reddit usernames like "SeranasStankPussy" and other such things) as originating from literal Kiwifarms.

She made a female follower mod called Daegon. It was a suggestive follower with sexy voice and looks, and "bratty princess" personality.

There was an idea about developing romance option for the follower. The fans were so excited about it. However she ended up adding a bodyguard character as Daegon's romantic partner instead of opening the options to player. Daegon also had a major backstory rewrite, which was deemed as straying too far from TES lore. Fans felt betrayed. The backlash was so fervently hostile that anything the author posted always received downvotes and she was demeaned/harassed for posting anything (something like "you dare to show your face here?"), even when it's not related to Daegon.

At the time, she removed the old version and people leaked her discord server chat, which was very hostile and demeaning to the people complaining.

Basically: the mod author developed and people on her discord developed a para-social relationship and it went as expected. You can search this sub for that whole thing

There's more details on her discord (as usual):

my photos get passed around on skyrim servers, im called a slut and whore, and for what?

gamesradar linked to a few of the threads that got overwhelmed with trolls, who amplified how she blocked users (some of which inappropriately) from her mod pages and claimed she encouraged her fans to doxx people based on a single out-of-context screenshot of a random discord fan.

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[–] The_Helmet_Stays_On@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.

[–] Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago

-Agent K

- Michael Scott

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 days ago (3 children)
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[–] LongboardingLad@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

Stuff like this is why I don't tell people I game. The Gamer Stink is real and I don't want to be guilty by association. Seriously, go touch grass. The things that you're denigrating someone else for are pixels and code on a computer. Find some way to not be garbage humans.

Her music is interesting. Hope she ends up happier

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