Editor's Note: Post edited for length and some explicit language.Honestly, I play a lot of video games. Whether it's the "typical" Sims, Neopets, or Facebook Apps, or whether its Halo 3, I love gaming. Here is something I noticed. Particularly while playing Halo 3 (online of course). There are far too many gamer girls who feel the need to flaunt themselves. Sexually and otherwise.
Something I would like to point out: Most girls are not as good as men at Halo 3. Whether it's because you are spending too much time flaunting your "girlyness" and sexuality, or whether its another reason. I see very few girls who are equal or surpass the men I play with. I am not saying that all girls are horrible at playing video games, or that all girls are incapable of being as good as men. Most of us just aren't. I'm not. I am pretty good at Halo, but by no means am I as good as my SO, or his friends. I didn't become good at Halo because I let everyone know I am a girl. In fact, I learned quickly that having a "girl" status on Halo meant one of two things. Men were either going to add me, say perverted things to me, and try to 1-on-1 me; or they were going to get pissed at me for either PWNING their faces, or playing Halo in the first place, and kill me. Whether or not I was on their team. Not cool.
So, here are some things I do for myself while playing online. I feel much more comfortable playing this way. I know many of you are going to say "Why do I need to hide the fact I am a girl? Why can't I be proud of it?" There is a big difference between being proud, and being a gamer whore. I am sick of having to listen to girls before a match talking all "sexually." You are dumb. Either play the game the way it was meant to be played, or don't freaking play.
I chose to take a different road. I don't even acknowledge the fact I am a girl anymore, and it makes game play much more satisfying for me. Don't get me wrong. Once in a while, after I win a big game, or have an amazing kill session, I turn on the mic after the game and let them know just who exactly pwned their faces. But I am also guilty of being ignorant. You can bet your patooty I don't let on I am female when I lose bad.
Here are the things I do:
Have a NORMAL screen name. Not "hottiebabe101" or anything stupid and provocative. Reserve those screen names for stupid chat rooms and AIM if you must have them. Pick something fun. I know your brain works if you even know how to log into the system and gear up to play. Your creativity shouldn't only consist of sexual terms. I know you have other nicknames. If you don't... get off Halo.
If you really want to play the game without having the interruptions, don't make your character into something extremely girly. This is especially true for Lone Wolf matches. Have you ever tried to play on Lone Wolf while being bright pink? It almost never works out to your advantage. Not only because you don't blend into the surroundings (have you noticed that most people on Lone Wolf tend to use colors that make them HARDER to see...like grey, brown, blue?) but also because people are generally going to target you for kills if you are an obnoxious color. No matter if you are male or female. It happens.
Don't be a slut. Don't immediately turn on your mic and let everyone know you are a girl and how big your tits are. I don't want to hear it. This isn't what the game is about. It's not a sex chat. If you are looking to meet a fellow gamer/date a fellow gamer, that is not the way to go. You are only going to attract perverts and little kids. You really want to date one of those people?
Don't assume everyone on Halo is going to want you because you are a female. Most of the men playing Halo are automatically going to assume you are fat. Ugly. And...a loser. Don't blame me. It's true. It's hard for them to imagine a beautiful girl taking time out of her day to play a video game. You might play with them by telling them how big your tits are, but don't be surprised when they ask for your MySpace/Facebook/Photo to see what you actually look like. Most of the girls I play with are all beautiful. Skinny. You would never imagine in your dreams these girls would have Halo parties. But they do. Me? I'm the fat one. Not ugly by any means, but so totally fat. Who cares? Not me, because I'm not flaunting myself all over Halo. No one cares if I am fat especially when I can work a missile pod with ease and help them take down that Warthog.
If you really enjoy playing, but need to vamp up your skills, play Lone Wolf. It is the fastest way to learn how to use all the weapons, find all the hiding spots, and become comfortable playing the game.
That is it, really. Play the game. Enjoy the game. I find it hard to play with my SO because he and his cronies feel that since I am a woman, they need to tell me how to play. The end result is that I play horribly because of their coaching. Which makes me look like a douchebag. How do I fix that? I go into a different room. Then I either play with the girls, or we join up with the guys. This way, they can't coach us. They do it in good faith, but it's annoying. We can kick ass when no one is breathing down our necks.
Comments (70)
*Rolls eyes*. Hardest Level is still one steaming heap of stereotyping, I see.
IMO It's not sexist. It's true. Alot of girls who play games DON'T do it right. Don't make the cliche girl names unless you want to be harassed by immature pre-pubescent boys. Don't e-whore yourself just for attention. There are plenty of F2P MMOs that are for cyber sex, if youwanna talk about your tits and who you've had sex with and if you wanna flirt your ass off. Girls like that make it hard for other girls to play games in peace. I've had to switch to male avatars in SEVERAL games because once guys find out I'm a girl, there starts the Harassment. It's retarded.
some of those girls are probably guys, and vice versa. just a thought, asshole.
I admit, I am not as good of a Halo player as any of my guy friends. They far surpass me. But I find it a bit offensive that you mention a reason would be "spending too much time flaunting your girlyness and sexuality." That's just really unneccessary and irked me. The reason why I am not good at Halo? Well for one, I suck at FPS in general because I am trigger happy, and I spend way, way too much time with my nose in biology and chem textbooks versus playing games. My guy friends always make time to play (and own a 360 which helps) and therefore have more practice than I do.
And the only time I remember ever seeing a pink character is when one of my guy friends went to the bathroom and another guy friend changed the color scheme as a prank.
On a side note I play way better when my boyfriend isn't harping down my back, screen-watching and yelling at me what to do.
Good post, just a bit harsh.
I think it's pretty awesome when some sexy girl just goes around pwning people.
I miss Halo parties. We used to have them with our youth group before we moved, but now I just feel incomplete.
@scrambledmegsntoast@xanga - You know - you've been trolling for months, right?
The OP is a girl, and shes just stating her opinion - if you don't like her opinion, write your own post an submit it. If you don't like hardestlevel, no one is forcing you to read it either.
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@Our_New_Beginning@xanga - Absolute win.
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to OP: I liked your point about the obnoxious pink color. My girlfriends little sister is an avid gamer, and her favorite color is pink. We've both noticed that she performs a lot better on team matches than on rumble pit - I will have to point this out to her! It seriously makes sense.
@trynstopme@xanga - Oh, please. You people and your "trolling". Get over it. Just because you do not like someone's comment, that does not make it trolling. I have just as much right to my opinion as she does, you just don't like mine. Making the statement that she has a right to her opinion while claiming I do not have the same makes you not only sound like an idiot, it makes you, in fact, an idiot. Which means you need to get over yourself and stop thinking you are the editor of this site, OK. Now take your "absolute win" cliches and learn a vocabulary that doesn't make you sound like an alcohol-addled frat boy.
I look forward to what will, undoubtedly, be a vulgar response. You sound like a big enough moron that you will be unable to come up with anything other than an obscene grunt. Grow up.
I would like to say that I semi-agree with this post, on the grounds that there are those kind of gamer girls out there, that are making everything into their own fashion statement in games...im tired of seeing hello kitty..
Nobody can disagree that these girls are out there, but they do not represent the majority of female players out there. I.E. The girls who do play and don't violate rules like this, go unnoticed, especially if they don't blert themselves out to being a female that will "Kick everybodys asses!"
This is not to say that people shouldn't be allowed to make themselves into the "Pink & Fabulous" girls they are in real life, and it would be unfair/an outrage to not allow atleast the option to make yourself to your liking in a game.
@scrambledmegsntoast@xanga - This is simply one guys opinion on the girls who flaunt themselves in gaming, not exactly HL's opinion (Not that I can speak for them).
@Naliaah@xanga - I'm sorry to hear that happens, and its a stupid reason but...when gaming was first made, it was instantly turned into the territory of only men/boys, and a very very very low amount of women. Slowly over time more female games were made, and more females came to play in masses. It's pretty much history repeating itself in sexism, guys are just stupid and want to keep the field to themselves.
@fornicatortuga@xanga - Some of them don't have a choice...It was all much more fun when everybody was face-to-face and not such a-holes wasn't it?
@animaeariesgirl@xanga - Skill is such a subjective thing, find a female leader to beat everybody on a grand scale! =D
@npr32486@xanga - My thoughts exactly...
@MasterShoe11@xanga - LAN Parties own all @Our_New_Beginning@xanga - *cough* Absolute Win *cough*
@trynstopme@xanga - I'm gonna raise my baby sister to be a game terminator! *evil laugh*
I'm done. =) On a personal note, love to play all and any games way more with girls than guys. Too many guys are..extremist and it becomes no fun fast.
@scrambledmegsntoast@xanga - Ooh. You have got to comment here more often.
Just a side note, the only people this post is meant to offend are those that do what is above. Not every girl that plays Halo is less of a player than a guy, not every girl struts her sexuality, and some girls are BETTER than guys. If you read it carefully, I have covered all of my bases. These are the rules that I FOLLOW for MYSELF. This is what I was sharing. If you can't accept that, then you don't really need to follow it. And if you are angry, I rest assured you either didn't read the post properly, or you are one of the girls I am bashing.
Yes, I am a female game player. And, if you ask a SERIOUS female game player she would agree with this post as well. I'm just saying. All the sluts need to go.
@toastiebear@xanga - Arrogant and condescending much? No need to answer. It is a rhetorical question.
@Riskbreaker - I think I will take that as a compliment.
@scrambledmegsntoast@xanga I guess so. I don't really think about it. I say what I mean to say, and what I feel, and its fine with me. You can take it however you want. Rhetorical or not, I enjoy answering questions that are directed at me.
lol jesus christ the comment section on this post turned into a Youtube comment section REAL quick. I'm surprised we didn't get the 4 hour history lesson on women's rights yet and then some how turn it into a racial issue. Keep going though this is getting good!
I like your attitude. I myself don't play FPSs, but I can sympathize with what you're saying. It's tough to be a female in any male-dominated activity. There will always be those that make it difficult for you. And wow, the comments here sure took a sharp turn!
@fornicatortuga@xanga - Exactly what I was thinking.
I find a lot of problems with this article: first, that it makes a lot of assumptions about people that the writer has never seen in person. For one thing it's extremely common for guys to play as girl characters in games (nearly as common as it is for them to play as guys? I forget the statistics), so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the girly players are just guys looking for some attention or nine-year-old boys thinking they're so smart cause they can convince a few other morons that they are actually girls. Second, she obviously doesn't realise that a lot of other girls came to the conclusion of what it means to tell the community you're a girl (the harassing bit) and deal with this by --gasp-- using more masculine skins/usernames. So how in the world can she quantify the amount of good girl/guy gamers playing, when she can't be sure who's actually a guy and who's actually a girl? You can't say something like "Most girls are not as good as men at Halo 3" when you don't even know how many girls/guys are actually playing.
The author tried to cover herself by saying "I am not saying that all girls are horrible at playing video games, or
that all girls are incapable of being as good as men. Most of us just
aren't," but that's not really a save, since "most" is more or less as bad as if she had said "all," because it requires similar assumptions.
And as for the message in general, the only way to play Halo "right" is to kill everyone who's not on your team (or whatever the objective is for your match). If some girl's calling herself gurly_girl_XOXOXOXO_kizzes, is wearing a pink suit, and gets shot five seconds after every spawn, then it's not the suit or her username that's the problem, and it's neither the suit nor the username that needs to change. Are either of them annoying? Maybe. But are they demonstrative of an incorrect way of playing Halo? No. Especially since gurly_girl wouldn't get so much flak for her annoying pink suit if she was pwning everyone else in the game.
This is an excellent post. As a serious gamer myself, I get condescended to by my husband's friends every time I log on to Xbox live or WoW. They talk to me about how to play games like I'm a five-year old even though I've been doing it longer than some of them have. And what makes it worse is the other girls they play with--the only ones that are decent at gaming are complete and utter whores!
I'm glad there are other girls out there who are serious about gaming and don't do it just for attention. Maybe one day there will be enough of us that we become the norm and all those other sluts won't even be considered gamers. Or maybe I'm just dreaming. :-p
@Lord_of_the_Pixie_stix@xanga - I see where you're coming from about not knowing who's a guy and who's a girl, but at the same time, I'm just going by the girls I know in real life. It's way too true.
Oh, and to anyone who intentionally tries to start fights over something that isn't the least bit controversial (I think we all know)...you make yourself look unintelligent and insecure, we don't have to say anything. Clearly you're compensating for something. Just saying.
I hate girls who play video games just so they could say, "Oh! I'm a girl-gamer! I bet you guys have never HEARD of a girl before!"
It's like, shut the fuck up! Either be as good as the boys, or go make me a sandwich. Whores have no places in the gaming community if that's all they're going to do, flaunt their sexuality.
Way to go girls, way to go.
- Kunoichi
1) i rarely see people play with pink armor. in fact one of my guy friends played in pink to fool other players into thinking he was a girl, for laughs, since he's about 10 times better than a lot of the typical players you come across on halo.
2) gamertag doesnt even really matter much, in my opinion. my gamertag is LADiiKiLLuh, not a typical "hot girl" gt, and yet, i've had several guys find out i'm a girl (I have Amanda listed as my name in my xboxlive bio) without me even having a mic on or anything. without me giving away ANY hint that i'm a girl. so, obviously, if you have a catchy enough gamertag, people might just like your gt and look up your info and then, in turn, find out youre a girl, and cream their pants and start hitting on you. i've had my good handful of guys randomly message me hitting on me.
3) i've never actually heard any girls REALLY flaunt themselves like that on xboxlive, and i've had xboxlive for a few years now...
4) it's true that most girls dont really seem to beat guys at games. but i think maybe if you laid off halo for a while (no offense, just seriously saying that because i love that game but the people on there most of the time are constantly just... so obnoxious and immature and terrible at playing) you'd find more girl gamers that actually play well, better than a lot of guys. i fell in love with call off duty 4 after i went through my huge halo 3 phase, and after playing so long, i will admit that i'm basically a beast at the game. sure, depending what playlist i'm playing in, and how well i'm playing at all a certain day, i do really suck ass sometimes and people are way better than me. but i just... ive run into quite a few girl gamers that, at the end of the game, have gotten more kills and less deaths than a lot of the guys. and i, myself, tend to end up at the top of the list at the end of games with the most kills and such. in fact, i really, really dont mean to brag, but i've gotten plenty of messages from people saying i'm really good. just random messages. i've even gotten a lot of invites to parties and games of recent players, because i had just got done playing so well. so i guess my point is... not every girl gamer should be put down so hard, even though i know you werent really trying to put them down much.
5) yeah, assuming everyone wants you because youre a girl is stupid, but it's kind of... really true... most of them dont give a damn what you look like, they just imagine you being hot..... or theyll just ask what you look like. and even when i described myself as 400 lbs with dreads down to my ass, the guy was like, "that's sexy." sooo... they dont necessarily leave you alone if you try to NOT be hot anyway. the guy still joked with me and sent me really dirty messages and i ended up just leaving the game.
6) i totally dont mean to be like completely contradicting your post... because i really agree with it and i think it's a great post to have made in the first place. i just wanted to also throw in my own points. hopefully someone reads them all? haha.
hahahah, i dont play halo 3, but AMEN.
ahahaha i love your article. :D I love Halo, I've played it before in stores when it came out, but I don't have an Xbox or anything so obviously I can't play.
@scrambledmegsntoast@xanga - agreed. i know plenty of girls who are gamers and could whip the shit out of him i bet. =)
plus, just because a character is dressed in pink, doesn't imply anything, it's no different than guys choosing purple, we don't call them fags because it's a girly color. i mean seriously? good job guys. i could have written a more accurate blog.
This makes me really glad my SO and his friends are too busy killing each other first (before going after me) to give me instructions. Besides, give me enough time and I can hold my own...so I'd probably be pretty annoyed if they tried to tell me what to do.Â