itchy01ca01: I really haven't. I have seen a ton of harassment on Xboxlive, Steam, even a bit here from personal PMs I have received.
Trying to say "I haven't seen it" is the cheap way out. It happens. It happens to "gay" people quite frequently, even in everyday life. I have personal experiences of gay people I know being beaten, bullied and having committed suicide due to bullying, just in the past 2 years.
So yea, it does happen. Closing your eyes and saying " I can't see anything " is delusional and defeats the purpose of intelligent conversation.
LeonardoCornejo: I am pretty much sure you are exaggerating your claims. It is true, harassment exists, but it is toward every demographic, no demographic is harassed more than others in gaming or on the internet in general. Some individuals may be harassed more often, but that is because they are considered annoying by others or because an idiot sets them as targets.
And I do know what I am talking about because I come from the depths of 4 chan and I was tempered in the vilest pits of 8 chan and similar chans. I move between many gamer communities and I don't see any single demographic being a popular target. About homosexuals being harassed in real life and bullie into suicide. It has become more and more rare as time passes. But media lies, and the current PC media will try to manipulate things as much as possible, and the death of a group considered "protected" is perfect propaganda and clickbait material.
I am not dennying it happens, I am stating the claims of gamers being natural misogynist homophobes are pure hogwash. And most of the "harassment" directed toward political correctness and censorship supporters is not even harassment at all, it is criticism, often valid, or in the worst case mockery. Trust me, Jack Thompson got a lot more harassment when he was a relevant figure than Sarkeesian ever got.
And all those claims that video game content influences the personality and mindset of players is messed up. Video games don't make you violent, video games don't make you misogynist, homophobic, racist, or any other "ist" or "phobic". People are capable of crytical thinking. I could play a video game in which you play the role of a Nazi German officer and I would still consider my Jewish firend one of my best friends. I could play Ethnical Cleansing and I would still consider black people and Jews just people. Heck, I can be against the current immigration trends in Europe and still consider Middle Easterns people, humans, and not all criminals as those who acted in Cologne and Paris.
You know what makes people racist, homophobic, misogynistic, heterophobic, and overall bigotted? Political correctness and censorship. Because it divides people in "opressed", "protected" and "minority" groups and "opressor", "bigotted", and "majority" groups. And that divide leads to resentment and negative feelings of those in one group toward those in the other group.
Trust me, playing the lowly tasteless game "Kill The Faggot" or the morbid "RapeLay" is a lot less likelly to make you a homophobe or a misogynist or even a rapist than the current PC culture in which you can't say anything or otherwise you are labelled a bigot.
And nobody chases women or homosexuasl or whatever off of games, because guess what? Gaming is a meritocracy, as long as you are a good player nobody wil care that much about your age, gender, nationality, sexual preferences, or any other trait. Most of the time gamers won't even ask. They will identify you by your nickname and your avatar, and not by your human body. Heck, gamers are one of the most welcoming communities I have ever met. And I entered online gaming during a period in which Americans felt a lot of hard feelings toward Mexicans. Guess what, most of my friends in online games were from souther USA states, and when they found out I was Mexican they did not care. They only cared about my skill at playing and being fun.
Unfortunately, unless you have experienced being a repressed minority, it is impossible to wrap your mind around it. Your arguments make sense in a logical, perfect world, but this isn't a logical, perfect world. It's messy, and people who are "different" are treated much worse than what you say they "really" are. I was not exaggerating my claims that I have a gay friend who has been beaten and abused. I was not exaggerating claims that I had a very good gay friend of mine commit suicide because of the mental and physical abuse he was going through at work. These things happen every day to minorities, and yet one white kid goes off and kills himself and its all over the news. Wake up. We live in a society where it is OK to belittle minorities but try and defend them and we get right-wing nutts who make the "Oh, it's not so bad" argument. It isn't as bad as the 80s but it ain't pretty either.
Ill give you one instance just last summer that happened while walking down the street. Guy was wearing a flamboyant book bag, pink if you must know. He was walking from the store to some location (not going to assume, maybe school). Car pulls up, yells (and I heard this from not 20 feet away) "You homo, queer, fucking faggot. Get the fuck out of your town".
Seriously. He may not have been gay. He may just have liked Hello Kitty.