When I was a Young Girl...

So the last few weeks we have been talking about money. Finances can be interesting, but usually are not so entertaining, especially when the topic is dragged out for so long. So, my apologies for the long winded shenanigans, ladies and gents. So to make up for it, I am going to take this week to tell y’all a story that I think is pretty funny, about my own experiences in online gaming.

            I don’t exactly know how much the lot of you follow video games in the news, but as of late there has been a large focus on gender in video games. Tons of articles on sexism, oversexualization of females in games, discrimination and condescention towards women, etc. have been cropping up. I can’t exactly argue with some of the articles, there are many instances of such crappy things happening. To a point, I am inclined to a agree with some of them. Consider, for example, one of the most iconic female leads in video games, Lara Croft, from the Tomb Raider series. If any woman had that kind of bust in real life, she would develop serious back problems. Another famous lady character, Princess Peach, was, for the longest time, the typical example of a damsel in distress. So like I said, many of these stereotypes and articles have rung to be true. You can actually read a really good article that references many of these issues, and has studies to back it, here. But this week, I am actually going to address the times that being a girl actually made people nicer to me.

            If you recall, about twelve years ago, the most popular MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game, for those who do not know or forgot), was RuneScape. This game predates WoW (World of Warcraft) by quite a few years. A large part of RuneScapes draw was that it was, at its core, a free to play game. If by the time you finished all the free content you wanted more, you could pay $5 dollars a month to become a member, which literally made the game 7x larger in terms of maps, missions, content, etc. So, for a long time, the game was quite successful.

In 7^th grade, at the insistence of my friends, I decided to make an account. To be honest, I was glad I did. This was my first experience with any online community, and it was fun. For the most part, people were nice. But there is a reason for that. My first time playing the game, fresh out of the tutorial section, I see a veteran player making a public announcement. This magnificent gentleman was closing his account after years of playing, and wanted to help out any new player. All he required was your login info, and an hour or two. I figured, “What the hell, why not? I’ve only been playing 10 minutes, and this account isn’t attached to anything else, so it’s not like he can steal anything from me. Let’s do it!” So I gave this mysterious benefactor my login. He said to come back in an hour, and all the transfers would be complete. I was incredibly ecstatic. To keep myself from getting even more impatient, I decided to watch a movie. After those two hours were up, I logged back in, changed my password, and went to see what this enigma of a player had to offer. I am pleased to say, he kept his word. He gave my avatar a ton of gold, all the best armor I could equip at my level and the best sword available for beginners. It was awesome. This was going to give me a huge head start in my ventures in this new electronic frontier. There was one catch, however. I can only assume the stranger did this for comedic effect, but for the longest time I did not know how to fix it. HE MADE MY AVATAR A FEMALE.

I was stuck. I had no clue what to do, or how to reverse the change, and I wasn’t about to give up all my new gear, so I decided to go ahead and play anyway. For the longest time, if anyone asked, or made any sort of comment, I would politely correct them, say I was a man, and explain the situation. After about a month or two of explaining, I got tired of repeating the same old tale. One day I decided to go with it. “Yeah, man. I am a girl.” They had no reason not to believe it. To my surprise, the other players demeanor changed entirely. They started giving me free stuff. The assumed I was new, unexperieced, and desperately in need of help (which, as it turns out, perfectly aligns with what the article I shared early had found about behavior towards women in online games). They would offer to guide and protect me through quests, power level me (when a higher level character helps a lower level through a tougher area just to let the ‘noob’ get a ton of exp in a short time), and buy me better gear as soon as it was needed. It was awesome! All I had to do was pretend I was actually a chick, and these lonely nerds would do everything for me! It was a dream come true for a lazy middle school gamer. Eventually, it got tiring, and the more I thought about it, the more messed up I realized it was. A few years later, I tested this again, with a friend, in a more “scientific” and controlled manner. Both times, I found the same result to be true.

The male gamers assumed I was a helpless little girl, who desperately needed their protection and guide. At least I can say this. The only time the article was wrong was in regards to the boys attitude. They were never rude, and always tried to be as polite and chivalrous as possible. But if you all want, I would be more than happy to share some of these stories and experiences, just leave a comment. Happy gaming folks!