What’s my name again?

Snake-woman in the Grass?

(bwahahahaaaa, maybe not)

Currently what I see around on blogs is this whole discussion about gender in gamer blogging … or more to the point it’s kinda a discussion about being a female gamer; a girl, a lady, a woman, a chick, a lass, a sheila (that ones Australian for the feminine gender :p ) – and whether it matters these days enough to be used as an identity statement.

The meat of the discussion seems to be:

• “Why do people proclaim, reveal, and acknowledge their gender in blog titles and in game?”
• “Does gender really give you a different perspective?”
• “Do blogs that have gendered titles actually focus on the gender part”
• “Do people use the ‘girl’ tag to get attention/readers … in-game stuff?”
• “Is it a bad thing? Is it a good thing?”
• “Why does it matter?”
• “Why mention gender at all?”

Well I can see why this one’s catching on really; it’s certainly a topic everyone can post on, I mean right up you can post about why you named your blog whatever, you can talk about what you think of blogs that are known to be written by the female types, and you could even write about any gender related experiences you have had or observed in-game. The topic spin-offs are rather endless.

In fact check out the already existing discussion posts (in no real order):

• Pink Pigtailed Inn
• DPS: We Deliver
• Mend Pet
• Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick
• A Girl A Gun and A stripey Cat
• 35 Yards
• Big Bear Butt
• Raided M
• Awlbiste’s Thicket
• Destructive Reach (with vid!)
• Altaholics Are Us
• SpoonCraft ‘The deviate fish’ – more about attention whores, tongue in cheek and made me grin.

As you can see I’m a late starter … and is it just me or are BBB & Loronar the only blokes brave enough to touch the topic (lol and without a 6-foot pole & protective shield to-boot.) Of course its probably just a matter of interest

Frankly I don’t make much of a point to tell people in-game that I am a real live (as opposed to what I am not sure) female – I’m timid on that front I guess, despite being an official adult :p and yep I made a conscious decision to avoid any real indication of gender on my blog.

But personally I don’t think this is a good thing, to be someone who outa habit avoids admitting their own gender, who somewhere along the line decided it might be a disadvantage. Blogs like Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick appeal to me in the way that Doris Day must have appealed to the female masses back in the 50-60’s, I admire the way you just are what you are… hmmm with attitude and a gun at that.

On the other hand I freely use the in-game chat in parties, and I guess at that point its fairly easy to tell, and if someone asks I don’t bother with a lie, so it’s not really like I am driven to hide the fact that I’m a chick, it’s just something I don’t intentionally bring into conversation.

My experience with gaming in the past, including wow, has been pretty much as BBB describes it – I think somewhere along the way wow normalized the gender expectations of the people I meet online and of the whole gaming culture, but for money I couldn’t tell you when. Yeah I really think wow had a lot to do with it, it’s one game (outside of the sims) that has actually managed to become known pop culture.

Some of my negative in-game ‘Gender’ experiences:
Take one of my first ‘gender’ experiences (maybe more of a cyber harassment experience) way back, think I was around 18, and only just 18, playing a MUD, one of those early text-based MMOs. Some bloke with in-game ‘god powers’ summons me away from where I am happily beating up slime after slime for the cause of exp to a room with no exits. He tells me I can’t leave till I /kiss him. I know doesn’t sound like much but it made me feel damn uncomfortable. Due to various circumstances the only RL kissing I had managed to get up to before this point was primary school catch-&-kiss… where I thought the aim of the game was to kick (the snot outa) the boy to enable fleeing… yeeeeah O_o feel free to boggle. Hmmm this may be why I make such a great hunter, I’ve been getting outa melee combat since I was nine… snort. To make it all the more awkward this bloke was someone I knew in RL, who I certainly didn’t like in that nature, in fact he wasn’t even the kind of good friend who could get away with that crap. And he just kept pushing me, trying to make me do what he wanted.

Pushy Pushy Pushy.

To this day I am unsure why I hung around in the situation for so long, maybe because the rest of the group were all logged in, maybe because I was a silly young 18 yr old who thought he was a mate and didn’t actually know the meaning of that thing called ‘cyber’ – I dunno.

It was all text typed of course – first he promised to give me neat game items, magic swords, more hit points, the bloody invincible ring you name it – but only if I followed through on the kissy-kissy action. When I refused, his little frantic typed sentences actually got threatening – now he was gunna keep me in the room, take my levels, give the stuff to my mates instead. The things he was typing at me also got more personally disturbing, and more related to my gender.

Blah Blah Blah.
And then the ‘cunt’ word was used.
(A personal NOT favourite that one)

Needless to say I logged off and went to get pizza with a non gaming girlfriend – chances are that character is still in that room because I never logged back into that game after this episode, despite months of playtime and the RL friends I played with. Mind you if he had tried the same deal with my 25yr old college friend (she was a mature aged fresher) who also played he would have gotten exactly what he wanted … well almost, she would have probably had him on the end of the leash – as it came to light over the first year of college that she was hardcore into online cyber (and thus I got my edu-ma-cation on that topic.) I believe she even got caught cheating on a virtual marriage by popping a virtual kid to someone else in one MUD, some kinda nifty programing where the sexual emotes actually got you knocked up.

WoW has been nicer to me, although there were a bunch of silly incidents early on. Heh back when only American servers existed down my way some orc boy (seriously he was like 16) followed me from the xroads, up the stonetalon, and all the way into Desolace. The whole time asking me if I was ‘fit’. Lol I told him I was quite healthy thank you – because I hadn’t quite gotten my head around American terminology and didn’t actually realise he was asking if I was hot. That little brat got my honest age, gender, nationality outta me O_O if I had known he was fishing for ASL there is no way I would have handed it over.

There was also this other guy that I built a relationship with in the battlegrounds, back when they were only manned from the home server – we were both always in there, slugging away for nifty AB gear, and we kinda kept track of how much the set we both had managed to collect – it was fun. But when he eventually found out my actual gender he got a bit weird… kinda split personality style he would sometime full on hit on me and then seemed cheesed off when I simply responded in my usual uninteresting and cyber free way. Bizarre.

So those are just a few light tales of personal “oh fuck off – not again” moments.

Hmmm still I swear there was this one point where I was playing male toons just for the peace and quiet – then I discovered the RP servers and maybe the times changed but I haven’t really had any trouble since. Heh although you know, on the first month on an RP server I attended 3 in-game weddings O_O – maybe they just have more outlet for the gender tension what with the ERP guilds and the RP relationships that develop, and on an RP server I’ve always got the lovely in-character line “I’m an Orc son, I shave my head with my battleaxe … which I am more than happy to shove where the sun don’t shine if you keep irritating me – I’m sure you’ll enjoy walking funny” or for the real persistent tossers there’s always the ignore function.

Yeah so I can see how gender could be used to ‘get stuff’ with a particular type of player if a woman person (anyone can roll a female toon) could stomach playing the ‘kissy-kissy’ game (heh … snigger) – in fact if you hadn’t had negative experiences I suppose it could be considered fun. I myself don’t particularly like being singled out for my gender, I feel put on the spot and I must admit I don’t really like free stuff, well unless gifted by guildies and friends – even then there was this one time someone just gave me the gold for my first land mount … and I felt awkward right until the day I managed to pay him back. I still have that mount in the bank because throwing it away would probably still make me feel sorta guilty, sap that I am.

Actually the other day in-game I had a little blood elf guy strut up to me and declare himself “a nice young boy” and he seemed to be looking for lootz and favours so maybe that kinda play isn’t just for female toons and really has more to do with pimping the toon to some kinda market (do I come across as a sugar-mummy? that’s the terrifying question I’m left with.)

Girls in-game
For the most part other women I meet in game are just like any other toons around, some are nice, some are assh@ts and just plain rude or use their gender to glean guild power and virtual goodies (though I read about these more than run into them … only met one in my time), some are sassy personalities, some are quiet & professional, and some do have pets named things like ‘Mr mew-pew’ in all seriousness and take tailoring to make pretty dresses. What’s the harm really? I know this hunter guy who tames pets to match particular RP outfits, he is like the metrosexual hunter lol – blood elf of course. It all adds to the local colour – heh. Have you ever gotten a group of female friends live over the official guild chat channel? Friends that maybe haven’t seen each other in a while? Wooo I can tell you in my guild we totally drown all other conversation … poor males.

But really are the girls that would normally set off the ‘I-use-my-gender’ radar simply coming across as ‘just-another-toon’ because I am so totally uninterested in their boobs :p – I mean there’s no point in trying that stuff on me, I’m more likely to drop a silver to a dancing Tauren in his loincloth (hey I like their tails O_O) than another chick in her knickers on a mailbox. I’ll have to ask The Pally what kinda crap he cops in-game.

So what have I read that’s related to gender prior to recent debate?
I have once had some chick do the “omg another girl” thing to me in an instance, post-BC – and my startled reaction was kinda “eh so?” and I’ve seen a couple posts out on the web about the same thing happening in a raid situation … only for half the raid to ‘eh-so’ and actually be female. (I’ll link that if I ever relocate it.)

I’ve seen a music vid, or was it a screenshot album, that focused on boobs and booty shots (female toons) with the sub-note ‘before you flame I’m a chick so I can post this stuff’  – heh a comment that amused me, because surely those flaming would be offended at the content … and not really care who posted it, but then for them to add that note maybe they did get called a gubby male sexist at some point.

I’ve read posts that state tanking as a female gnome does indeed make your male party members more protective (and honestly I think The Pally of our guild has a certain fondness for all our low level blood elf lasses more so than for our shaggy baby cow lads.)

Some bloke wrote an awesome post about how much gold he could rake in by simply posing as a female toon. It was awesome because there was comparison over which race could ‘pull’ the most cash – apparently tails are sexy and the blueberries have ousted the night elves from the top of the stripping tree, for some reason this and the associated blog polls made me laugh my butt off.

There are plenty of discussions out and about that are related to what gender you play online and if your RL gender affects the classes and races you chose to play (two links are old topics taken from the Wow Ladies: Girl Gamers of World of Warcraft website which has archives back past 2004 (wow launch) and is still going strong.)

And it goes both ways here be an article from Dec 2007 about what a guy can get outa playing a female toon – I notice he feels players are more protective of the female healer. (Seriously our guild healer is a Tauren Druid, male in VR and RL and I feel very protective of his tree juice … you don’t touch ma healer without stepping over my corpse.)

Lets draaaaaag it back to blogging:
As to whether gender is important in the world of the internethers … well it’s obviously still important enough to still be sparking debates (heck check out the following thread to do WAR online and female tanks (there are no female toons to tank with due to class cut backs at the moment) – seriously this thread makes me really understand why Tank Like A Girl may have felt the need to name her blog along the lines she did (although I still sorta feel that blog title is a play on the old “fight/hit like a girl” joke where the girl then nails whoever said that line :p GI Jane style.)

And does anyone still remember the incident where the gold farmer ripped off Out Of Mana’s blog and gave it a whole new sexy pink woman look? Even while clicking the report blog link I couldn’t help but be amused by the blatant use of sex in the layout. (Pic below just links over to Out of Mana where it came from ^_^ fraid that tail’s all that’s showing.)

But still I’ve got no doubt that being female is pretty important to some people, a large part of their identity or whatever and maybe something they feel like writing about or mentioning every other post … kinda like me and my crazy urge to post about warpstalkers every 10 posts or so. And there seems to always be a market for whatever someone has to say – it’s just as likely that someone out there is going to want to read the ’adamantly-a-girl’ posts & blogs on the internethers as it is that I still get hits from people  looking up information on warpstalkers two years after the release of BC (okay probably more likely.)

I suppose what is true is that you really don’t see a lot of blogs titled things like: Mr Warcraft, Tank like a real man, Buff Warcraft Blokes (does Ratshag count here?), Little Gamer Boy, Single White Blood Elf (wait there is ‘Single White Alt‘ – I read that blog but it happens to be written by a lass), Hot Horde Pinups for the Ladies, Sir Johnnie and AlphaMale (that one wasn’t really a wow blog). Well there was one called ‘world of warcraft boy’ but it seemed more about gold selling ads.

———————————————————-

Okay stop post for an interrupt:

While looking for male titled wow blogs found the following online article from DEC 2007 – where some kid survives (and saves his sister) from a MOOSE attack by AGGROing the beastie and then FEIGNING DEATH – bwahahahah that’s hunter related and funny (well since no one lost an eye) – happy looking laddie too. That one has to be too insane to be fake – least I hope so because its classic.

———————————————————-

I read a fair few blogs written by women, but really I read them for the content and the way they write. I also read a lot of blogs written by guys and I have to say that if its not stated upfront on the ‘About page’ I am truly bad at picking whether a writer is male or female – as a result I really have no problem with people referring to me as a he, or an it, or even a she, or simply as snake/green hunter – it really doesn’t matter to me personally when it comes down to it. I’m still constantly surprised that people other than my guildies read my posts.

Whats in a blog name?
Well I dunno about most but my blog titles total whimsy like most my posts. It started out as Great Green Hunter. 50% because all the blogs I liked reading when I first discovered the great world of wow blogs were titled things like Big Bear Butt (BBB), Big Red Kitty (BRK), Gun Lovin’ Dwarf Chick (GLDC) and well …. Petopia (no acronym), and 50% it was a play on ‘The Great White Hunter’ with green being my nod at noob and my orcish complexion.

Snake in the grass is a poke of fun at The Warlock who titled me such during the great murloc argument, which stuck because I rather like the sound of it.

My most used handle tends to be Green Hunter because thats what I have to type in comments when using the wordpress open ID function.

‘Lactic Acid’ is what shows up if I just wander off and comment without that ID function o_O thats just title of an old poem I wrote in high school that went something like:

Last month I mumbled something.
You siphoned it off
into a basic corrosive compound.
Rendered ammunition for your verbal sling.

Guess I just like to remind myself that what I say or type has a way of coming back to haunt me, lactic acids a name I use online fairly often.

I can only honestly say that my blogs ‘topic’ is… well warcraft and entertainment – I’m more of a linker than a great writer, but if I’m going to write it will probably be hunter or battleground related. Mostly what you find on this blog are things I want to share with guildies but which would drive them nuts if sent as spam email (really the amount of wow music video forwards they used to have to tolerate was insane.)

What I do identify strongly with on this blog is:

• I’m a Hunter (darn-tooting I am)
• I’m an Orc (that makes me green)
• I’m Horde
• I’m Australian
• I’m totally into wow, wow machinima, wow blogs and wow comics
• I’m a pet-addict and an alt-aholic

And pretty much these are the things that shape my posts, its a weird identity mish-mash of real and online facts, I even find myself blogging from the perspective of ‘we’ – and even I am not completely sure if I mean that as coming from ‘me and my toon’ or ‘my toon and my pet’ or ‘me and my toon and the pet’ :p heh.

Dear god … whopper of a post eh … not even sure I took that topic anywhere (guess all those short link posts build up into a need dribble on and on about some topic… well I can count this workday procrastinated away cackle.) Next I should probably try to post something game relevant, maybe the map thing … I like my map thing.

EDIT: ooh wait I remember this one time Alliance side when I asked an entire AB raid to marry me after they won the match – told them it was a fine old elvish tradition, and that together we would be unstoppable. Mmmmm it was a brilliant match *daydream*. I would lay odds on the fact that I am ‘nicer’ to the boys when playing alliance side – strange.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Brave Survival Hunter posts in WoW forums – read all about it!
• So fast and furious update on the life and times of ME
• @_@ Hypnotic flashing blog posts batman
• 48 Hours Mystery

~ by Lactic Acid on September 1, 2008.