Gamer girl

Hiiiiii there, it's your favourite gamer girl reporting in!

The blogosphere was the decor of a snowball effect last week, set in motion by Pyxis of Gamers Decrypted with the question: What is a gamer? Of course I cannot miss out on this topic, being a gamer girl myself (or so my blog description claims).

Identifying as a gamer

Naturally, if you ask a question to five bloggers, you're going to get five different answers. What interested me, was if our snowball bloggers identify as gamers themselves. Shadowz of The Legacies in SW:TOR writes she does not, because she doesn't want to be labelled something. Minju of Pixelkaffe doesn't call herself a gamer because she doesn't want to be part discussions of how hardcore at gaming she is. Zernebog of Zerneblog, however, does call himself a gamer. He emphasizes that it's not about what, how or how much you play, but about how you define yourself. Murf of Murf Versus, finally, wins the prize for the most poetic definition of 'gamer', stating that "the only core ideal the word gamer preserves for me is the notion that you both love games and want to broaden that love". He identifies as a gamer, even at a time when that was not fashionable, to put it midly (...but is it now?).

Murf's view comes closest to my own, although I cannot articulate it quite as eloquently as he. If you love games, you can call yourself a gamer; that's enough for me.

What strikes me every time when prompts like these pop up (I saw it before when I asked victims people about this as part of my Liebster award), is that many bloggers that I would consider gamers (for they're obviously very enthusiastic about their hobby, spending so much time writing about it) don't identify as gamer themselves because elitist attitudes and the Gamergate debacle have left a sour taste associated with the label.

I'm just that girl playing MMOs, you know?

I wrote something about how I came to identify as a gamer just a few weeks ago in How I ended up gaming, so I'll just quote myself (even though that feels a bit odd):

"Ever since I started gaming regularly, I've had to defend it as a hobby. In the offline world, I run into people who think of gaming as dangerous/addictive, unsociable or a waste of time (or a combination of the three). All the time. Women especially always seem to have their verdict ready (fellow women, we really need to relax a bit more) and I feel gaming is more easily accepted as a hobby when men admit they're into it. 

I guess the sad truth is that by feeling forced to defend my gaming activities, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what games mean to me and how I perceive them. Now if you'd recreate me as a character in the Sims, I would have the trait 'stubborn'. The more you tell me gaming is weird or otherwise an unwanted characteristic, the more convinced I become of the opposite. I've always strongly believed that everyone should be allowed to express themselves in the way they want (unless, of course, this is harmful to others) and should be accepted doing that, and gaming is no different. 

The funny thing is that I'm certain I wouldn't have given gaming so much thought without meeting resistance. In the end, it is non-gamers that made me identify as a gamer."

Just adjusting the camera a bit to get the correct angle...

Gamer girls, the special snowflakes amongst gamers

Okay, so I feel like a gamer. But where does the gamer girl part come in?

I mean, it doesn't just say "diary of a gamer girl" at the top of the blog because I happened to be looking for a subtitle for my blog's name that would point out it's a blog about gaming and I thought girl fitted me better than lady (I hate it so much when people call me lady, I'm just really not ladylike!) or woman (which is just a bit... odd); plus I have a kinda weird sense of humour and assume people will be able to tell how I feel about "gamer girls" ...right? That would've been too easy.

I'm such a nerd lol

In What is a gamer, Pyxis of Gamers Decrypted writes:

"I have to sidetrack a little because of one of these terms. Girl gamer. To me this sounds weird. I doubt any pro gamer who is female would describe herself as a girl gamer. (I might be wrong, I only did a short check and the ones I found didn’t call themselves that.) That would make a girl gamer a casual gamer who wants to draw attention to the fact that she is a girl. That is apparently important to know. It’s a sort of add: hey guys, I am a hot (nerdy, girl next door) girl who also can play a game with you! With my pink controller! Hihi!

Something like that. But then again, why not. Get the attention."

Hiiiii Pyxis. Nice to meet you! It's Rav, writing in her diary of a gamer girl on Ravalation. So (apparently) gamer girls do exist. I love the part with the pink controller; I would totally use that as an alternate subtitle!

I'm a gamer girl  - can I have your stuffz pls? *princess eyes*

Warning: gamer girl mode engaged.

This is so me!

Hardmode raids? I LOVE them!!!! I mean, OMG, look at all those nightmare mode PvE achievements. They would make certain people go and pray for their sins lol.

Here, have some more selfies of my beach trip to Tatoo-something (sorry, more than two syllables, too hard hihi), because I know you guys love me so much (love you too sweetie!!). It's like this really nerdy place, the real lore fans go there. lol I thought it was a bit boring but OMG I did find some droid I was looking for!!! *wink* *wink*

Anyway, you can pin the selfies above your bed or something. Have some fun with them. Hihi. <3

XOXO

Rav

PS Thanks, Honeyberry, for letting me borrow you as model. You can have your normal hair colour & outfit back now lol. /gamer girl mode