Gamers and NIMBYism Part One, Part Two, Part Three
NIMBY is an acronym for the phrase "Not In My Backyard". The term normally describes opposition by residents to a proposal for a new development or project close to them.
The same term can be applied to any area, even virtual locations, or group when those who gather there are opposed to things they believe can create disruptions or damage if allowed to enter their communities. These people are not opposed to progress or other people...until they have to deal with them themselves. People who have this attitude are often called "nimbies". The term was coined in 1980 by Emilie Travel Livezey; ironic, considering the NIMBY problem concerns the attitudes a segment of male gamers have towards women in gaming and the gaming community.
The prevailing attitude among many of these gamers is "We want you to appreciate gaming; we want you to respect us as gamers; and we want you to enjoying gaming like we do...as long as you fit our definition of a female gamer and respect the boundaries we decide to set." By no means is this the only rationale behind this type of behavior, but people following this line of reasoning do exist; many providing female gamers the most severe forms of harassment.
Note: Nimbies can have problems with something, or someone, being around them for very different reasons. The most severe negative reactions toward female gamers who offer opinions, play multiplayer, or participate in gaming related events like live tournaments or conventions (passive aggression, open hostility, etc) has to be the result of some form of bitterness; the offender has some sort of ax to grind. The responses to the presence of these women is often too severe to be anything other than resentment. A reasonable person won't do this. Such resentment is often the result of rejection, some past wrong, an implied threat, or social anxiety relating to the opposite gender taken to an illogical conclusion.
The vast majority of negative verbal treatment female gamers deal with is usually the result of a-hole trolls who just want to push people's buttons or trash talking by other gamers who are too lazy to come up with really funny putdowns, so they go for the obvious gender stereotype, sexual orientation attack, or ethnic slur instead. The rest of it is likely the result of NIMBYism.
Gamers come in various genders, ages, economic backgrounds, lifestyles, cultures, sexual orientations, and levels of social competency. Gaming for many people is one of many hobbies they like to engage in. For some people, gaming and the communities that develop around it are an important part of their social activity and development. Some of these people take their gaming and gaming communities very seriously and are reluctant to allow people who aren't as committed as they are to associate with them.
Female gamers generate an unusual reaction where gamers suffering from NIMBYism are concerned. There is often a trust/annoyance dynamic at play. NIMBY gamers immediately meet the presence of women with a mixture of suspicion and fascination. The behavior tends to originate from gamers at the late end of their preteens, is fairly bad in gamers up to their mid-teens, and deeply ingrained in gamers in their late teens to early twenties. The latter being the gamers willing to engage in passive-aggressive or openly hostile behavior towards female gamers in non-virtual encounters.
These age ranges are identified because the preteens is where the results most social preconditioning begin to bear the most fruit. People are either capable of adjusting to the social pressures around them and finding their way or their awkwardness, uncertainty, and a failure or two makes them fail to try or reluctant to try again. Difficulty socializing and a person's differences often make it easier for the less evolved of their peers to make their lives miserable; bullying, ridicule, claiming superiority or shunning. This is often done to increase the perpetrator's status among their peers.
An inability to relate forces many of these teens to find solace in the things they discover through their isolation (gaming, comics, the Internet, etc) rather than continue to socialize with people whose apparent intentions are ridicule and abuse. Many of these individuals have all but completely given up on socializing outside of their comfort zones. They eventually find like-minded individuals who share their interests and begin forming their own groups and hierarchies based around gaming or other shared interests.
Many of these people form strong attachments to their hobbies and the individuals they often relate to them. They often defend their interests in a visceral fashion because they equate them to their identities. Keep in mind, many of these people are discouraged from common social activities others take for granted by peers who aren't willing to accept who they are. So any critique of what they do or what they like is seen as a way of socially beating them down even further. That does not excuse their often hostile and aggressive behavior toward others for negative opinions or breaking artificially erected standards, but it helps to understand where it comes from.
Ironically, these hobby related social environments often contain the same problems as the ones these individuals were originally excluded from, so there is no shortage of bullies (usually cyber), trolls, and hackers. Many of these people seem intent on gaining or reclaiming personal power they did not have with their non-gaming peers at the expense of people likely to support them if they tried friendship instead.
There's another little dynamic at play where some of these future NIMBY gamers are concerned: G-I-R-L-S. You have a bunch of socially underdeveloped guys in their early teens with freshly raging hormones trying to engage in interpersonal relationships with the opposite sex. It isn't a stretch to assume most of these guys, as awkward as they are, do not have hostile intentions; they just aren't very adept at socializing.
It isn't a lack of socialization skills that makes these young guys hesitate to approach their female counterparts; it's fear of rejection. Many of these guys are so afraid that a young woman will ignore them, show them some form of disapproval, or will humiliate them in front of others that they won't even make an attempt to start a conversation. Some of these guys eventually learn to overcome their fear and come to the realization that women aren't as scary as they thought they were. For others, their fear and uncertainty can lead to anxiety and other issues. The frustration many of these guys feel often becomes resentment; for not only the objects of their affection, but for the opposite sex in general.
When it comes to the opposite sex, some of these young male teens don't just get a simple rejection. Just like some of these young men lack the verbal acumen, appearance, or resources to build interpersonal relationships, some of the young women they encounter are just as inexperienced and may not be as tactful when rejecting these would-be suitors. Make no mistake, there is such a thing as boundaries, not violating personal space, and etiquette and if the circumstances are such that a person deliberately violates these, the intruder should be made aware. A person should not feel obligated to respect the feelings of a complete stranger who makes a clumsy approach, but it doesn't hurt to try being diplomatic about it.
If the approaching male is an obnoxious a-hole; he should expect the possibility of a harsh response. Unfortunately, some of these guys aren't obnoxious; they just aren't necessarily to the young lady's liking. Believe it or not, most of these guys can sweep up what's left of their fractured psyches, suffer anxiety for a while, and manage to learn to socialize again; although it may take time. Some of these guys resent how they were treated and have difficulty letting it go; resentment, hostility, etc...you get the idea.
As previously mentioned, many of these teens sink deeper into their hobbies and other interests and the social environments that often spring up around these interests. Then they work to preserve these environments and keep others who do not share their interests out.
Nothing gets a NIMBY gamer's goat like being constantly reminded of something he wants, wasn't able to get, and now has it shown off around him as if to say "I wouldn't let you into my personal space and social reality, but I'm going into yours whether you like it or not." To many of these guys it probably seems like a slap in the face to have someone invade the worlds they created and try to change the social dynamic.
The minute a female gamer begins to make her presence felt, a segment of male gamers automatically become defensive. Old wounds once thought closed start to reopen, and the first thing they do is start looking for any evidence that indicates she will be disruptive. Disruption in their eyes could be something as simple as playing poorly on a multiplayer game or not understanding certain aspects of a game. Keep in mind, there are quite a few new people entering multiplayer communities who are totally new or still developing their skill, and the nimbies tend to be a bit more tolerant when the gamers are male. However, these situations are apparent quite a bit more grievous when women are involved.
Another form of disruption is a desire to see change in games or gaming communities that seem to promote improvements for women, but not for other gamers. Keep in mind, everyone tends to have ideas and suggestions that they believe can improve gaming, but let a woman dare suggest things like being better represented in games or making changes to gaming communities and then its time to "Shut that bitch down by any means necessary and lead her back to the kitchen".
Nimby gamers on their own are an annoyance, but their numbers are probably so small, in relation to other gamers, that there is almost no point in speculating about them. The problem is most of them tend to be admired by other gamers because of their gaming skills. Their status as role models for other gamers is what makes them more of a problem.
Groupthink tends to develop around these individuals because other gamers want to feel like they belong. So other gamers will not only play the games nimbies play, but they will also mimic their behavior. This is the reason people tend to use the same ad-hominem attacks and arguments when defending their favorite movies or other projects; they are all experiencing groupthink. This is also the reason women who game or are in gaming communities occasionally find themselves on the receiving end of negative comments from so many disconnected male gamers. Some of them are nimbies, but the vast majority of other gamers who to do it are the a-holes and trolls who emulate them. The close-mindedness and other symptoms of groupthink in gaming communities tend to originate form the nimbies and their mindguards more than any other source.
Even the biggest card-carrying members of the self-imposed "Gamer He-Man Woman Haters Club" are not without empathy and a desire to form relations with the opposite sex when the opportunity arises; they are bitter and resentful, not stupid. There are young women who enter these gaming communities who are just as socially awkward, shunned by peers or just happen to enjoy gaming as much as some young men do. The surprising thing is the same nimbies who want to scream "blasphemy" when they believe women have crossed them are the same people who now go out of their way to support other women. I'll go into this in the next blog.