Maddy Myers: The Last Unicorn

Today we’re going to be talking about Unicorns, by extension the Gamer Girl as expressed in Maddy Myer’s blog post: “The Cool Gamer Girlfriend, a.k.a. UNICORNS AREN’T REAL” which focuses on movies like “Fanboys” an indie movie about the misadventures of Star Wars geeks that objectifies Kristen Bell and nerd women in general? Then Ms. Myers attempts a blistering critique of gamer girls in gaming culture, but instead relates her abusive relationship(s) with “gamer” males…and well, it’s just a hot mess.

Now this is where my ideological back yard and a right-wing stooges ideological front yard touch a bit. I don’t care for this current trend of “social justice” that’s enrapturing millennial and younger generations. I don’t think every single construct needs to be politicized, ESPECIALLY things like video games, intrinsically connected to capitalism, the great equalizer. I’m especially not fond of the gulf of a lack of ideas to be had by those who practice social justice. They just seem to be bullies of extreme political correctness and whose most ardent practitioners appear to be bored, naïve, idealistic white twenty-something’s. They merely lean on the notion “Who doesn’t agree that we need Social Justice everywhere?” If you flinch at this, you’re a sexist, bigot, misogynist…and so on. Never you mind the flaws and hypocrisy, there are feelings involved.

Taking Ms. Myer’s blog post on it’s own is a bit of thin endeavor, so I decided to couple it with another of her writings, this one on a recent visit to Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX East) in Boston. To say she had a bad time is an understatement.

Ms. Myers, like other social justice advocates, is a hammer and as such everything socially relative is a nail to her. She isn’t merely writing about issues that effect gaming, she’s actively looking for problems to hone in on and harp about ad nauseam. A lot of social justice advocates don’t care much for Penny Arcades or any other “politically incorrect” entity. These “anti-p.c.” denizens can’t be swayed by feelings and put upon nonsense and as such social justice tends to deride them at any given opportunity. Ms. Myers even admits in the opening paragraph of her anti-PAX article that she has said pretty much the same thing before: PAX makes me feel unsafe therefore we need a new space for us who refuse to acclimate!

In both cases, the nonexistent gamer girl and the toothless boycotting of what PAX stands for, Ms. Myers provides no real reason for regular people to care. This is much in line with social justice advocacy, where the feelings are the foundation and you MUST make sure that they feel safe so that they can…do what exactly?

Oddly enough it is PAX itself that is doing more for “diversity” in gaming that any social justice advocate. They feature and promote games from EVERYONE, even if the definition of “game” is being stretched mighty thin. To Ms. Myers, however, this is because Penny Arcade itself is in bad need of positive PR. Not that they have a good idea of what the games culture is in need of or anything, or better yet, perhaps educating all those “intolerant dudebros” that make people like Ms. Myers want not to attend PAX in the first place.

Under the guise of “doing it for the readers” did Ms. Myers attend this years PAX East. She relates that she’s attending this event with as “open a mind a possible”. So not at all apparently? Because this open mind line comes in well AFTER lambasting Penny Arcade for all their supposed sins against social justice, and the much needed PR line. She even says she doesn’t respect the company itself, so there is no reasonable amount of open mind available.

The hammer, already looking for nails, has issues with the Boston weather, a bag check that wasn’t there the last time she attended the event (I do love the editor note, it appears Ms. Myers couldn’t be bothered to check and see when this started.), and then…she starts eavesdropping on a couple of guys who are talking about the proceedings. With a sad sense of desperation the hammer starts to swing wildly!

The guys were excited to be there, heaven forbid! They spent their hard earned money on tickets and dared to say aloud that PAX was where they could be kids again?! Did they not know that people like Ms. Myers, were there to be adult about things! She was having an open a mind as possible, and these two “dudebros” DARE to feel!? Ms. Myers then laments that she too used to feel that way about conventions.

With the rise in social media the access to individuals has never been thus. People are now over sharing aspects of their lives that should remain personal. It has now infected writing in general, on to reviews and so on. Ms. Myers is an expert craftswoman at injecting all sorts of benign personal bullshit in to her reviews and writing all with no payoff. What does her feelings about a characters design or motivations have to do with whether the game is worth your time and money? Nothing.

As I approach the right-wing side of my ideological back yard I gag at the next few paragraphs of Ms. Myers PAX hit piece. She prattles on about having social anxiety, which the giant convention hall triggers. She talks to friends on the “autism spectrum” and they too are not having a good time. I have to gag, because I’m dizzy from eye rolling so hard at this ridiculous nonsense. I have to take umbrage with a bunch of people so desperate to be marginalized they HAVE to have a mental disorder. This is their disability! Now, could they take their medication and go to PAX just fine, or could they avoid giant social gatherings that MAY trigger them? Well, it’s much more dramatic if you go and have a meltdown than, I don’t know…take care of yourself?! Ms. Myers then doubles down on this notion by exercising the old partisan chestnut of “overhearing” that someone saw someone “vomit from panic” on the convention floor. Was that someone witness a doctor? Did that fan cry out “I’m in so much panic *BARF*”? Probably not, but Ms. Myers has an agenda to propel, only time to lay on more hyperbolic bullshit.

At the end of her PAX piece Ms. Myers writes: “I’m not sure that PAX is ever going to be the right place to address concerns in the gaming community about safety, sexism, homophobia, racism, ableism and other issues of exclusivity.” Which it shouldn’t. That is your job Ms. Myers, and people like you that seem to think this is of utmost importance in the gaming community. Which it isn’t. PAX is and will continue do it’s best to educate it’s fan base to these sorts of things, but as you can see by the farcical fallacy of a list that Ms. Myers puts up, it’s just never going to happen. With social justice advocates, it’s never enough. PAX may very well do it’s best in the future, and it’s past misdeeds will continue to be thrown in it’s face. What about social justice’s own PAX: GaymerX? It performed so woefully that there wasn’t going to BE another one. A quick little crowd funding spree later, and it’s back on, but the corporate sponsors of previous years are not going to be in full force because this demographic is caustic to the gaming community at large. Social justice advocates don’t buy games like the “dudebros” do, and the games they promote aren’t so much games as over hyped “experiences” that contain little of value for their price or game play. Game companies are only looking for profit, the only question is “Will this make us money?” And for the bulk of these social justice games, there answer is no. It’s not to say these games shouldn’t exist, but perhaps the money and time could be better spent educating the gaming community than brow beating it in to submission, which is not working at all.

The Gamer Girl blog piece is problematic in that it’s only relevant to ten years ago. There’s no such thing as the thing Ms. Myers is bashing the nerd community over. On top of this, there’s the real notion that Ms. Myers is talking of current day nerd culture and is completely ignoring the grand divide in the definition of the term “nerd”.

To those of certain age nerd is a science, technology based construct. Future scientists, doctors and engineers. The modern nerd is a pop culture based entity, and is a poorer product for sure. It’s the mainstream-ification of any minority class. It’s when you can distill an identity down to a punch line. Nerd reached that points decades ago, but now that there’s an abundance of money to be made by slinging the word “nerd” around, all types has sprung up with the claim of marginalization.

For me this goes back to an earlier time, when everyone and their brother is now on the autism spectrum. To the point where people with actual problems can’t get the real help they need because someone’s 13-year old daughter is moody, can’t focus in school and talks back too much. Where being awkward and anti-social is a “disability”. It’s laughable to say the least.

Ms. Myers then doubles down on this idea of a super nerdy girl that aims to please in her Gamer Girlfriend piece by NOT admonishing mainstream culture for mishandling “gamers” and the vaunted “gamer girl” in general. But that it’s an impossibility for girls to obtain on top of being: “racist, sexist, sizeist and ableist construction of beauty“. That’s a lot of “ists”!

Of course it is! Hasn’t Ms. Myers been privy to culture at all in the nearly three decades of her life? Oh wait, never mind that, it’s about to get personal.

Lucky for her this Gamer Girlfriend piece is hosted on her blog, so it can be forgiven for it’s personal tone and general meandering pace. Again, this is how ALL of Ms. Myers’ writing is. There’s a lack of distinction between having a voice and propelling an agenda. She can’t help herself! This then becomes a story of Ms. Myers doing what she has accused many young “gamer” men of doing: gaming hobby as substitution for personality.

Now, is this a bad thing for a young person? Not necessarily. More often than not as one is navigating the choppy waters of self they will tend to grasp tightly to that one hobby and then make that define them. Eventually that falls to the background and becomes the hobby itself and not merely a personality graft. Apparently Ms. Myers failed to fix that herself as she delved further on in to her twenties.

It’s revealing the lengths Ms. Myers goes through in her pursuit of being around “gamer” guys and being desired by them. To the point of abuse of the physical and mental variety. What’s curious is that she doesn’t seem to grow from these experiences, she merely develops a misandrist view of most male “gamers”. Which assists her greatly with her and social justice advocates notion that all men are closeted rapists just waiting for the perfect opportunity to rape women. It’s absurd right?

She then goes on to everyone’s favorite “my friend said this one thing that is super relevant to just this very topic” kismet moment: Guys don’t WANT a “gamer” girlfriend, they just want a girl to watch them play games. The fuck? Yeah, maybe a few dipshit teenage boys, but no one actual male has said that. Or are we under the assumption that “gamer” males don’t want or crave sex? That in between stifling their rape urges, eating, sleeping and the like, they secretly want a girl to watch them play games? Does Ms. Myers even have real friends that are male…I mean aside from the beta dipshits that clog up social justice advocacy.

Ms. Myers message of “hey that gamer girl is a real WOMAN” and “let her play her games and leave her the fuck alone!” is completely muted by her tales of being abused and mistreated by men in general. Her general lack of self worth compounded by her “disability” of mental disorder and an antiquated view of the current gaming culture. Much liker her derision of the two guys at PAX, Ms. Myers only sees “gamer” males as rapist assholes, who make fun of trans people and mock rape victims. When in fact they’re more than likely just dipshit teenaged boys that haven’t learned yet. It’s in her deliberate messaging that women are perpetual victims that undermines her argument of the gamer girl and by extension the fallacy of the Gamer Girlfriend. It’s goes further in this constant desire for people largely free from discrimination and isolation (for example white middle class cis gendered people) trying desperately to be marginalized themselves.

Ultimately social justice advocates like Ms. Myers have no real solutions to their perceived societal ills, only complaints and finger pointing. They offer nothing of real value that would perhaps promote the kind of world they want to live in. But if that was to be the case, then they wouldn’t have anything to be marginalized by, there would be no enemy or ideological movement subverting them. Hence, nothing you say or promote will ever be satisfactory, and that is why they reject ALL ideas that may mainstream their viewpoint in any way.