GayGamer.net has a lot to answer for

[SonicWaffle]

You're right. I'm making a big deal out of wanting to have a character I can identify with to play. How silly of me to want that.

So, what you're saying is that you are unable to identify with a straight character, as if a person's sexuality is the only thing that matters. This is the part of the argument that always boggles my mind. Surely people identify with a character because of their personality or goals - I'm currently playing Dead Rising 2, and aside from all the boring stuff about his zombie daughter, I identify with Chuck not because he's a white heterosexual male but because he wants to kill a fuckload of zombies! - rather than the colour of their skin or their sexual orientation?

You should go back and look at all the whining people in a custom game created here on The Escapist wherein it turns out you were playing as a gay man. The poor programmer was flamed back to the Stone Age by people who found that they hated playing as a gay character and felt 'forced'. The article was in last year's all-gay issue.

Some people are idiots, so what? If the programmer didn't feel the need to make it obvious from the start that the character was gay, then clearly it didn't have much of an impact on the story. I bet many of the people flaming would be perfectly happy to play Bayonetta or Metroid without feeling they were being "forced" to play a character who liked cocks.

This is just a case of fools being fools, but it is somewhat ironic. You are, by your own admission, making a "big deal" out of wanting to play as a gay character. The people flaming that poor developer were making a big deal out of not wanting to play as a gay character. Is there really that much of a difference between the two arguments?

EDIT: Woo, 1000th post!

 

[Ickorus]

Gaygamer.net, isn't that just slightly hypocritical.

Imagine for a moment if someone made a website totally for straight gamers to use and talked about only things for straight guys, it wouldn't go down well would it, it might even get to the point where the site gets taken down because of it; Good, it's an asshole thing to do in the first place and so is making a website only for gay gamers to use and talk about games.

For the record, I have gay friends so im in no way a homophobe but I think that these people are pretty much segregating themselves from the rest of us are being really ignorant.

 

[Kortney]

These days, "gay" has almost no connection with homosexuals.

Full circle the word has come!

Crap.

The way a small demographic uses a word does not make it common parlance. I'll take the word of someone like Merriam-Webster over the urban fucking dictionary.

People using "gay" as a synonym for bad, broken, unwanted, useless can go to hell. I hope the first pizza-faced little basement dwelling puke who coined it fucking rots. Mkay?

Right now I am going to go on associating that word usage with ignorant little children/high school tossers and thus, remove them from my personal radar.

Calm down, he has a point.

The younger generation of today uses gay as a synonym for bad. I hear it first hand all the time and I can tell you, the majority of the time there isn't any homophobic sentiment behind it at all. Yes, I understand that the reason the word "gay" means "bad" today is because of homophobia somewhere along the line - but language has evolved to the point where a whole generation is saying it without having any homophobic intent behind the word. I have to tell my little sister not to say it all the time, and I know for certain she is not homophobic at all. It's just her friends all say it and it becomes common language. When the computer doesn't work, it's being "gay". When someone is annoying you they are being "gay".

Like it or not, that's the truth.

 

[gamer_parent]

ITT: "other people's problems are not my own, that means I should never have to alter my behavior in anyway, even as just a polite gesture. I also think that minority groups complain too much because being part of the mainstream majority has robbed me of my ability to empathize with other people's circumstances."

 

[Trivun]

Interestingly enough, I was embroiled somewhat in a similar situation at my university at the end of last year, though this was regarding anti-Semitism rather than homophobia. Long story short, a Jewish member of our student union Executive (a former student who had been elected by students the previous year to his position) took offence at a comment about pro-Israeli bias in the media that was printed in the student newspaper, in an interview. He then proceeded to censor the newspaper, without the backing of the Union, and there was a massive debate about free speech and the sheer fact that the comment was in no way anti-Semitic (he simply disagreed with the political basis and decided to pull rank to get his own way).

Anyway, in the end he was denounced by the union, we almost managed to get a vote of no confidence in him, and he was at the time being investigated by the Union's Internal Affairs department (the great irony is that he was actually the Communications and Internal Affairs Officer...).

As for my reasons for posting that? Well, there are none, except I thought it would be an amusing and interesting little anecdote for you. But it is somewhat similar to this whole GayGamer.net thing, with the whole 'free speech' idea and making a mountain out of a molehill. Which is what is happening here, really. It seems to me that the guy from the website is just trying to stir up an argument so he can look as though his views are worth airing and everyone else is just talking crap. Which isn't true.

What else can I say, aside from that? Haters gonna hate, after all. And complainers gonna complain...

 

[Machiavellian007]

These days, "gay" has almost no connection with homosexuals.

Full circle the word has come!

Crap.

The way a small demographic uses a word does not make it common parlance. I'll take the word of someone like Merriam-Webster over the urban fucking dictionary.

People using "gay" as a synonym for bad, broken, unwanted, useless can go to hell. I hope the first pizza-faced little basement dwelling puke who coined it fucking rots. Mkay?

Right now I am going to go on associating that word usage with ignorant little children/high school tossers and thus, remove them from my personal radar.

Er, actually, Merriam-Webster says that the word first and foremost means, "happy," or "frivolous", and that it has actually only recently come to be associated with homosexuals, so, technically your usage is also slang. Admittedly older slang, but slang nonetheless.

OT: He is a journalist. His very existence involves him stirring up trouble amidst the other three estates. The media thrives on buzz and scandal.

 

[RobCoxxy]

This just irritates the hell out of me - language evolves, it always has, it always will.

Take, for example, 'Shrew'.

It used to be a somewhat derogatory term used to address a woman of lower status.

I come from Shrewsbury, all the girls are ugly, whorey chavvy cumdumpsters.
Accurate name.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I come from Shrewsbury, all the girls are ugly, whorey chavvy cumdumpsters.
Accurate name.

All of them?! I demand verification of your wild claims! To the BangBus!

 

[RobCoxxy]

I come from Shrewsbury, all the girls are ugly, whorey chavvy cumdumpsters.
Accurate name.

All of them?! I demand verification of your wild claims! To the BangBus!

*cue Waffle's "Getting his sex on" theme tune*

 

[SonicWaffle]

*cue Waffle's "Getting his sex on" theme tune*

Dimmu Borgir - Puritania

Because I just hate women.

 

[joshuaayt]

Social acceptance of the word used in a derogatory sense perpetuates the idea that it is a bad thing.
I always make the same point here, because it is an excellent one- Gay teenager, growing up and coming to terms with self.
Friend: "Hey, that place is so gay, don't go there"
Other friend: "Man, I hate that bully, he's such a ******, don't you agree?"
Gay teenager: "Huh. I guess being gay is a bad thing, especially since there is so little media resistance to this negative stance. Maybe if this were a world where people actually were more accepting, little things like the occasional derogatory bastardisation of a word wouldn't matter, but seeing as most everywhere simply ignores the issue, the minor bits of feedback, such as this, is all I get. Therefore, I must be ashamed of myself"
EDIT: And, yes, the word "Gay" originally had nothing to do with homosexuality, but the usage has been publically accepted long enough to count. This language is a very fluid one. Hell, I don't care what the actual word means or meant- if in twenty years, no one even remembers that it meant Homosexual at one point, then they can go ahead and use it for whatever the fuck. Social perception is all that matters.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Social acceptance of the word used in a derogatory sense perpetuates the idea that it is a bad thing.

This. And josh indirectly makes another good point: it's not just the word "gay" that gets used as a derogatory slur for things people CLAIM have nothing to do with homosexuality...it's every associated word. Gay, homo, fag, etc., these are all words that kids use as slurs for people or things they don't like. So the fact that this has become "accepted" use of these words clearly shows that society as a whole still has a big problem with homosexuality.