How to ignore things.

[Doclector]

Apologies for the awful title.

You've probably seen the whole gamergate thing. If you want my opinion, I just have this crazy idea that everyone should just be equal, we should treat people like, y'know, people, and we shouldn't have a corrupt gaming journalism industry. But that's besides the point, because nobody gives a shit about what I have to say, and it ain't as if it's gonna make any change in this massive shitstorm, anyway.

But it's starting to take a toll what with my inability to just ignore things people say about a group I happen to belong to. Honestly, I'm fed up. I've spent damn near my entire life not even trying to be liked, just trying not to be hated, and now I'm gonna be hated just for being a male who plays videogames? But if only it were all so easy to ignore. If I seriously believed that this was a storm in a teacup, that wouldn't have any other effect, I probably could, but I don't believe that.

I also realise I have a problem with not being able to ignore perceived insults elsewhere. I hear people laugh at me and make jokes about me all the time. I should be able to just ignore that, at least that's what people say, but I can't. Any advice?

 

[Doclector]

Console. I've always felt the whole platform war thing is ridiculous though.

 

[Ziadaine_v1legacy]

Personally, I'd look for a new group of friends you feel comfortable around to be yourself. when I was in school and graduating I had a similar issue because I was heavily into games and technology. Now that I'm 23 I had time to meet new people and find new groups. Even though I'm gay and sorta big into the whole gay clubbing scene, I'm still a game obsessed dork, and even though a lot of my friends are more into shopping, partying and drag, they don't care that I'm a geek at heart.

 

[Albino Boo]

You have to understand that in the real world nobody gives a shit about gamersgate. The whole thing is storm in the internet teacup. Its no more than a few thousand people with an overblown sense of their own importance. Its the kind of thing that happens when people play identity politics about entertainment. To quote Shakespeare its "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

 

[Doclector]

Personally, I'd look for a new group of friends you feel comfortable around to be yourself. when I was in school and graduating I had a similar issue because I was heavily into games and technology. Now that I'm 23 I had time to meet new people and find new groups. Even though I'm gay and sorta big into the whole gay clubbing scene, I'm still a game obsessed dork, and even though a lot of my friends are more into shopping, partying and drag, they don't care that I'm a geek at heart.

My friends aren't really the problem. I was always worried that everyone around me was laughing at me and hated me, and with all this "Male gamers are perverts and assholes" stuff going around, I'm worried that it'll get worse.

 

[Phasmal]

My friends aren't really the problem. I was always worried that everyone around me was laughing at me and hated me, and with all this "Male gamers are perverts and assholes" stuff going around, I'm worried that it'll get worse.

Hey dude, how you been.

Everybody belongs to one group or another. Humans just like to file people away into neat little categories. There's no group that people don't talk shit about.
In regards to the recent shitstorm, personally I feel it's overblown and generalisations are being thrown around in all directions because of poor behaviour. Now, if you know you're not participating in bad behaviour, then these things aren't being said about you.

I seriously doubt anybody actually hates you just for being a guy who plays video games.

Have people been saying these things to you in real life or is it just an internet thing?
Because nobody I know has even heard of this whole shitstorm.

I've been trying to think of something to say other than `ignore it`, because I know that's not useful.
Ok, don't ignore it. Acknowledge your feelings about it and realise they're not rational.

It's something that's helped me in the past.

Wish you well, dude.

 

[PinkiePyro]

*snip*

I know that feeling.. unforunatly some people are just asshats there isnt much you can do that block/mute/ignore that person and move on...

for example there are tons of players on steam who for some reason have a bug up their collective butts about bronies and harrass me just for being one and worse yesterday I learned there are trolls who pretend to be bronies and spray rule 34 stuff just to make us look bad.. but dadly there is nothing I can do but ignore them and hope they move on to something else

 

[Doclector]

My friends aren't really the problem. I was always worried that everyone around me was laughing at me and hated me, and with all this "Male gamers are perverts and assholes" stuff going around, I'm worried that it'll get worse.

Hey dude, how you been.

Everybody belongs to one group or another. Humans just like to file people away into neat little categories. There's no group that people don't talk shit about.
In regards to the recent shitstorm, personally I feel it's overblown and generalisations are being thrown around in all directions because of poor behaviour. Now, if you know you're not participating in bad behaviour, then these things aren't being said about you.

I seriously doubt anybody actually hates you just for being a guy who plays video games.

Have people been saying these things to you in real life or is it just an internet thing?
Because nobody I know has even heard of this whole shitstorm.

I've been trying to think of something to say other than `ignore it`, because I know that's not useful.
Ok, don't ignore it. Acknowledge your feelings about it and realise they're not rational.

It's something that's helped me in the past.

Wish you well, dude.

Yeah, I can get to the part about logically thinking that it isn't rational, but you'd have thought that it would go away, that I'd stop feeling like that, but I still do. I'm gonna try to talk to my doctor about it next time I see them, but that'll be another couple of weeks yet, NHS cuts be damned. I guess I've never been able to ignore criticisms thrown at a group I belong to that don't apply to me. Even in school I was like that. I guess logically I don't think it matters that it's not true, because if enough people say it, everyone'll just believe it, tar everyone with the same brush. On another level I wonder whether I am doing anything wrong. I'm so socially useless that I doubt I'd know. Maybe even just being around is being offensive for me, I've heard of crazier things being the social norm.

But that's going far deeper than I'm prepared to go on an internet forum at 8:30 on a thursday night. Isn't after 12 midnight the time for that shit? The allocated "The fuck is my life?" night?

 

[Chasing-The-Light]

I sort of get where you're coming from here. While I can't relate in the sense of being centered around the gaming industry, more and more I've found myself caring a lot about whether or not things I say come across racist, or sexist, or culturally appropriating, etc etc and I found myself genuinely worried about what other people thought of the things I said or did as they related to that context.

But it finally got to the point where I just had to tell myself that worrying about anyone else but myself was no way to live and really just taking time that I could be spending on other more productive (or entertaining) things and putting it on useless worries that, realistically, are never going to go away. Someone will always like you, and someone will always dislike you. That's just kind of how it goes.

So I guess my best (and cliche) advice is to just be you and let yourself be, and enjoy what you will. Other people will come and go depending on that, but that's also just kind of how people work.