Obviously this is not a representative sample, but it's hard not to notice that the three redditors in these screenshots that are gatekeeping gaming all have female-presenting avatars. It makes me think of an article I read two or three years ago written by a black man saying he gave his son advice that in an emergency white cops were a significantly safer bet because institutionalized racism gives them a lot more leeway to show empathy towards minorities without being ostracized for it. A woman actually trying to fit into a misogynistic culture is going to feel more pressure to consistently prove her belonging, and can end up being more ruthless in enforcing the misogyny and more effective because her gender allows a cover of legitimacy.

The you don’t look like a gamer line has always been so tired. If someone plays games, they’re a gamer — no gatekeeping DLC required.

I mean what does a gamer look like? 35 year old neck beard? I mean I’m a 55 year old dude that’s been playing games since I was 6 years old. Do I look like a gamer?

Find somebody playing a game. Look at them. That’s what a gamer looks like. FFS it ain’t that hard.

If this happens to a celebrity posting about a 20 year old Nintendo game system, I can only imagine what it's like for your average female logging into modern competitive shooter.

Gamergate never went away. It was the precursor to the youthful fadcisti, in many ways. We need women in these spaces to help diffuse the malignant culture. They'll remain targets of harassment tho, so it's up to everyone to police misogyny, and racism for that matter, too.

Guys, guys, it’s 2026, gamers don’t need to look like unhygienic basement dwellers anymore, get on with the times!

Gaming gatekeeping is just the old tribalism rearing its nasty mug. It's all over the place in all sorts of environments.

You know, growing up I always thought it was super odd for the 'gamer guys' I knew to talk about gaming as a hobby that boys and men are into by default and girls, and especially women, just wouldn't understand.

They mentioned or assumed it so casually in all kinds of contexts, as if it was just a fact about the world everyone knew or agreed upon.

Meanwhile, most of my girl (and later, women) friends played games. And not just the type of games the guys would look down upon, like mobile games, but established major gaming franchises like Final Fantasy, SimCity or Legend of Zelda. They wrote fan-fiction about Sephiroth, they snuck their little DS lite under the school desk to finish a section of Majora's Mask, or they spent weeks at a time meticulously crafting a storyboard in Sims 2. I never understood why the cultural image of gaming at the same time only included guys and maaybe one pick-me-esque 'gamer girl', when most girls and women around me actually were super into some games.

I eventually realised that these 'gamer guys' just never interacted with the girls I knew. Their entire world view came from the internet, from movies and other cultural sources. That was an eye-opener.

It makes me angry and sad to see games with a traditionally female userbase, such as The Sims, to be lumped into 'casual' genres, when I never knew a single Sims player who had a casual relationship with that game. They were typically much more intense about these games and fandoms than your average male FIFA/Call of Duty/Battlefield players, but the latter count as 'real gamers'. It's really just misogyny.

I love billie so much, she's such an icon

I remember when I used to play video games. Yea, I was your typical window masturbator with kilobytes of child porn and may have killed a dog. Then I got MKULTRA'd and got taken advantage of by a cult that reprogrammed my dopaminergic potential with oil changes n cheese cloths to then escape by cutting into my arm to do acid again to realize I was a woman to spiral into homelessness while traveling the country and creating a sex cult built around incestuous necrophilia that would get me v& by the FBI for accidentally advertising it on the Roblox subreddit. And also obscene terroristic threats to a prominent US senator. Obviously, I just talked my way outta it, and thank God I got taken advantage of by that cult cuz I woulda still had them kilobytes while playing Dragon Age or some shit for the sex scenes, cuz that's what mattered when I played video games.

I think the only person posing as a gamer is Elon cause he pays people to farm his Diablo account. Everyone else gets a pass no matter what they play or how much they play.

ok forgive me for being old but they're saying "larp larp larp" like they're saying she's "Live Action Role Playing" being a "gamer" cause she took a photo of her old DS? am I right on that one?

Misery loves company.

Whenever I see stuff like this online that's the first thing I think of. These people are all miserable, depressed, and alone. The most basic and simplistic forms of joy from others sends them into a "woe is me" rage. They then MUST ensure said person or whomever defends said person be brought down into the same misery hole they dug for themselves.

And you can't just say "oh just ignore them" I'm sorry but no, you can't. I'm sure OP has tried taking that route several times but again these peoples entire lot in life is to ensure you become as miserable as they do. so you can't ignore them.

So what do you do? you keep living your life. Enjoy whatever the ever living fuck you want to enjoy, post about it online, let the miserable cunts try to knock you down, post more. post A LOT more. infuriate them, let them attack you. respond to their posts with a simple "k." or "cool story, bro" or "thank you for the feedback!" kell em with kindness or just an out right virtual pat on the head. "great post champ!" all that. Show them that you're happier then they are and will ever be.

A recent Reddit post in the r/NintendoDS community, titled “Billie Eilish via last Instagram post,” is a small but telling example of how these dynamics surface in otherwise ordinary gaming spaces. While the post itself is fairly innocuous: it just shows Billie Eilish and a Nintendo console associated with nostalgia. The comment section (in part) quickly becomes less about the device or shared memories, and more about performance: who is “allowed” to be associated with gaming culture, and on what terms.

Are you positive it's about women and not celebrities? Personally I've never seen or heard about anyone's disbelief in women being gamers. However, I have absolutely seen and heard about a lof ot people's disbelief in anything celebrities do for attention.

Not necessarily saying Billie is full of shit. Just celebrities in general, and she happens to be one.

Thank you for sharing names. Easy blocks and reports. The irony was clearly lost with this guy and his concept of “compassion”.

I think the telling thing is that these angry gamer dudes are awfully lonely and would kill to have a girlfriend who shared at least some of their interests.

This kind of self-face punching comes from such a low self esteem that they have to reject the idea for fear of rejection in reality.

And then they go looking for every other reason to explain their loneliness epidemic.