As we enter Day 24 of the Geek Out Challenge, our focus now shifts to things that we would love to improve within the geek community. Yesterday’s topic was about things that we love about the community, so we will be examining the other side of that.
Something you want to improve about the geek community?
For all the things I love about the geek community, there is still room for improvement. One of the biggest discussions is concerning toxic behavior within the community and what can be done about it, another issue that seems never to be far away when discussing the toxicity of certain communities is that of gatekeeping. Even if you haven’t experienced it yourself, you have more than likely been around this type of behavior. There are the individuals out there that love to downplay your level of interest or fandom, whether it be music, movies, video games, etc. there seems to be someone who will have whatever stupid reasons to discredit you as a “real” fan; as if you need to meet some arbitrary level of “geek cred” before you’re able to display any degree of interest. An example of this within the gaming community is someone who plays video games, but is told by others that they aren’t a “real gamer” because they only play <insert genre> games or ” I bet they haven’t even played <game>”. You CAN be a gamer without ever playing a Dark Souls game, or spending less that 500 hours playing an online game; and yes, you can still be a gamer if you spend most of your time playing nothing but Fortnite. I tend to get a bit irritated seeing this type of gatekeeping, elitist, b.s. from others that are so concerned with how someone else enjoys a particular fandom or game series. There are issues in the larger community that are significant such as toxicity as it pertains most of the time to one’s race, gender, or sexual orientation. Another issue that I think is interesting and may decide to write about in the future is the topic of accessibility in gaming. I generally try to stay positive focus on thing that I love about video games, but there are many things out there within the gaming community(and geek community in general) that need improvement with much of this simply falling under “Don’t be an asshole!”.
What are some things that you would like to see improved within the geek community? Let me know in the comments below. Be good to each other, see you tomorrow…
Gaming Omnivore 