Girls, Games, and the Products They Create

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Vivienne Chan

 

by Vivienne Chan

Let me throw a couple of unsurprising claims at you.

1. Many girls play video games.

2. Many girls are geeks.

Neither of these are news to you, I would imagine, because for one thing, you’re reading something written by a girl who meets both those claims. For another, it’s just common sense. That said, a smaller percentage of all girls play video games or have geeky interests than is the case with boys. This might depend on your definition of “geeky interests” (or even “video games”), but basically, more dudes appear to be into it.

Indeed, of the entire “hardcore”/”real” video gaming or geeky interest population, the vast majority are boys. Again, no surprises. So, really, we shouldn’t be surprised that attractive gaming girls or geeky girls are extremely marketable. What does surprise me, however, is how people tend to cash in on it.

The connotations behind the phrase “cash in on” might seem like a negative bias. I acknowledge that. But as with virtually anything worth doing, there are people who do it well and people who do it not-so-well. This article is not about making distinctions between those two groups of people; this article is instead about the response to these people in general.

Imagine, if you would, that you are a single, heterosexual male. Imagine that you have just met a very pretty girl that suits your physical tastes. She is passionate about something about which you are equally passionate. Inevitably, you’re interested: you want to know more about her. Whether or not that desire to know more about her is fuelled by romantic intent or platonic social grace is irrelevant; this girl is interesting to you.

That’s not to say that you are only interested in girls of this type, nor that you only have one interest. You could just as easily be interested in girls with opposing interests, too. But imagine (and I’d think most of us wouldn’t have to imagine) that your interests have a long history of being reviled by the social world as being reclusive, isolating, and tunnel-visioned. Frequently, you are made to feel ashamed for having those interests. Therefore, meeting someone who is physically appealing who also understands those interests can be immensely engaging; after all, when can you say you’ll ever meet someone quite like that again?

Let me recount some personal history for you that I think many of the ladies reading this might feel is familiar. I have a very broad range of interests: gaming, computers, writing, fantasty/sci-fi, volleyball, watching sport, psychology, transculturalism, food, etc. Back in 2004, while I was in college, out came this game you might know and about which I was super duper excited: Unreal Tournament 2004. This was a game-changer for me, not because I hadn’t played plenty of online shooters before, but because it came with built-in voice communication… and I had a microphone on my headset. What then ensued was the repeated assumption that I was a “pretty good shot for a 12-year-old,” until finally someone just up and asked me if I was a girl. I, against my better judgement, said yes.

Holy shit, let me tell you, I am not proud that I occasionally miss the months that ensued. I was the fucking queen bee of the servers I frequented: dudes always knew who I was even when they didn’t know each other, they constantly spoke to me and asked how I was doing, and of course, there was the incessant demand to see pictures. I, not believing I was that attractive , had never before in my life experienced that kind of attention from the opposite sex. It was overwhelming for an insecure, single, female college student.

So I posted pictures of myself on the server’s accompanying forum, and I got compliments that somehow meant more to me than the ones I got from people who actually knew me. These dudes called me pretty, hot, gorgeous…  and whether or not that was objectively true was irrelevant.

I got so much attention, so much validation, that I wanted more. These guys were my friends — and to this day I miss when we all used to hang out — but deep down there was that part of me that knew (and LOVED) that I also treasured them as a fan club. Not very long after that came the label of Attention Whore.

I tell this story not because it is unique, special, or in any way complimentary to who I am – quite the opposite. There are plenty of geeky girls out there who have experienced the same thing and whose measure of self-worth have been heavily influenced by the fallout. The impact that this period of attention whoring had on me wasn’t pretty, and I find it hard to express how glad I am that I grew out of it. Yet, in a way, it did make me feel pretty and desirable in a time where I thought I was anything but.

Girls like Felicia Day, the Fragdolls, Jessica Chobot — probably the majority of women who game —  have likely experienced similar stories. Just by sharing an interest with men, we inevitably attract attention to ourselves. We become identified, even defined, by it. And because we get rewards from it (attention, endorsements, money, fame), we perpetuate that identification. That Felicia and the Fragdolls and Jessica all happen to be attractive is what makes them marketable.

And that’s not something they can control. What they do control is in what way they choose to utilize that marketability. Jessica Chobot catapulted to fame for being a pretty girl who licked a PSP. I deemed that pandering and not-a-little-bit attention whore-y, but at the same time I am aware of my jealousy over how much attention she got just for doing that.

It speaks more of the commercial viability of the “lonely nerds” who read game sites than it does of these girls, I think, when someone can become famous just for being pretty, interested in games, and willing to lick a PSP and take a photo of it. From a marketing point of view, if I worked for IGN and saw the response that photo got, I would’ve been all about getting her on board, too. But I do feel that this kind of thing also sends a message to girls, where if you blow up your gaming interest to twice its actual size, make it visible, and sell your physical appearance, you too can one day join the cast of Mass Effect 3… not for your ability to do the job but for the fact that the fans would love to have you there.

(Because, honestly, Chobot is pretty and all but she’s a rookie in the VA department, particularly when you consider the REST of that cast.)

(…on the other hand, in her place I would’ve been so all over Brandon Keener that I’d probably suck it up, too, so… yeah.)

Felicia Day has also been criticised for pandering to fans. She is obscenely gorgeous, to the extent that I hate just looking at her because my envy runs that deep, and she is fully aware of how adorable and desirable she is to her fans. I’d be tempted to join the critics who say she’s just cashing in on lonely nerds, but really, very honestly, I kind of wish I had her talent and the guts it must’ve taken to just go for something she obviously loves to do. At the end of the day, the girl gets to do and be surrounded by what she loves (and people who love her) and she is making a living out of it. I’d be lying if I said that any disdain I have for her isn’t born mostly out of envy.

To this day, I engage in gaming and geekery talk where I can find it, not because I crave to be the centre of attention as a female who loves that stuff, but because I genuinely love talking about it . It’s shit I understand and devote my time to – and I love it – so why wouldn’t I want to talk about it?

That said, I also love talking about OTHER things, too. Maybe there’s where more legitimate criticism can be found. While Felicia Day may be lauded for her achievements or insulted for her shameless attention whoring depending on where you sit, from my point of view, the only criticism I really have of her (and similar lady geeks) is that she presents as single-faceted. Being a geek can’t be all that there is to her, yet it’s all we see. She’s no longer a person with a broad range of complex interests (as we all are), she’s a product that has been designed to sell to a specific market.

And for my part, I don’t like the message that sends, and I believe that since the message won’t change until the market does, it’s up to us as individuals to decipher and decode that message into something a bit more productive for us as human beings.

Reflecting on the issue of famous she-geeks generally lends more to discussion than making a conclusive point, so I won’t even attempt the latter. But I will wrap up by saying that there is a difference between a product and a person. The people selling the product won’t tell you that difference, because they want you to believe the product IS the person, making her that much more desirable.

But we, as individual consumers, can be the masters of our own minds. Surely we can remind ourselves (as women and men) of that difference and recognize when we are seeing the product rather than the person. Surely that is more straight-up useful than worshipping or vilifying someone who, is basically doing something — successfully! — that most of us would not-so-secretly love to be doing too.

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  • Markovian_Process

    I appreciate the openness of this article. I’ve found all your articles here fascinating, since gender in games is a topic I oft think about.

    I must confess I am generally not familiar with the women of games. Felicia Day, I was familiar with because I have friends who watch The Guild, but I never watched it myself. I only became familiar with her because I love Bioware games and she was in Dragon Age 2, the same can be said about Chobots. If she wasn’t in Mass Effect 3 I would still have no idea who she was. The Frag Dolls… well I’ve heard the name kicked around before, but I must admit, I have no idea who or what they actually are.

    So that being the case, my ability to comment on this article is ultimately limited.

    When you talk about how these women market themselves, your talking about them building a brand. It may be problematic, but I’m not sure any one cares about how Felicia Day feels about International Politics or that she has an interest in baking pastries (For example), it’s not part of her brand. What she has is ultimately celebrity. And I know for me, no mater how much he may yammer on about what ever, I will never care about Bono as anything more then a musician. In fact, when I see him on TV talking about this cause or that cause I tend to roll my eyes, and then change the channel. The same applies to all actors. I really don’t care what Brad Pitt or Samuel L. Jackson have to say on anything other then acting or movie making. Either one of them may have to solution to world piece, I just dont want to hear about it. It’s not part of there brand. That’s not to say that you cant market yourself as more then your career, but you need to back it up. My favorite song writer is Greg Graffin of Bad Religion. I will cling to anything he says, even when he’s wrong, but his brand is both the fact that he is a musician and incredibly fucking smart (when he’s not on tour he teaches at Cornell University.) Anyways, I digress. Felicia Day, and Jessica Chobot and presumably the Frag Dolls are professional geeks. And I’m not sure them showing only that face to the world is any more unhealthy then it is for Bono to be just a musician, or Samuel J Jackson to be just an actor.

    Looked at from a different angle. I sell tile and hardwood floor for a living. When I talk to customers, it doesn’t mater that I’m a feminist, that I love all things science related (Especially evolutionary biology) that I attended one of the premier art schools in North America, or that I am a trans/gay rights activist. All they need to know about me is that I know how to lay tile, and that I can advise them on what colours will look good with there wall. Is that unhealthy? I would say not.

    • http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/ Kyle Carpenter

      This idea of “branding” is itself pretty problematic though – what you’re talking about is in particular the aspects of one’s self that can be sold. The question that emerges here is “who is buying?” Or, perhaps more pointedly, who is perceived as buying by those marketing?

      The picture that is painted is consequently that males (okay, straight white males) are “buying,” or in the role of he who desires, and geek celeb women are in the role of “selling,” i.e. desired. This naturalizes, through the language of the market, an incredibly fraught gender dynamic that is revealed time and time again to be false, or at least simplified to the point of falsification.

      I suppose the question is then – why do we see this gender dynamic reoccurring at the level of the market, of “self branding”? Why does attractiveness define the possibilities for sale rather than talent or intelligence (Bono and Gaffin, as per your examples).

      I certainly appreciate your comment, and hope this doesn’t come across as lecturing. I just wanted to suggest that perhaps to say that “it’s just the same as for males” ignores the differences, and difficulties, of gender dynamics that should be examined in their complexities.

      • Markovian_Process

        My implication wasn’t to say “It’s just for males” and I actually congratulate you on calling me out on my casual sexism there. That I failed to name a female example in a conversation of gender politics doesn’t look well on me.

        I was more just trying to point out that this is just how the world works and that it goes well beyond gender politics. The complaints you raised are valid, but they are systemic issues that go go beyond just gender culture.

  • Mitch North

    What i took from this article is that ‘lonely nerds’ give females attention due to the fact that they are lonely and nerds and i’m going to infer that the reason for this is because for some reason they find it easier to communicate not in-person. It satisfies their innate desire to attempt to attract a member of the opposite sex, in a completely unproductive way i might add, in a way that is quasi-related to gaming. The other thing i took is that females love the attention and use it manipulatively in order to progress themselves in someway, whether it be in the case of better self-esteem as per your case or through manifesting a career by selling themselves as adorations to a male perspective like Jessica Chobot and Felicia Day. That’s it really. Personally i don’t think it represents either gender well but females come across terribly in this article. Empowering by virtue of being manipulative.

    I would have liked to article to go into why you believe this ‘buying’ into the female image exists within a virtual environment and whether or not you think we can expand this to society as a whole (personally i think we can given the attraction of the female image in any medium). The idea of mirroring what we find in society as a whole and what we find within gaming communities seems to be the idea but it never really gets into it.

  • http://twitter.com/crazypantsmeg Megan Townsend

    I think Vivienne is being very honest about how she responded to the initial attention she received. You see, within a patriarchal system (and both women and men participate in this system much to their detriment) women are taught that our self-presence is contingent on male attention. Not to be noticed sexually is to not to be at all. When Vivienne comments that she liked attention, she’s also explaining how she was lonely, like many of the men she was speaking to online. The loneliness and alienation from self that patriarchy causes in people is very much real and across gender lines. She’s also highlighting how such a patriarchal system hurts us and makes us less than human.

    I think Vivienne wants to comment on the system where women are first defined as women, then by their role in geek culture, rather than defined as people. She’s critiquing this system and making it problematic. To quote Vivienne, “And for my part, I don’t like the message that sends, and I believe that since the message won’t change until the market does, it’s up to us as individuals to decipher and decode that message into something a bit more productive for us as human beings”. That’s her thesis. I do believe that you missed it. The repulsion you feel for women in this article is a repulsion for the system in which society currently operates. Women like Chobots and Day are considered fetishized objects of geek worship that operate as marketing tools and objects.