I found this online, and I realize it's been a while since I posted, so this here's a big one. Things like this have been circulating on Tumblr for a while now, but this particular one was one that found on
the Border House, a community blog that describes itself as, "It's a blog for those who are feminist, queer, disabled, people of
color, transgender, poor, gay, lesbian, and others who belong to
marginalized groups, as well as allies." It's a good website; I've got it bookmarked and expect ti to appear on the sidebar soon. I'm not a huge fan of video games but I have the genres I like; I'm usually a simulationist fan. I loved the
WipEout series even though I've only played
2097/XL and
Wip3out. I loved all of the
SimCity series (I would often create my own history to go with the cities and everything), and I was huge fan of
Star Wars: Battlefront, Rise of Legends, Medieval: Total War and a handful of other games. One of the reasons I prefer writing and table top games to video games is because I can create my own stories, with my own characters and my own themes and issues that I want to deal with. Don't get me wrong - I'm not about to knock vidya games - but the medium acts more as a constraint for my creativity than it does an aid (although, that hasn't stopped me from "borrowing" concepts and ideas from video games in the past; in fact, one of the half-dozen novel projects I have floating around in my head was inspired by
Wipeout, but writing about races is really challenging because speed is a hard illusion to keep when writing).
Despite not being a huge fan of video games, video game culture, table-top game culture, and card game culture often overlap; a member of one is usually a member of one of the other two (I say usually because I'm that outlier). What affects one usually affects the other two. Furthermore, on the periphery, one usually finds the speculative fiction community, a community I belong to in the same way I belong to the transhumanist community. So there's an web of interconnection between these different communities, and those who aren't part of them will often make the mistake of assuming that they're all the same thing. One of the major problems that I've outlined before for the gaming community is sexism, and to the same degree, racism and homophobia. Because these form a spectrum, rarely will you find someone who isn't one or more of these things. You'll be hard pressed to find "just a sexist", because odds are, they're likely a homophobe and racist, too. These kinds of people form a notable segment of the video game, table-top game, card game, speculative fiction, and comic book communities. Because these communities are diversifying slowly, with more females, more transfolk, more gay people, and more marginalized individuals in general, becoming involved, these privileged white boys who are the "face" of the so-called blanket term "nerd culture" have become more vocalized. And the way they've become more vocal is very reminiscent of the way that the South was vocal during Desegregation; i.e., not at all productive and prone to using derailing techniques. That's where this "bingo" sheet comes in at; it's a list of sexists, misogynistic, and homophobic things that privileged white boy gamer/nerds often say in response to attempts to diversify their hobby. For the hell of it, I'm going to respond to the points on the card, explaining why each is bad. I believe that if you're just learning, there's no reason to shout you down. Understand, though, there's a lot of people who believe that it's the job of the marginalized to teach them about their privilege in society; when in reality they don't want to learn at all, and are doing it just to derail the conversation. Or they come bearing their privilege and dismiss what others have to say, rather than listening to what they have to say.
So, here's the bingo card. While this is designed for the gaming community, you can use this anywhere, any time, in any discussion, be it politics or what have you, by swapping a few things out.
