Quickies

Quickies: African Tropes, Racist Ice Cream Songs, and Gender-Switching in Games.

 

Mary

Mary Brock works as an Immunology scientist by day and takes care of a pink-loving princess child by night. She likes cloudy days, crafting, cooking, and Fall weather in New England.

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5 Comments

  1. My local ice cream truck plays “Turkey in the Straw”. Almost makes me glad I’m diabetic and lactose-intolerant. Bummer.

    Apparently the last day to listen to Hadfield’s “Space Oddity” was yesterday. Another bummer.

    I sympathize a little with the book cover designers having to create a visually arresting cover for a book they haven’t read set in a place they know little about, because I have to write promotional posts for my book club (coming soon, Mary, I promise!), but these covers seem lazy and “safe” to the core. I wonder if a single wildly successful book set in Africa with a fishing boat or a child soldier or a small detective agency on the cover would change the stereotype?

    The article about why men choose female avatars is a little depressing, too.

    Oh, well, 4 for 4 today. The Bruins will probably lose tonight, too.

  2. Regarding the question raised about why male gamers are more likely to gender bend than female gamers when the option is there, I suspect it has something to do with the fact that so many games only offer a male avatar.
    Female identifying gamers so often have to play as males as default, having the opportunity to select an avatar that is a (relatively) closer representation of the player is worth embracing for many.

    1. I’m glad you brought that up. For those who are gender-fluid or transgender, this can be an important way to express one’s inner feelings.
      I’d have liked to have heard whether or not any of the men identified as women personally or vice versa with the women as men.

    2. Yes, I dated a woman who self identified as female but hadn’t decided whether she wanted to change how she presented, so she used online games to try on different personas and see which one fit best. But there is a definite difference in the way someone who identifies as female plays a female avatar and someone who identifies as male playing a female avatar. If the article were to make a correction, that’s the one I think they need to make.

  3. I played Everquest back in the day and many of my friends went on to be WoW’rs. From personal experience I can say: men use female avatars because they are more likely to receive free in-game items. I’ve never seen a male gamer use a female avatar (when given the option) in a first person shooter, only in MMORPGs that allow character interaction.

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