Ever since I was little and the gaming bug bit me I was lucky enough to embrace an entirely different world to the one I lived in. From fantasy and adventure to horror and strategy, videogames have always been a big part of who I am and we all have unforgettable moments that have shaped us while playing games. 

Not even my closest of friends knew how obsessed I could get over a game’s story and not even my sister could understand why I cried over a character’s death or cheered when one returned. Or how I would rush to the bathroom like the speed of sound and rush back to ensure I never missed a second when my dad was playing. I do sometimes regret that people never got to see the real me. The girl that watched way to much anime, superhero movies and played WAY too many video games. 

But that was how it was when I was growing up. As I’ve matured, I’ve seen how the industry and the culture around gaming has changed. A lot of it is great! Like really great!! But there has been a shadow growing within the gaming community and it only seems to keep getting bigger and bigger. To be blunt, it’s putting a lot of younger girls off of finding the joy of gaming. It’s making them afraid to take the leap and potentially discover a whole new world of storytelling and adventure.

And with today’s standards who wouldn’t be afraid? I mean with unrealistic beauty standards making their way into the gaming community and portraying “girl gamers” as only being beautiful, sexy and nerdy. To me that’s something I’ll never be, I have bad skin, I eat a lot and will probably never be skinny and to top it all off, sometimes I can be socially awkward. If I was a young girl today who had never played games before and saw all of this I don’t think I would have picked up a controller. I’d be far too worried that I didn’t “fit the image” and that I would be looked down on. 

Now I’m not saying gamer girls can’t be pretty, but come on people, first we get told we can’t play video games because we are girls and then someone decides that we can’t play video games if we dont look like a sexy bombshell that makes people drool.

To be honest, I can’t aim at all and it’s something I’ll keep saying over and over again. If we ended up in a zombie apocalypse PLEASE do not hand me anything that requires me to aim because I will not be able to cover you if needed. Does this mean that I don’t play FPS games? No, I do and I really enjoy it. It’s all about finding other players who are willing to teach you and help you improve and if you don’t, they simply laugh at you and you can laugh at them. That in my opinion is what makes video games fun. Not whether I’m a girl or not.