Alright, I’ll make a brief comment on this because I can already see this thread shooting off in a completely different direction with those comments. I can’t speak for your community, because I’m not from there, obviously, but where are you getting ‘white people have more power’ from? If we’re talking about history, sure, we’ve gotten the better end of the stick for a long, long time, but do you honestly believe we have some tangible advantage over them in an arcade, which is what this thread is about? As for women, we are generally stronger and taller than women, that’s a byproduct of biological makeup, not some white man run campaign to make women feel inferior. As for us garnering more respect, though, that is completely individual and I think it’s silly to put a generalization on that.
Once again, I’ll speak from the perspective of my scene and then you can compare it to your own, alright? In my scene, when you come to the arcade or come to a meet, you’re a welcomed stranger who is considered completely neutral, regardless of your skin colour or gender. We don’t look at people coming in and go ''Ew, a black guy just walked in!" or ''Ahahaha, guys, look! She’s out of the kitchen!" because that is disrespectful as fuck. But as soon as they sit down at a cabinet and start playing, we begin to form our opinions about them and mentally catalog what they play like, who they use and begin to form an opinion about their skill. Alongside that comes their personality, are they nice, confident, funny, quiet, etc? Then we mark that down, too, as any rational human would. When both of these come together, you get (in my experience) a baseline level that you start at and can ascend or descend from. Are you well respected and praised for being a mediocre Ryu player? No, and I won’t sugar coat it and say you are. But if you come in, mop up and have a generally fun to be around attitude, you’ll get props and be welcomed warmly. Where I think this supposed stigma about new players stems from is the OTHER person that walked in, the one with no experience with fighting games or arcades that sees friendly shit talking, people getting hype and most importantly, people getting props and respect for being a good player. They come in, do poorly and then wonder why people aren’t popping off or going ''Damn, that was a damn good match."
And why should we?
It isn’t bullying, it isn’t exclusion, hell, it isn’t singling somebody out. Do you want to know what it IS, though? It’s letting people be their own person and EARN their respect. When I rolled up with my ass Dudley and got dunked multiple times, I got pointers on matchups, the game in general and learned to improve. With time, I became one of the better players to frequent the arcade and people know and respect who I am, both because of my skill and my friendly personality. The only hard, frustrating part of the whole procedure was getting better, but because I got help from other people and put in the work, I got there in the end. And really, isn’t that the most satisfying part of fighting games? Getting over that hump? You may think I’m rambling about nonsense at this point, but look at all I’ve written so far and apply it to a woman (I say this because racism is absolutely not part of my slice of the FGC). She comes in, new player or not, and expects either hostility or preferential treatment because of what she has heard about the arcade scene. Most of the time, when a girl comes to the arcade and is a new player, she will get beaten a couple of times and get incredibly frustrated or joke about us not ‘going easy’ on a girl. Is that our fault? Goodness no, she is the one that is putting herself below us and saying that we should treat her as our lesser just because of her gender. Do I tone it down and give her a hand once I have noticed she is a bad player, though? You’re damn right I do, because I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Regardless of this ‘white male privilege’ horseshit that is sweeping the internet and gaming journalism right now, it hasn’t happened at all in any of the arcades I’ve gone to. What has happened, though, is people coming in with a preconceived notion of what we are going to be like which leads to kneejerk reactions whenever they get beaten or get given tips. THAT train of thought is more cancerous than any casual shit talking is every going to be, because it’s people secluding themselves because of something that probably won’t even happen! So instead of blaming their thinskin on our race, gender or upbringing, how about you stop coddling them and let women and these supposedly racially vilified minorities stand on their own feet and experience an arcade? How about people stop labeling our community as some cesspool of ignorance and hostility and instead focus on the positive and common traits, like people helping eachother get better at the game, welcoming them into an arcade family and having FUN for fuck sakes.
This might come off as pathetic or weird, considering how long I’ve been playing these games, but I consider this community my FAMILY. I was bullied, beaten and worse at my school and had the same paranoid mindset these people have for YEARS. Going to these arcades helped me prosper and brought me out of my shell, and now I can safely say that I’m a confident, happy individual with a lot to offer somebody, irregardless of their gender or race. And you know what? I never got that from any other gaming community, MOBAS, RTS, FPS? No way, they don’t have the closeness that our community does. So I ask all of the people bashing our community, please, PLEASE stop using YouTube, stream monsters and bad apples as a basis for our scene and come experience it yourself!
