Women on the Mindcrack server

[rills]

So, I was watching the podcast today, and again the question of female server members came up. (Timestamp) This is not the first time that the guys have discussed this issue, but, to my knowledge, it is the most they have ever said on the topic. Essentially, their response was along the lines of "Yes, we want girls, but there's a lot of pressure that would be on these girls and not many people are willing or qualified to step up to that plate." (But please go listen to the podcast linked above; the question is answered in about 3 minutes, so it's not that much to get through!)

What I was wondering is, given that many members of this community seem to be female, what is your opinion of adding a female to the lineup?



Personally, I'm hugely in favor. As a female, I have a different perspective on most gaming issues than a lot of the guys do - for instance, it would be great to see a female LPer address the difficulty of, say, adding a facecam to their twitch streams. There's obvious possible consequences for anyone who does this, but a female faces some unique challenges, such as being accused of using her gender to get ahead. I feel as if female members of the Mindcrack community could help dispel some of these awful stereotypes by, y'know, being visibly female and still respected in a community including prominent male gamers.

The guys on the server also sometimes rub me the wrong way (lol) as a female viewer, I must admit. Even in this podcast, there are some crude implications when this question is asked, and while I'm by no means trying to say that sex jokes are terrible and wrong, I would've liked to see the question more seriously addressed, I guess? Like, for two minutes, they could have taken the time to give us a straight answer about what is a serious topic, without badgering each other like the Angry Women Brigade was going to bite their head off for something as minor as awkward phrasing. As for other instances of unfortunate behavior, look no further than that excellent discussion of BDubs that was posted a couple of weeks ago...

The last thing that kind of got to me was the (somewhat loaded) talk of finding someone that fits with the community. The server is definitely a community, yes, but each member so far brings something unique to the table. They range in age from 15-40, live all around the world, have vastly different life experiences, and very different personalities. Hell, Guude even used to dislike GenerikB, apparently. The only common thread seems to be that they're gamers who also enjoy LPing, and through this mutual interest, they've become friends. So I guess I'm saying I hope that possible female members are being considered at that same bar, because I'd hate to see a potentially great member passed over because her LPing style was somewhat different than, I dunno, whatever is expected.

And my sympathy goes out to those nervous about potential backlash - it's got to be rough, realizing that you won't get the same subscriber jump that a new guy would get, and you'll have to deal with a huge new influx of rude comments, and everything else that would happen. It does make me wonder if Beef's idea of introducing a group of female LPers all at once might be a good idea: 2-3 new players would diffuse some of the attention (though that is arguably not so great) and kind of force the community to realize female gamers are here to stay. The worst possible thing would be for one woman to get added, be overwhelmed by trolls, quit due to harrassment, and then no females ever get added again to avoid another scandal.

Anyway yeah sorry for the long rambly, I've just gotten myself back into sorts after a two week busy period and I've got a lot of feelings about this issue that I can actually talk about now! But I'm genuinely interested to hear other opinions on this, especially since we have the luxury of an actual discussion in this little community.

Disclaimer: I am an inherently flawed human being and may have said something terribly wrong at some point above. If I have in any way offended you or said something awful, please please be kind in pointing this out because I assure you it was not intended.



Also another possible angle to take with this: how do you think female server members would change the Mindcrack shipping community? Would it become larger? More mainstream? Or something else?

Comments

[lurkey_dfw]

I feel the same really, in that I think it would be cool to have female gamer(s?) on the server. Though I'm not surprised that they've already had potential members shy away because of how overwhelming the whole thing is. I've seen firsthand that the gaming/minecraft community can still be incredibly sexist against females sometimes, which really sucks. :\

I guess in general I'm not too worried about how a girl would fit in with the guys on the server, mostly how the community itself would take it. Whoever was potentially added would have to be a brave person, haha.

The shipping topic, that's something I feel strangely about, not sure if I can even explain my feelings accurately about. I don't think I would like it if the shipping community grew because people started shipping someone -just- because they were a female. It's not that I wouldn't be ok with shipping involving girls, I just feel there would be people who did it for the wrong reasons and that seems kinda ..mehh to me for lack of better words. Though I guess that happens with any fandom really. OK now I'm rambling, sorry, sorry.

[nokoiyuh]

I'm always on the jump for any new members- If I don't like a member by their introduction video, I'll end up liking them along the way. So I don't mind any girls on the server. I trust Guude and the rest of the mindcrackers' judgement on who they think will improve the community.

2-3? I don't know how to feel about that many people jumping all at the same time. I remember when Anderz, Zisteau & Pyrao all joined within 2 weeks or so. People, IIRC were complaining about how so many people were joining and it gave some people whiplash.

I think if a girl joined, the first girl would have to beat over the trolls and such. Them maybe any other girl after that could join without the same inevitable backlash.

From a shippy POV, it probably would in most cases. I guess people who aren't really into the guyXguy thing could join in?(Even though we have Six's female versions of the guys as well) I think it might grow larger, at least with comments like "Go ask X out, Y!" Unless the person was around the same age as some of the guys. You wouldn't want to ship 15 year old girls around with adult men.

So yeah, sorry for any mistakes above; I'm quite rambly as well. I tried to answer all the questions but it's quite scattered, hahah.

[isi]

Etho and Doc were added at the same time as well, though I see what you're saying. The server has grown so much both in terms of how many members there are as well as their popularity as a whole, so there would be more backlash now adding more than one person at a time. Still, I think it might be worth it if it could diffuse the "omg a gurl" backlash.

[rills]

I joined the Mindcrack fandom when Zisteau was added to the server, so I wasn't aware of prior backlash to a group all joining at once. It is a tricky question - I think Beef was right that it would diffuse the tension and make the new members feel more at ease, but on the other hand, there could be that community backlash, and each new member might feel a little miffed that they won't be getting as many new subs as the average new member.

It honestly might be best brought up with potential female members, so they could just vote on what they want to do.

[isi]

Not getting as many new subs isn't really the fear here. Any "good" LPer would tell you they're not doing it for the sub count anyway. It's the potential harassment you touch on in the main post, which is maddeningly pervasive in most male dominated spaces where a woman dares to have a presence. You might have heard about the debacle surrounding the Feminist Frequency kickstarter a while back, which got a ton of press and still gets cited as a classic example of hostility toward women in the gaming community. Or to use an even closer example, how Pause almost stopped bringing his girlfriend on his videos to do "Triple A Mondays" because people kept making inappropriate comments about them. It's freaking scary the vitriol people have sometimes for no justifiable reason, but the ideology behind that kind of behavior isn't going to go away unless we challenge it by having more women present.

[rills]

I understand what community backlash a female LPer would face, and I apologize if I have understated it. But I do have to disagree about the sub thing, at least for myself - if I joined an LP server with a group and noticed that I wasn't getting as many new viewers as predicted, I would probably be a bit upset. Even many good LPers are looking to expand their audience and reach a larger community. While I wouldn't expect an earnest LPer to collect subs like baseball cards, I also wouldn't be surprised if they opted to take a course that maximized potential exposure - hence why this is a complex issue. There are compelling arguments to be made for introducing female members as either a group or as individuals.

[isi]

Still, I don't see Guude adding anyone if he thinks they're just in it for the popularity. But I think I see where you're coming from. It might be harder starting out if you're added with two or three other people, but I hope anyone in that situation wouldn't get discouraged. There would continue to be opportunities to expand after the initial reactions to having new people die down.

[theropod]

I think with the way they were talking about the dynamic changing, they want someone who isn't going to come in and suddenly everything changes. They'd want someone who can come in and feel at home with everyone and who everyone feels like they can talk to. The thing about the guys is how easy they all get on generally. They'll drop into each others videos and livestreams and they chat over skype even when not recording. They aren't looking for someone to just make videos on the server. They're essentially looking for a friend.

When you're as big as they are, looking for someone who doesn't want to just see you as a spring board is going to be hard. That's already a narrow pool of people. Then they have to narrow it down to those they can honestly see themselves playing with and chatting to and just having fun with. And then after that, they want a female LPer.

I only watch one female LPer, and that's Cleo, and truth be told I don't really watch her minecraft videos. I was interested in the other games, I don't really enjoy watching her own server videos, not really sure why. Maybe because they're few and far between and lots changes each time?

Regardless, it's a tough decision and I don't blame either the guys or the potential girls from being slow about it or being worried. A few girls at once would be great for the girls but no matter what, they'll be treated poorly t least at the start because some viewers are just utterly cruel for no reason what so ever.

Shipping? I ship because I enjoy the mesh of personalities, which is generally why I don't write porny stuff with anything (that and I don't feel I'm good at it anyway), so I guess I'd only ship if people just clicked.

[isi]

Really, I'm just happy someone made the "binders full of women" joke on the reddit thread. Anyway.

Short answer: Yes, of course it'd be fantastic to see more gender diversity. I hold the same opinion for any place that continues to have this kind of gender disparity.

Longer answer: I'm in two minds about how to properly approach the various concerns about this topic. On one hand, I think it's great to bring up these issues and be aware that the server is lacking female members and acknowledge that there are concerns behind adding one that would be challenging for any hypothetical lady member to deal with. It's important to talk about these issues before you can move past them. On the other hand, like one of the points they brought up in the podcast, by this point there's so much weight surrounding the possibility of female members that, by making such a big deal about it, it drives away potential additions who don't want to deal with that kind of pressure. I still think it's important to challenge the reasons behind why this is, but it sometimes feels like by giving so much attention to it, we're making it a bigger deal than it might have been otherwise. Like, consider the fanserver. There's already a good handful of female players there, and as far as I can tell, no one thinks them any different from anyone else. Granted, I am not familiar with the dynamics on the fanserver, obviously not being on it myself. I'll leave it to Six if she wants to chip in on the conversation.

There's also the issues of how the group dynamic might change if there was a female member, both among the Mindcrackers and with the audience. Like, say Pause leaves obsidian wangs on my property (to use myself as an extremely hypothetical example). Would he even feel any different wang-ifying my builds knowing I'm female? What should my response be? Should I retaliate by leaving blocky representations of female genitalia on his property (which is something I would honestly consider doing in that situation)? What kind of viewer backlash would there be if I did that? Should I be prepared to have tiresome debates about double standards in the field of female sexuality? Should female members less willing to participate in sexual humor be prepared to face criticism even if they don't?

[rills]

I love your questions about the possible group dynamic shift, which I think is what I was trying to vocalize when talking about how a person might fit within the group. Like, is the obsidian dick thing something that could act as a subtle deterrent to adding female members? In other words, the server is a boy's club, and is there a fear of losing that environment by adding a female member? Hell, how would people react if someone was pranked with obsidian vulvae? Would that cross the line into 'uncomfortable,' for either viewers or server members, that the dick pranks do not? It's interesting to think about! Of course, I'd love to see a someone with some spunk place images of vulvae as a prank, now. We already have the pattern in Nebris' place... ;)

[placeblocks]

Like everyone else, I'd love to see some women on the server, but I totally understand the apprehension behind jumping into it. To avoid echoing what everyone else has said, I wanted to touch on one other issue that I recall Guude (I think) mentioning a while ago: he didn't want to add someone just because they were a woman. There was never any attempt to NOT have women on the server, it just so happened that the people who won contests were all male, and later on all the prominent LPers they encountered were also men, and the people they invited/recommended were men.

And that's because the Minecraft community has a really, ridiculously high ratio of male to female LPers. I know of quite a few female LPers, (and far, far more who just play Minecraft without recording). But with very few exceptions, none of them are especially "stand out" players. Granted, I have absolutely NOT seen every female LPer out there, but I feel like I know most of the big ones, and what little I know of some of them, I feel like most of them don't "fit" with Mindcrack. There are a lot of smaller channels with female LPers that I think COULD, but they're in the "nothing special" category, and one wonders why you'd invite a "nothing special" female LPer over one of the dozen "really amazing" male LPers out there who'd also really like to be on the server. I don't want a woman on the server just to have a woman on the server. People can argue that there are "small" guys on the server now, but let's face it--if people like Shree, Adlington or Myhkol weren't already on the server, there's very little chance they'd ever be invited on now. They're all great people and good-to-decent LPers, but they're all in the "nothing special" category.

What the world needs is a female Doc or Etho or Zisteau or something. It really needs a trail-blazing woman who has built her success on her builds, or inventions or legendary map play throughs or something, (and who doesn't have crazy drama somewhere along the way), and I'm just not sure she exists yet. Sadly, right now, the woman has basically do everything Etho does, but backward and in heels, with his same soft unassuming, polite nature to really cut it. She's got to be as good as the top-ten guys on the server or there's just no logic in inviting her other than "we need a woman on the server."

I think maybe the closest out there right now would be Two Girls, One Minecraft (and you'd have to invite them as a pair, and being a pair might help with some of the other issues they'd face being women on the server), but what I've seen of them makes me dislike their gaming style, and as such I'm really not sure they'd fit well with Mindcrack. And, just having seen their streams and the comments they get, it would absolutely 100% chance the entire server dynamic, even if the majority of the guys on the server never talked to them. (For instance, Guude would just have to start banning people who made inappropriate comments on his channel about them, and they'd have to do the same on their own channels. It'd possibly be a never-ending-battle to ban the assholes. Guude would have to put out lengthy "This sort of behavior isn't okay, guys" videos, etc. and every day they'd get another 1000 new subs per Mindcracker who hadn't learned the rules and were doing it all over again. Which isn't to say this SHOULDN'T happen, because people who make those sort of comments need to be told they're not okay. But I can completely see why Guude and the rest aren't ready to jump in to that yet, and especially why they don't want to put themselves through it for a "nothing special" LPer verses one who is going to bring something Mindcrack. If they're going to put that much effort into defending and supporting her, she's gotta be bringing something special to the server beyond "it's a girl!")

I think it will happen one day. The rate Mindcrack is expanding, I think it may not even be that long before it happens, but I feel like it isn't time yet.

[isi]

I'm at a point where I think if any of the "well known" female Minecrafters were going to get on, it would have happened already. Ever since PlayOnCon, I think that when/if it happens, it's going to be an unknown, like how no one heard of Eepblah until PlayOnCon, but I've more recently started checking out her livestreams (she did a Sims 3 livestream where she made a bunch of the Mindcrackers and it was pretty amusing) and she could be someone I enjoy watching on a regular basis. It's not that unknowns are necessarily "nothing special." Maybe they just haven't found their stride or whatever, and if Guude happens to see potential in anyone like that, I'm willing to give that benefit of the doubt. But I agree; he's not going to add a woman just for the sake of having a woman. It's gotta be for the same reason he adds anyone else. The gender isn't a deciding factor.

[damnreddit]

I'm late to the discussion as usual, but I have so many problems with the idea that a female LPer would have to be something extraordinary to have a chance of being acceptable. And pretty much with the whole idea of "preserving the dynamic", even. Those things are just recipes for making excuses for no one ever being found who fits the bill at all, IMO.

First -- there may very well not be any available/willing female LPers out there at the same level as some of the geniuses on Mindcrack. There may be, but there is no guarantee. This is absolutely nothing against women, it's simply statistics. When you have a very large group and a very small group doing the same thing, simple math says the large group is going to disproportionately dominate at both extremes of the talent spectrum. That is, if 5% of LPers are women, it's probable just from the way statistics work that even fewer than 5% of the very top-notch (and very worst, but nobody cares about that) LPers are female. (I have had to make this argument against misogynistic male chess players so many times ...)

Second, the server itself hardly is restricted to male geniuses. I don't know BTC well, but at first glance he doesn't appear to be anything extraordinary as an LPer. Avidya is wonderful and I love him, but same thing. Ditto Millbee, ditto Anders, ditto Pyro -- going back to March or April the only additions I'd put in that league are GenerikB and Zisteau. A woman would not have to be the female Etho to fit in just fine.

As for preserving the dynamic -- yes, it's going to change in some ways probably, unless the woman turned out to be a Kurt or a Pyro who hardly interacted with anyone else. But talking about whether or not obsidian dicks would still go over well is sort of a straw man, isn't it? Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. But not even all the men on the server enjoy sexual humor (Pakratt, anyone?), so that should hardly be an issue, either.

I just feel like everybody's making too much of a big deal of it and it's only serving to create additional barriers where they don't have to exist. Find someone with a good LP and a thick skin and a sense of humor -- that's all it should take.

[isi]

I like your approach. I get the nagging feeling sometimes that I've been overthinking some of these things, so I think I'll just things happen until perhaps there is a girl on the server and just see what does or does not become an issue from there.

[bookworm2692]

I would really like to have a female on the server - it might just be because of my nature to prove that girls are better than boys (this started because it was "accepted" that boys were better, and I didn't like that). Anyway, the point is, I don't know of any female LPers... In fact, only me, my sister, her friend, and one of two of my friends, are the only females I know of who /play/ minecraft (but probably a lot of you guys do as well). The point I'm trying to make is, there are hardly any female LPers out there (that I know of), so it must be hard to find someone, right? I'd really like to watch a female, maybe just coz... Idk. Can any of you recommend a female LPer for me to watch?

EDIT: I have just found a female LPer to watch... None other than our very own Blue!