Gamer Chick: Difference between revisions

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One thing worthy of note is that a female character playing games doesn't automatically make her a gamer chick as per the mould. In order to qualify, she should have at least one of the traits mentioned above and have the fact that she plays games be a major character trait. If heavy emphasis is given to both the fact that she plays games and that she's female, it probably counts.

This has become a [[Discredited Trope]] as of recently. With recent trends [http://techie-buzz.com/social-networking/social-gaming-stats-infographic.html suggesting females as outnumbering male gamers] (though it is mostly due to the surge in social media games such as [[FarmVille]] and such stats not distinguishing casual and "hardcore" gaming), it has become almost offensive to portray female gamers in this fashion. It doesn't help that this trope often tends to evoke [[Straw Feminist|Straw Feminism]] both in the character's actions and the implications of their presence. As such, most modern fiction won't play this trope completely straight any more. This carries over to online fora, where real-life girl gamers attempting to attract attention by referring to their gender is generally met with a disinterested eye-roll except in the most socially maladjusted fora where it is met with both excitement by some and a LOT of hostility by others.

This has become a [[Discredited Trope]] as of recently. With recent trends [https://web.archive.org/web/20121221115314/http://techie-buzz.com/social-networking/social-gaming-stats-infographic.html suggesting females as outnumbering male gamers] (though it is mostly due to the surge in social media games such as [[FarmVille]] and such stats not distinguishing casual and "hardcore" gaming), it has become almost offensive to portray female gamers in this fashion. It doesn't help that this trope often tends to evoke [[Straw Feminist|Straw Feminism]] both in the character's actions and the implications of their presence. As such, most modern fiction won't play this trope completely straight any more. This carries over to online fora, where real-life girl gamers attempting to attract attention by referring to their gender is generally met with a disinterested eye-roll except in the most socially maladjusted fora where it is met with both excitement by some and a LOT of hostility by others.

Almost guaranteed to show up in a [[Two Gamers on a Couch]] series. In fact, you can probably have a "Start to Gamer Chick" scale for measuring how cliche a series is (which is funny, considering the definitive series of this type, ''[[Penny Arcade]]'', went to great lengths to avoid this).

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* ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del]]'' Lilah fits this perfectly. The more stereotypically extreme traits have been softened over time, at least, but she's still a tomboy (her father even mentions this in the polite way), still highly confrontational, and still self-aware of being female on the tournament level. She even regularly defeats Ethan at several games.

* [[Enjuhneer]] has a plethora of Gamer Chicks running around.

* "''[http://fanboys-online.com/ Fanboys]''" has Sylvia. [http://fanboys-online.com/index.php?comic=229 The author has confessed that he originally intended to make the third main character a black male, but was afraid of being called racist if he made a single wrong move with him.]

* "''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131105222659/http://www.fanboys-online.com/ Fanboys]''" has Sylvia. [https://web.archive.org/web/20150426184653/http://fanboys-online.com/index.php?comic=229 The author has confessed that he originally intended to make the third main character a black male, but was afraid of being called racist if he made a single wrong move with him.]

* ''[[5 Color Control|Five Color Control]]'' has Jules. When she beats Elf Kid in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', he assumes she must be a guy after all, because girls don't play ''Magic''.

* The dreadful webcomic ''Gamer Chicks'' is all about this trope, if you couldn't figure it out from the title.