So a few days back I was scrolling through Instagram (like I do all too frequently), when I came across a post from IGN, one of the more well known gaming and entertainment news sites. The post was a screenshot of a new PS4 theme celebrating pride month. The theme is all rainbow and says “For all the players”. It’s a cute sentiment and I always feel a warm excited tingle inside whenever the gay community is included in the gaming community , as LGBTQ+ are normally shunned or just disregarded by, if not the game developers, then for sure many of the players. So it felt nice to see 2 large companies (IGN and PS4) show their support for the other community to which I belong. My warm fuzzies were short lived however, as I noticed what the featured comment that exists just below the View all X,XXX comments button (where mine now exists) said,

@11holesju wrote “Keep this a gaming channel, opinions on other matters of life are not why you are followed”

I was slightly taken back, as for a brief moment I was lost in my joy and forgot I lived in 2018 America. But, to be fair to the author of this featured comment, it wasn’t all that bad. It didn’t bash LGBTQ+ or make an immature crude comment about something being “gay”. But there still was something there that didn’t sit right in my gut where the nice feelings were just moments ago. That feeling is what made me click that View all X,XXX comments button. Little did I know that the air of white straight male entitlement in the comment was just the beginning. It was if when I clicked the button, I opened a valve or broke the damn that held back the white male egocentrism essence and I became drenched in it. Drowned.

Now, I don’t want to say I was being naive or ignorant of the bigotry that exists in the world and in gaming, but in the same way you try to ignore the homeless man on the train diddling himself until you forget he is there, that is what I did. I forgot. I played multiplayer games with everyone on mute, not even wanting to take the chance to hear the word faggot come out of a 12 year olds mouth, and still did great in whatever game I was playing anyway. This wasn’t something I even did consciously. I have a hard enough time just existing as it is, I didn’t need a reminder of all the human beings in the world that either just wish I didn’t exist or wanted to make sure I knew that they were better than me, which seemed to hurt more. With the floodgates opened I began to swim in the muck.

@matt_cookie31 writes “Am I allowed to be a proud I’m a straight, white male? Oh wait no, that makes me a racist bigot…”

I read the comment and thought about what was happening. “How is this even relevant to the post in any way?” my gay brain thought. I then reread it and then that’s when it hit me, this person is probably also all too familiar with the #alllivesmatter hashtag. First off, this isn’t even about race, and secondly, no one said you can’t be straight and proud… You can make babies and further along the human race. That’s pretty cool. (Whether or not your child will be an asset or a bane to society I do not know.) You get to have BBQs and watch sports and live in the straight man culture that has been in every commercial since the dawn of time. But what on earth does that have to do with me? What does that have to do with the hate murders and social shunning of gay people since the foundation of America and organized religion? What does that have to do with the names I have been called behind my back and to my face because of the gender of the person I held hands with? What does that have to do with the fight for legal representation equal to that of everyone else? What does that have to do with choosing a female character in games JUST so I could feel a little represented as a child? What does that have to do with wanting to show the world that in spite of all the things that tried to destroy me because how I was born, I am still here. I will tell you. It doesn’t have a goddamned thing to do with it at all.

There is this entitlement and ownership that seems have been ingrained in many white straight men’s heads that everything (at least in America) was for them, including gaming. Partially, who can blame them? When was the last time you have seen a black or queer or disabled game developer in a position of power at a large game company, whom called the shots and made artistic choices? But more than that, the game developers answer to the publishers in the end. Look at the publishers, the ones who greenlight the thing in the first place, the ones with the pockets deep, the ones that are overwhelmingly white, straight, and male. I don’t what this to turn into the history of American businessmen, but white straight men have had the money to invest in projects that are created by those who look like them, and then targeted to those same kinds of people, then of course these white straight males are going to feel ownership. But as they say, sharing is caring. We have come into the sandbox and they don’t want to share their toys

So this became a theme and the comments kept coming. There were a few that varied on their homophobic slant saying that they were going to throw out their PS4 now, or that they think a entire month might be a bit much. There were also a few that supported the theme and voiced their excitement and others questioning the ignorance and hate in the comments.

Well my fuzzy pink sleeping mask was torn right off and I was immediately awake again. As I rubbed my eyes and gathered in my surroundings, I noticed that I wasn’t mad by what I was reading. There was still that same kind of heat as with anger, but this heat was focused, it was targeted. What I felt was passion. The passion to make games that are not for everyone and because of that they are for anyone. The passion to see coding and art and literature taught to all children regardless of color or socioeconomic upbringing. A passion for a big budget game to feature a gay romance that isn’t just a tucked away choice (which many even still get mad at). A passion to see games become something like theater or how television is becoming, a place where you come to experience something outside yourself and become more human because of it. A passion to show the world that no matter what anyone thinks, gaming is for all of us and no one can own it.