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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1977 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 9, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It's also my observation that women don’t get more abuse than anyone else when they play games. They don’t get more harassed than men on the internet in general either (if anything it is the opposite), and this finding has been replicated when looking across the board, even in samples which are most likely to attract online criticism like politicians and journalists too. And men don't just experience relatively harmless acts - serious online abuse is also more likely to be directed at men by the way. But people are much more sensitive to harsh comments and threats directed at women than they are when directed at men, who are generally expected to be able to take it and/or dish back; we have no such expectation that women do so.

"Online harassment" in general is one of these very many areas wherein women actually receive preferential treatment but the popular consensus somehow seems to believe it's the opposite based on what people find emotionally salient. Women really dislike being in male spaces wherein they will sometimes be treated like men (bullying and threats will be slightly adapted based on gender to optimise for mental damage regardless of who they are insulting, but the phenomenon isn't distinct), and many men take offence on behalf of female dignity when women are treated like men too. And as soon as any large number of women enter a space, the norms quickly adapt to cater to feminine sensibilities. I've seen these attempts at social enforcement in real-time, too - I was once in a close-knit private server populated almost entirely by men, and the only woman in there was a girlfriend of one of the men who would routinely storm out of calls in response to any off-colour joke (as an aside they later broke up and she started dating one of his friends in the server immediately after, which spelled the end of the whole thing).

EDIT: added an extra sentence. I will also leave this very angry, drunk-narrated two part video here. Part 1, and part 2. Bit vitriolic, but I agree with it.

I agree broadly. I do note that there was one incident where one of these weirdos was incredibly persistent with one of my friends — tried to find her on Skype and sext her, etc — which was genuinely extremely offputting. And I think the one case where women do get more unwanted attention than men is in this arena.

But also (women broadly) don’t want to be treated like the boys so what can you do

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