Interview - Zombiegrub - SC2, Casting, Fun - Page 2

I wonder whether we're really helping the female cause by "protecting" them and pushing a "don't be mean to girls" agenda. Online bullying isn't gender exclusive. I regularly get told to kill myself. Perhaps they'd tell me to stay in the kitchen if they thought I was female. Perhaps they'd tell me I was a fat fuck if they thought I was fat. Maybe they'd tell me to get a life if they thought I played too many games.

What seems sexist to me is to look at those insults and start a crusade over the one targeted at females. A slap doesn't hurt a woman more than it does a man, neither do insults. So why are we so eager to ride our white horses into battle to protect the maidens?

I was bullied as a kid, white male, tall, good looking (by society's standards), good at sports. Insecure also, combined with my niceness that could only mean I was gay. And so people called me gay and I was offended because at that age being called gay was some serious shit. I couldn't fathom that people would purposely say means things to me while I tried so hard to be nice. Then one day there was this other guy in my year, similar to me plus freckles. He didn't partake in bullying others and was generally a nice person, a group of guys called him gay in passing. He stopped, smiled and said, yeah, you want some? That day I learned.


In male culture (and I believe human culture in general) everyone is subject to bullying. It's not as much about having the right arbitrary physical attributes as it is about your reaction to provocation. Bullying is a way of improving ones' social status by means of pushing others down. People naturally bully because gaining a higher social status has been proven to be a useful evolutionary trait. The wrong way to look at bullying would be to see it as something personal. For me to conclude that I was targeted because I am <insert attribute> would be me giving way too much credit to the malicious intent of my bullies. I wasn't bullied because those kids hated me or because I had an attribute that deserved it. Bullying is simply a human behaviour and I was the easiest target.


In the same vein we shouldn't conclude females get bullied because they're female. Rather they're bullied because people bully and being female is the easiest distinction to make in an online game. The movement against sexism is only proportional to the insecurity associated with the female gender and I can't help but find it embarassing that we're collectively so offended by what is essentially a form of school yard bullying.

Everyone gets provoked, it's your reaction that makes the distinction between being a victim (fugly freckles) and I want to sit on your face freckles.