Speaking for myself, my friends and I would do this as teens in '99 with a open protocol chat program called MIRC. This was chatting with strangers, and back then everyone opened conversations by asking "ASL?" which meant "Age, Sex, Location".
We figured out pretty early on that by saying "Female", you opened yourself up to a torrent of creepy come-ons, which to us was absolutely hilarious. Here was this complete stranger who did not have so much as a profile picture to go off of, either professing his undying love to you after a few messsages, or straight up using abusive and degrading language.
As an old millenial now, it's been pretty shocking to me how open Gen Z is about revealing numerous identifying details about themselves on social networks. I'm under 40 and we were raised to protect our privacy online, and this was when surveillance tech was in the stone ages.
I believe it is a mistake to think that. I have some notes from an undergraduate course in digital signal processing, dated 1979. There is a section written by someone from "Joint Speech Research Unit, Cheltenham" there can only be one organisation in that town interested in researching speech, good friends of No Such Agency.
But it's precisely that. The prevailing attitude is that, well, advertisers are going to track that you googled "ob/gyn prenatal care XYZ area" and hostiles are going to be able to doxx you anyway -- you have to take proactive measures to ensure privacy so fuck it.
I think it's a pretty broad hobby for early teenagers and children. For me personally, I just thought it was funny. It's also interesting, because you find out very fast that there's some guys just a little too into it when you say you're a 13yo girl. That I think informs your behaviour online also. It's a consequence-free way to learn about loads of impulses other people have, without the shadow of adult oversight.
When I was a young teen my friends and I picked female avatars on Runescape because we'd get free items from presumably male players. Sometimes you'd have to 'flirt back' but inevitably you'd get some good items, gold, and some creepy messages. As a 14 year old kid, it was hilarious to think about some sad older man flirting via Runescape gifts.
I had this happen as recently as probably 2007. I was in my 20s at the time, and it also happened in an online game (WoW). Albeit, my experience certainly wasn't deliberate.
For whatever reason, I've almost always preferred playing female characters, but it quickly became an eye-opener to me how creepy other dudes are online. One of the more abusive of these sorts (funny at the time until I realized it was a behavior he probably continued to actual woman) was when I'd gone in to help some RL friends who were stuck in a dungeon, and they had this random chap in the group. As soon as I joined up, he started hitting on me. I ignored it for a while until it started getting really strange, and I told him rather flatly:
"I'm a dude, dude."
He went ballistic and called me all manner of names, inferring that I must clearly be homosexual because I was playing a woman (not sure how that works). After launching into his insults, he quickly left the group. I think he tried harassing me via private messages, but I blocked him by that point.
It occurred to me sometime later that the fact he realized he was hitting on another guy must have challenged his sexuality and made him incredibly uncomfortable doubtless leading to his anger and lashing out.
I noticed this behavior dropped off dramatically in the years following, either because more dudes (like me) were playing female characters and the creepy sorts realized it was a minefield to take the risk against random other players who may or may not troll them. Or perhaps harassment of the sort started to be taken seriously by the moderation team as the number of women playing increased.
I have reasons to doubt the latter and suspect it's a combination of the former. I also suspect most of the harassment was probably concentrated in guilds by that point where I wasn't as likely to see it firsthand as I played largely with people I personally knew. Leastwise, the weird random encounters dropped off precipitously within about a year.
I am pretty certain it’s especially fun for kids to discover what men are into so that when they finally grow up they could be better in touch with their own needs
Poster said he was a teenager. For adolescences, everything around sexuality is interesting. Some of those men he was tricking were probably other teenagers pretending to be adults!
rchaud|5 years ago
We figured out pretty early on that by saying "Female", you opened yourself up to a torrent of creepy come-ons, which to us was absolutely hilarious. Here was this complete stranger who did not have so much as a profile picture to go off of, either professing his undying love to you after a few messsages, or straight up using abusive and degrading language.
As an old millenial now, it's been pretty shocking to me how open Gen Z is about revealing numerous identifying details about themselves on social networks. I'm under 40 and we were raised to protect our privacy online, and this was when surveillance tech was in the stone ages.
PoachedSausage|5 years ago
I believe it is a mistake to think that. I have some notes from an undergraduate course in digital signal processing, dated 1979. There is a section written by someone from "Joint Speech Research Unit, Cheltenham" there can only be one organisation in that town interested in researching speech, good friends of No Such Agency.
artificial|5 years ago
prionassembly|5 years ago
krageon|5 years ago
sbilstein|5 years ago
Zancarius|5 years ago
For whatever reason, I've almost always preferred playing female characters, but it quickly became an eye-opener to me how creepy other dudes are online. One of the more abusive of these sorts (funny at the time until I realized it was a behavior he probably continued to actual woman) was when I'd gone in to help some RL friends who were stuck in a dungeon, and they had this random chap in the group. As soon as I joined up, he started hitting on me. I ignored it for a while until it started getting really strange, and I told him rather flatly:
"I'm a dude, dude."
He went ballistic and called me all manner of names, inferring that I must clearly be homosexual because I was playing a woman (not sure how that works). After launching into his insults, he quickly left the group. I think he tried harassing me via private messages, but I blocked him by that point.
It occurred to me sometime later that the fact he realized he was hitting on another guy must have challenged his sexuality and made him incredibly uncomfortable doubtless leading to his anger and lashing out.
I noticed this behavior dropped off dramatically in the years following, either because more dudes (like me) were playing female characters and the creepy sorts realized it was a minefield to take the risk against random other players who may or may not troll them. Or perhaps harassment of the sort started to be taken seriously by the moderation team as the number of women playing increased.
I have reasons to doubt the latter and suspect it's a combination of the former. I also suspect most of the harassment was probably concentrated in guilds by that point where I wasn't as likely to see it firsthand as I played largely with people I personally knew. Leastwise, the weird random encounters dropped off precipitously within about a year.
greenshackle2|5 years ago
heavenlyblue|5 years ago
rat9988|5 years ago
justnotworthit|5 years ago
082349872349872|5 years ago