men play as women in video games, but i am a man and i do not play women in video games (if given the option)

the only conclusion i can draw from this is that i am a woman

this is how the transgenders get you

there’s simply no shot that a sizeable percentage of men who play girl characters aren’t eggs

very surprised to see the video not even mention this possibility

I think there’s a large degree of “this question is not nearly as important to me as it is to society” here. It’s very important to have an explanation for why you, a man, want to portray a woman in a fictional context up here in our culture.

But i don’t really care about that. That’s something other people care about a lot. I just made up this cool lady in my head and want to go be her while i murder things for a while.

I think there might also be some “the only way to not portray a toxic masculinity manchild in a lot of games is be a woman or an alien” , too. Like most shooters are made for a statistically average 24 year old American man and I am extremely not that and often find almost any other character more relatable than dudebro mc doodbroson.

I wonder if there isn’t an element of “if i’m portraying a woman i can also, for once, take off the cloak of fear and violence that i must otherwise carry around as a man in this society” thing going on. Cause that cloak is really fucking heavy. I don’t like wearing it. And sometimes in fictional spaces, by portraying a woman (or, in one notable case, a genderless pile of greasy rags with a katana sticking out of it that would sometimes do extreme violence :kenshi-ninja: on behalf of their friends) not so much bc i want to be a woman, but bc in that moment i want to escape from the weight and terror of being a man in our society. Idk gonna have to think about it. Bc what if the gender expression you dislike isn’t the internal self-conception, butt he horrible social, political, and economic realities that come with being assigned that gender? Like I don’t have strong feelings about being a man, but it is very definitely what “fits”. But i have very big feelings about being an American man and a white man and a straight man and a bunch of other kinds of man in this specific violent and awful culture, and i’m thinking that sometimes being not-a-man is a way to escape that burden of cultural horror, rather than a desire to not be a man. Damn, that sounds smart, i’ma have to work on that, i’ve been trying to figure out how to express that for a long time. I don’t want to be a man, not bc i want to be something else, but bc being a man in this society makes your a person who harms other people, even when you don’t mean to or are actively trying not to, and i don’t want that part, but there’s no way to get rid of just that part in this society at this time.

I guess I prefer to play women in games because most games dont let me play as either VERY feminine guy or a guy clad in heavy and spiky armour. (or the options for black chars suck but thats a whole other discussion)

Better customization options. I remember a Poke-tuber talking about watching his GF play Pokemon sun and moon and being like “wait you got a skirt? why don’t I have one” and realizing that it was not so much that he wanted his character to have a skirt, but that he was uninterested in having like 4 options for pants that only changed in slight ways. You usually get shorts and pants, maybe a jeans option. As opposed to shorts, pants, tights, skirt, mini-skirt, and dress just for starters in a lot of games.

Also so many games have male protagonists, and for games with an option the male one rarely matches the uniqueness or skill of a Nolan North or Roger Craig Smith, usually they feel generic even if not bad, but due to the lack of female protags their voices really get to shine even when just one of two choices.

Best example is assassins creed Odyssey. Alexios’ voice is made fun of a lot and while it is not godawful, it feels like less of a full performance of a unique character, whereas Kassandra’s VA won awards and it so beloved. She gave a performance that MADE that game and sold Kassandra as a full character. Now Kassandra was supposed to be the only protag so that makes the comparison a bit unfair, but you get my point

edit: Shepard is another good example. one performance is just way WAY better than the other

playing as a man

playing as a woman

playing as some kind of non-human, beast race

I’ve always felt like I played girls in games because I really dug Xena: Warrior Princess as a kid and she became the default “action hero” in my head.

Because they look better. Thats the answer in the majority of situations. The video even adresses this in the beginning.

Usually there are more interesting customization options other than “big coat” and “big coat with a belt”. Plus for me, it’s no different than me playing with Barbie’s as a kid. They’re all just toys available to me and I’m not going to deprive myself of fun because some other guy wants to restrict himself to a single figurine. Not that deep for my experiences at least.

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i play third person games and i want to look at someone appealing. if they had better twink options we could reconsider this but i am not into gruff video game protagonist man chic. no i havent played zelda

I had to check if this was in dunk tank or not as I didn’t like the start of this video and nearly turned it off, but I can not fault the hypothesis or conclusions being put forward. It’s a genuinely excellent explanation.

EDIT: Is 6:25 a cry for help?

What does it say about me if instead of being drawn to playing women, I’m drawn to playing monsterous races when available, especially if they’re ontologically evil? My characters are still male, but usually inhuman or subhuman in some way.