Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I have ranted about this before, but Terra Nova looks at the homophobia of Azeroth:

ran across this WoW message thread because of a referrer link from my site. It’s commentary on a newly proposed gay-friendly guild on the Sunstrider (Europe) server.

There were the overtly homophobic comments:

* “this is a game. with children. hello?� (#11)

But I think the most intriguing comments were those that claimed to be non-homophobic but argued for suppression of minorities:

* “You guys are free to do what you want of course, but I think two gay guilds on the same server (and same faction too) is overkill.� (#5)
* “If you're upset by the homophobic comments on the site then why support the forming of a guild that's a magnet for homophobes? (#20) Calling a guild Loud and Queer is an invitation for homophobes to poke fun and be offensive. (#22)�

It’s interesting that someone argued that you can’t have more than one gay-friendly guild on a server - partly implying that there is a single gay identity and one affiliation would suffice and also implying that there is only a certain quota of gay men that can be tolerated. The second comment is even more intriguing in that it suggests victims should censor their own identities and have only themselves to blame.

The comments on this post are really something to behold, but Castronova illustrates something I think too many people miss:

This makes you realize another aspect of the online dynamic that will become more salient as MMORPG's become more mainstream: many of the markers we use to segregate ourselves usefully have not yet been established. Driving through Indiana, a gay person would have a fairly clear sense of where it is dangerous, and where it is comparatively safe, to reveal orientation cues. Online, today, everyone is present. It's the whole society, not some elite slice. More accurately, in 1990, LambdaMOO was a very thin slice of the population, but in 2005 WoW is much closer to the population median, on any dimension. And we are learning how ugly that population is, in many of its attitudes. Those of us who have worked very hard to make sure we travel in circles where certain things go absolutely unchallenged - such as the right of gay people to express themselves comfortably - are shocked (at least I am) at how uncommon, how narrow, these circles are. The person you're on a dragon raid with might be a gun-toting nuthead from Texas or an 8-year-old girl from Berlin. The latter doesn't even know what 'gay' means, the former might hunt you down.

Now, his own prejudices aside, this is an important point. John McChesney used to talk about what a crude place the Quake servers are. MMOs and WoW especially represent perhaps a larger cultural mixing than almost anything that has ever happened in the history of the planet. It isn't until you get among them that you realize just how sad the state of our culture really is. Not just the idiocy and cruelty of children, but grownups who are so blinded by their own fear they can't see their own racism and homophobia.

We are all racists. We are all homophobic (well, the straight ones among us). We are all xenophobic. It is human nature to fear the different and the unknown. What makes you a grownup is accepting and managing that fear, not denying it and certainly not giving into it.

The perfect example of the new "grown up" homophobia:

There's a time and a place for political speech. World of Warcraft hardly represents a good forum for activism. Even if the extent of your activism is forming a gay/bi/les guild it is still activism.

Ignoring my dislike for activism inside game worlds, what is the point of identifying yourself as a minority in a game? I cannot see how it helps anyone but the bigots looking for someone to abuse.

Anyone who cares what minority group you identify with probably is not your friend. Anyone who is your friend probably will not care what minority group you identify with.