Gatekeepin' it real: On the natural condition of fandom

[Maxperson]

But how else would people hear about MY OPINIONS?

Opinions in general aren't the problem. I mean, I hate pineapple on my pizza. It's when people come here to tell you that you are wrong for liking it on yours that the problem opinions begin.

 

[Celebrim]

Gatekeeping is all about feeling superior over other people.

I think in some cases yes it is. But I've just given all sorts of different examples of gatekeeping, and I don't think that in all cases you can say it's about feeling superior over other people.

Take the example of the person who really wants to be into Magic:The Gathering, but can't afford it, so he just cuts out some 3x5 note cards and labels them, "Island", "Mox Pearl", "Ancestral Recall", and what not and then goes to the local fantasy gaming store looking for acceptance, validation, and affirmation. Suppose, as is likely, he doesn't get it. It is likely that some of the players present take a certain pride in their collection and feel a certain since of superiority over other people on account of their possessions. Greed is a thing. But feelings of greed aside, the player may have a deck that isn't legal, or isn't legal for the format being played. It may be that it's a sanctioned event which requires real cards. The player may not yet be very conversant in the rules and be annoying to play against. He certainly isn't conversant in the culture of the game and clearly isn't aware just how much of a cultural faux pas he's committing. Most of all, he's just annoying to play against because the art on a card is a functional part of the card. It allows someone to see the game space and understand it from across the table in a way hand written cards don't. Even someone with the best of intentions is going to be acting out of pity and not enjoying the game the way he normally does.

So this player fails to get his acceptance,validation, and affirmation. He is at the least likely to be subject to some gentle joshing, which likely won't feel so gentle to him. He's not going to be "part of the group". He's going to be still an outsider.

This is a complicated story that could go down in many ways. The player being a white male is not going to make him more likely to be accepted. There is no "white privilege" card that lets you use index cards in an MtG social setting with strangers. In settings I played in across multiple cities, in some cases you could use a fake, but it had to be a good fake and you had to be able to demonstrate that you owned the card and the only reason you weren't using the real one was to avoid play wear. Is it fair to have acceptance in the group be based on how much money you can spend on a trivial game? Maybe not. But that's a whole different sort of gatekeeping than the simplistic definitions being offered here, and it's one I've seen far more often than the simplistic notions of sexism or racism that are being offered up here.

While we are on that, I don't in the slightest deny that there have been many examples of people who were made to not feel welcome on account of race or gender. But history is a lot like a stained glass window that is shattered. It has many pieces. You cannot pick up a single piece of it, hold it up as an example, and say that this is what the whole window looked like. One of the evils of racism or sexism is that when you encounter scorn, the presence of racism or sexism tends to lead you to conclude that the basis of that scorn is always race or gender. And often you may be right. But one advantage of being a nerd is that you learn that there are plenty of instances of scorn that have nothing at all to with that.

 

[Morrus]

Likewise, something is never right or wrong just because it is "gatekeeping". We can't assume that the party in the wrong is the one denying entry, nor can we assume that the party denied entry is the one wronged. We can only decide these things by an examination of the individual facts of the particular case.

You're not using the term the same way as everybody else. "Gatekeeping" in this context has developed a more specific colloquial meaning in recent years, mainly developed in social media, Twitter in particular. It doesn't include reasonable rules, spam blocking, deciding who fits well with your own group, or any of the other things you have applied it to in this thread. It's not just a mere filter.

It, in this context, relates to the (attempted) exclusion of a demographic as part of the group by virtue of its perceived 'expertise' or 'right to belong' - in this specific case, being "you don't belong in this group because you watch D&D and [I assume] don't play it". It's about deciding who has 'earned' the admission criteria.

General discrimination is another thing, and can overlap, but it's not generally what we're talking about here. The main overlap there is that subset which equates women with being unqualified to be a group member, which is both discrimination and gatekeeping; there's also a bunch with age, with gatekeeping in one direction "you're a newbie and haven't earned your stripes and don't know what real D&D is" and discrimination in the other "you're middle aged; your opinion is not wanted".

 

[Anoth]

Gatekeeping is all about feeling superior over other people.
And it is combined with massive amounts of entitlement.

I don’t think that applies all the time in d&d. It does sometimes, but not always. I say that because d&d and rpg’s have much more fluid rules than say baseball. If someone says we are playing with 6 bases and 4 strikes you are out. Most of us would say you are not playing baseball. Because baseball has hard coded rules. D&d is more fluid and many disagree or can’t grasp how fluid it should be.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I think in some cases yes it is. But I've just given all sorts of different examples of gatekeeping, and I don't think that in all cases you can say it's about feeling superior over other people.

Take the example of the person who really wants to be into Magic:The Gathering, but can't afford it, so he just cuts out some 3x5 note cards and labels them, "Island", "Mox Pearl", "Ancestral Recall", and what not and then goes to the local fantasy gaming store looking for acceptance, validation, and affirmation. Suppose, as is likely, he doesn't get it. It is likely that some of the players present take a certain pride in their collection and feel a certain since of superiority over other people on account of their possessions. Greed is a thing. But feelings of greed aside, the player may have a deck that isn't legal, or isn't legal for the format being played. It may be that it's a sanctioned event which requires real cards. The player may not yet be very conversant in the rules and be annoying to play against. He certainly isn't conversant in the culture of the game and clearly isn't aware just how much of a cultural faux pas he's committing. Most of all, he's just annoying to play against because the art on a card is a functional part of the card. It allows someone to see the game space and understand it from across the table in a way hand written cards don't. Even someone with the best of intentions is going to be acting out of pity and not enjoying the game the way he normally does.

So this player fails to get his acceptance,validation, and affirmation. He is at the least likely to be subject to some gentle joshing, which likely won't feel so gentle to him. He's not going to be "part of the group". He's going to be still an outsider.

This is a complicated story that could go down in many ways. The player being a white male is not going to make him more likely to be accepted. There is no "white privilege" card that lets you use index cards in an MtG social setting with strangers. In settings I played in across multiple cities, in some cases you could use a fake, but it had to be a good fake and you had to be able to demonstrate that you owned the card and the only reason you weren't using the real one was to avoid play wear. Is it fair to have acceptance in the group be based on how much money you can spend on a trivial game? Maybe not. But that's a whole different sort of gatekeeping than the simplistic definitions being offered here, and it's one I've seen far more often than the simplistic notions of sexism or racism that are being offered up here.

While we are on that, I don't in the slightest deny that there have been many examples of people who were made to not feel welcome on account of race or gender. But history is a lot like a stained glass window that is shattered. It has many pieces. You cannot pick up a single piece of it, hold it up as an example, and say that this is what the whole window looked like. One of the evils of racism or sexism is that when you encounter scorn, the presence of racism or sexism tends to lead you to conclude that the basis of that scorn is always race or gender. And often you may be right. But one advantage of being a nerd is that you learn that there are plenty of instances of scorn that have nothing at all to with that.

Your example of others laughing at self made cards is a way of feeling superior over perceived bragging rights.

You are also confusing not inviting with actively belittling the enjoyment of others. They are completely different.

 

[Celebrim]

You're not using the term the same way as everybody else.

Well, yes. That's somewhat the point.

"Gatekeeping" in this context has developed a more specific colloquial meaning in recent years, mainly developed in social media, Twitter in particular. It doesn't include reasonable rules, spam blocking, deciding who fits well with your own group, or any of the other things you have applied it to in this thread. It's not just a mere filter.

It, in this context, relates to the (attempted) exclusion of a demographic as part of the group by virtue of its perceived 'expertise' or 'right to belong' - in this specific case, being "you don't belong in this group because you watch D&D and [I assume] don't play it". It's about deciding who has 'earned' the admission criteria.

If you go through all my posts, you'll find that the main thrust of my comments and the main thing I have a problem with is developing "more specific colloquial meaning" and applying it to terms which previously in common usage had very different meanings. In fact, in almost every one of these threads, the redefinition of terms is the main thing that I find offensive. I consider attacks on the integrity of language to be attacks on the ability of people to reason. If you take a term which was in common usage, and you redefine it so that it means something the opposite of what it once meant or at least something very different than what it once meant, then you are introducing confusion into the discussion that most people will have a very hard time dealing with because most people don't notice when the meaning of words shifts between two thoughts. It's very easy to speak nonsense that doesn't sound like nonsense, when you have a word with two opposing meanings.

So, for my part, if someone had said, "Zorblorfing is bad." And I said, "What is zorblorfing?", and they had said, "The exclusion of a demographic as part of the group by virtue of its perceived 'expertise' or 'right to belong' - in this specific case, being "you don't belong in this group because you watch D&D and [I assume] don't play it", then I would have happily agree, "Oh yes, Zorblorfing is definitely bad. It has parallels for example in Jim Crow laws where voters from minority groups were suppressed using highly rigged and unfairly administered voter registration literacy tests." And we'd have agreement.

But when you instead of inventing a new term to cover something that doesn't have a convenient label, reappropriate something with a specific meaning to cover a new meaning, you introduce a high degree of confusion. And my suspicion and in some cases accusation is that this confusion is intended and deliberate.

 

[Celebrim]

Your example of others laughing at self made cards is a way of feeling superior over perceived bragging rights.

I think I made that clear.

You are also confusing not inviting with actively belittling the enjoyment of others. They are completely different.

I don't recall saying anything about "not inviting". Where do you get that?

And in any event, I'm not categorically defending "not inviting" either, nor have I defended "actively belittling".

 

[CleverNickName]

Please send me $1,000,000.00 so I can move to where you live...

Some self aware people know when they being jerks. but most of then don't know... well I am not going talk bad about my family.
Or some of my gamer friend
Or myself
or one my preachers

Sadly, the $1M price tag is about right for a house in downtown Portland...

I agree, kinda. I maintain that everyone knows when they are acting like a jerk. Only the few self-aware people actually care, though.

 

[Azzy]

Well, yes. That's somewhat the point.



If you go through all my posts, you'll find that the main thrust of my comments and the main thing I have a problem with is developing "more specific colloquial meaning" and applying it to terms which previously in common usage had very different meanings.

I'd like to introduce you to language--it evolves and grows as people use it. You may take umbrage at the fact that a word is being used in a different meaning than before, and that's cool. However, that is not going to stop language from changing.

 

[billd91]

Along comes the internet and now people are coming from around the world and having these conversation fairly frequently and it's easy to search them out. It allows even a small number of these kinds of people to step all over discussions of whatever type that they gatekeep.

Information control has a lot to do with the formation of broad identities.

Well, yes. That's somewhat the point.

Yes, that's your point - a point about trying to distract the discussion about gatekeeping people from a community or from an identity with things that are tangential from that particular topic. There are legitimate reasons for excluding someone from an event like a game session or a Magic tournament such as lack of room, lack of health, odious hygiene, or lack of ability to meet administrative prerequisites like possession of a Magic deck that meets the tournament rules. While those are technically gatekeeping just as an usher might not seat someone to a concert if they do not have a ticket, they aren't the form of gatekeeping we are talking about. They don't prevent someone from identifying as a gamer, as a fan of Star Wars, or as a grognard, they don't set an arbitrary requirement that must be met to self-identify in that manner.