In the world of video games, there’s a virtual universe full of players. Both male and females play with and against each other. 

     “I’ve been playing video games since I was five years old,” sophomore Alyssa Edwards says. Edwards states her dad introduced her to the gaming world starting off with the popular game Call of Duty. 

      Edwards stated that girls are kind of rare to find on video games so when they are found by a male, guys tend to feel like they should make fun of the girls. “They like to say rude things or any stereotype to offend us,” says Edwards. She also explained at this point it doesn’t get to her because it happens almost every day.

     Edwards states “I think boys online just don’t care personally,” she continues with “they are mean to everyone no matter who you are.” Edwards also says there are cases where guys can be just straight up “sexist.” She thinks that guys just consider girls “boring” as well as not good at what girls do.

     Sophomore Lauren Kramer says that she thinks it’s hilarious how guys treat girls. “Whenever I was in a game with guys and I would beat them they would say offensive terms like ‘make me a sandwich.’” 

     Kramer went on saying she believes that guys have “fragile masculinity” and get upset that a girl beat them at something they were supposed to be good at. Kramer also says that when she does not do good around some guys try to “help and flirt” with her. She states, “stop fetishizing gamer girls that just want to play.”

   Sophomore Wyatt Ralph  sees it a little differently, “we are used to always playing with boys,” Ralph explained. He also says that when there is a girl in the chat, they forget that girls have a different type of humor. 

     “When there is a girl it’s like something we’ve never seen before, so we feel like we need to amplify how mean we are because it makes it funnier,” Ralph explained. Ralph explained that boys just think it’s funny to pick on the girls sense they are hardly around on Xbox and are less likely to see.

     Edwards explained that some girls take “advantage” of their gender by trying to “woo” guys in and trying to get money for things on the game. “Boys fall into a trap,” Edwards stated. All girls do is make their voice “cute” and it’s game over.