Reverse discrimination doesn’t actually make me feel better as a female nerd, and I really wish that management and the media would get that. Artificially boosted female numbers at a geek related event are just that, artificial, and that makes me less inclined to approach the event. Don’t even get me started about putting in chicks that don’t know the content material. The AMD booth babes at SydNova this year were enough to make me want to stab someone with a video card.
Without so much as a warning Good Game TV the Australian show “by gamers for gamers” put out a press release about a change of presenter. Now Junglist, the previous presenter, has been around since the inception of the show and is exactly what I like in your average gamer, a little bit awkward, obviously fond of a night in with some pizza and Pepsi and amusingly approachable. Junglist’s reviews were well balanced and wonderfully entertaining. Sure, the early shows were a bit painful but as he and Bajo have finished those quest chains, earned the XP and upped their skills the presentation has been wonderful. The interpersonal play between the two is just the type of onscreen chemistry I love in a nerd show. Messing with that chemistry is poor form, it’d be like taking DiggNation and replacing Kevin Rose… why would you do it when you know you’re going to alienate most of your audience?
Why? Because apparently they need more chicks.
Now I’m sure that Hex is a lovely lady, and she does actually seem to be a gamer which is a start, but really the whole addition seems really forced and as a female gamer I am embarrassed not empowered by this forcible replacement. Why even replace Junglist in the first place? Why not put him as a regular reporter? We’ve already got the awkward presentation skills of Rei to attend to, why not add Hex as an additional female backup?
As it is I tend to change the channel/skip through the podcast when Rei’s pieces are on, because I feel like they’ve totally dumbed down half my loves. Cosplay for Dummies? Violating Emminence Orchestra Violin? No thanks, I live the geek lifestyle I don’t need beginners tips from Token Female Gamer #1. I really feel like in trying to open to a wider audience they have totally failed to appeal to the core audience they had in the first place.
If you’ve put off the core male gamer audience of the show, and you’ve put off other females like myself, who are you appealing to ABC? Who really is interested in this change of presenter? Older male parents having a perve? Let me know if you get the ratings you want, but in the meantime you have my displeasure and I’ll be adding to the many voices of the internet in protestation. I hope this doesn’t kill the show, it feels like it might.
I hope Junglist takes some direction from the likes of the TechTV guys and starts his own Podcasts. The rise of Zero Punctuation, The Totally Rad Show and other similar web series to me is a cue for the victims of Executive Meddling to take New Media in a direction that works for you.
If you want to add to the Save Junglist noise (though I doubt it will make a difference to media execs) then you can do so by visiting this site and complaining or supporting via one of their many suggestions.
Alternatively continue making noise and reminding people that you as a female and a geek are not empowered by forcing higher level of women into geek culture, that it is not feminist and is not appealing to you as a woman. Ask that women aren't used as a "pretty face" in geek media and that as a nerd and a girl that you are represented fairly and accurately, not forcibly and artificially.
Our hearts and our fan rage go to Junglist, Bajo and all the team at Good Game who have been blindsided and Team Killed.
