King of Zeroes ⑨ · @KevinDahmer
20th Dec 2014 from TwitLonger
#GamerGate & #MetalGate: A source of confidence, acceptance and self worth
Trigger Warning: Fucking Boring Wall of Text.
I ramble. This is rambling. Consider yourself warned.
So I've written a bit about my childhood before. Needless to say, it sucked. I remember most of it, but can't quite put it in order simply because it was all one big slurry of disappointment and fuck.
I was a weird kid. Diagnosed with ADHD early on and medicated with shit that didn't fucking work. Zoloft. Dexedrine. Ritalin. Some made me sleep through class, some made me violent.
Well, more violent. On top of my ADHD, I also had a hair trigger for anger. I was picked on for my personality quirks as far back as I can remember. Very early on, I developed the tendency to fight back.
When you're in preschool? Doesn't really matter. Nobody gets hurt in a slapfight between toddlers over a knocked over sandcastle. But as I grew, I became slightly more dangerous, year by year. Open hand slaps became closed fists. Pulled hair became black eyes.
Children do not vary significantly in size or strength. The adrenaline boost from my rages made all the difference, and I frequently hurt people. Now, for clarity, most of the kids I beat the tar out of were specifically targeting me in order to get a rise out of me. They knew I'd react the way I did. I don't remember any incidents where I went off on someone without a reason. But the fact remains that I responded poorly to antagonism. Very poorly.
Why am I telling you this? To give you a bit of insight into WHY I didn't have any friends. I was awkward, and exceedingly violent.
It was a lonely childhood. Circumstances what they were, I never stayed in one place for very long. I was a victim of Childrens Services strange and nonsensical criteria. Foster Homes were a very real, and very confusing part of my childhood.
So where I didn't have any other kids my age to hang out with after school, I took to gaming. Didn't matter to me that nobody liked me, because I could just go home and play Super Mario World. Swear to FUCK I'm getting past Ludwig Von Koopa again today (Nope, you suck at this game, kid. Git gud).
I was a loner for a very long time. Until a new kid moved in next door to me. This ended up creating a friendship that would last through high school, until I graduated and moved away. We shared a love of video games. He had a Playstation AND an Xbox. Being the poorfag that I was, I only ever had the latest Nintendo console. So we'd hang out and play shit like Resident Evil, Gauntlet: Dark Legacy, and the original Halo.
This was also the friend who first introduced me to Metal, though I didn't quite understand the value of that at the time.
I had another very close friend whom my first introduced me to. Again, another Gamer. These were two people who looked past my dorkish exterior and decided to hang out with me anyways for one very simple reason. We all loved gaming.
I grew up alone. Any friends I had were driven away by my odd antics and generally a-social behavior. But through gaming, I found a common ground where I could connect with other people.
I won't go as far as to say "Gaming saved me" because I was never one to fall into depression. But I will say it was a huge part of my life. It may very well have been a deciding factor in the person I've become today.
I was still a fucking weirdo, but I was at least a more sociable weirdo.
My problems were far from solved though. As previously, I still had very serious anger issues. When I entered High School, I got into a fight. In my first week, someone picked a fight with me during a gym class. That fight, while initially broken up without any real damage, become something much more.
Immediately following that class, I was assaulted by the kid that started the fight in the locker room. He had decided he wasn't man enough, and dragged two of his friends into it.
The results were, obviously, rather one sided in their favor. Not particularly an issue for me. You don't feel pain when you're as angry as I was. The physical damage I suffered from the event was a drop in the pan. The real problem was what followed.
Expulsion.
Yes. Expulsion. I got jumped by three kids in a locker room, and I was the only one who was punished. I ended up taking some course in a "special school" for delinquent kids buuuut... that didn't work out either. Wasn't patriotic enough. Hah. Fuck that.
So I took a year off school. Stayed with my dad for a while. Got big into Adventure Quest. Regret every moment of that. As well, I spent a lot of time on the internet. Joined a fun comedy news group relating to Adventure Quest, and eventually started browsing 4chan.
Also became an atheist somewhere around that time. It was a dark period, filled with righteous teenage anger at the crimes of Christianity etc etc. I would've fit right in over at r/athetism.
So of course, irony kicked into overdrive and I started at a Catholic High School the very next year. Same school as my friends so that was a plus.
It was here that someone really got me into Metal. At the time, I was still listening to what I could scrape from Limewire. In Flames, Dragonforce, Slipknot (I got better, I swear.)
I started to expand my Metal horizons from there.
It was during this stint in High School that I stopped taking my prescribed medication. The shit for my ADHD. The shit that made me angrier than normal.
And I normalized. I was still a weirdo, but I gained far more control over my own actions. It was around this time that I went to my first Metal show. Big fan of Dragonforce that I was at the time, I went out of my way to see them performing live. Opening for them were two far better bands, Powerglove and Turisas. This was where I bought my first black band shirt.
I now have so many that normal clothing is no longer represented in my wardrobe. So when people mention "guy in the black band shirt". Yeah. That kinda just happens.
But when I went to my first Metal show, I didn't know what to expect. I was a dork. A dweeb. Certainly not the chiseled pillar of manliness I am today. I was worried. What if I didn't fit in? What if I pissed off the wrong person?
Little did I know at the time, NOBODY FUCKING CARES. Over the course of my next few Metal shows, I learned that those inhibitions and fears I held were worthless. I still remember the first time I charged into the Moshpit. Featherweight that I am, I ricocheted like a game of Pong. I hit the ground hard. Two guys that were standing outside the pit grabbed me by the arms, lifted me back to my feet, and asked me if I was alright.
And you know? I've never felt better.
Since then I've fucked up my neck more times than I can count and had my nose broken. And I wouldn't change a moment of it. Being at a Metal Show, showing your appreciation for the music. It doesn't matter what you look like. People at those shows respect you purely on the grounds that you enjoy the same music as them. If someone hits the deck in the Mosh, that guy will be back on his feet in seconds. Someone will form a wall to keep them from getting trampled.
Up to that point, outside of my group of friends, I'd always been the odd man out. Everybody knew who I was due to my eccentricities, and they avoided me because of it. But I go to a Metal show, stand among people thrice my weight class, and I bang my fucking head to the music.
There is no class. There is no social standing. The only thing Metalheads really argue with one another over is who's Metal is the most Trve. Protip: Your favorite band is SHIT. Just like your waifu.
I'd found a place I belonged.
After High School I moved out of my hometown. Went to live with my dad again for a while, before getting kicked out and having to live on my own. I became an active member on the Nuzlocke forums, and started playing League of Legends. Hanging out online, chatting with people who also enjoyed gaming. Once again, I found acceptance in a hobby I enjoyed among other people who enjoyed the same.
Now, the MOBA community is noted for being "toxic". And it is. It really fucking is. Of all the online gaming communities, MOBA players have the lowest tolerance for unskilled players, despite being just as bad at the game themselves. Idiots who will blame their team when it was them feeding. Crybabies who will bitch on the forum ad nauseum for nerfs to heroes they don't like.
The community sucks. I can only carry so many games with Morde.
And yet I still made a group of friends based on people who just liked to play. Some of our best games were "everyone grab Smite we're going to fuck up their jungle" or a Teleport team. Theme teams just for fun.
When DotA 2 came out, we moved on to that, and I found something I could be proud of. I'm not great, by any means, but I'm at least competent at the game.
As for the "toxic" community? Still there. But here's the thing.
I went to TI4. In person. I stood in a six fucking hour line to get a shirt and some little figures. Everyone in that line was fucking awesome. I got to talk to some of the players, met Pylon Flux, and ate the worst chicken sandwich known to man. These are Gamers. These are the people who shitpost Twitch Chat. These are the guys that feed and then blame me.
And these guys are fucking awesome. People outside our crowd take shit talk as a personal offence. It's not. Shit talking is a fucking art form. Profanity is our paint. Public chat is our canvas. We are masters of our craft.
So I, an awkward, antisocial loner, found acceptance in the Gaming and Metal crowds. I learned how to talk to people, how to brush off offense, and I became the person I am today BECAUSE I met these people. Gamers. Metalheads. Their camaraderie helped mold me into what I am.
A goddamn badass.
And I don't believe I'm the only one. How many others found their calling in the Gaming or Metal scenes? How many other outcasts were welcomed with open arms?
These are the people that I care about. I am not a religious man, but there's a bible verse I find pertinent here. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Gamers and Metalheads, for all their flaws, don't cast very many stones.
And so I raise my glass to you, Gamers and Metalheads alike. If there are more accepting groups, I have not met them.
So when #GamerGate and #MetalGate popped up, I stood up. I will not allow this kind of bullshit propaganda any more. I will not stand idly by as yet another generation suffers for the labels they choose to associate with.
I am not here just for myself, but for those who will follow in my footsteps. I'm an uncle now. If my niece chooses to pick up a Gameboy or a Motorhead album, I do not want her to be living in a world that ostracizes her for her tastes. If she gets into rap, or wants to play sports, I will not allow the media to call her a criminal.
I want to contribute to a society that accepts people for who they are. Not one that enforces its own brand of conformity. I stand for #GamerGate and #MetalGate because Gamers and Metalheads stand for me.
We are not alone. We never were.
The lies and the slander of the media cannot change who you are. Cannot destroy what you have accomplished. Cannot prevent what you will become. Cannot tear down what you have made me.
If you think I'll sit around while you chip away my brain, listen I ain't foolin and you'd better thing again.
Out there is a fortune waiting to be had, if you think I'll let it go you're mad.
You've got another thing coming.