Lab Exercise #16

Forum Examination

For this exercise I examined the forums of Gaymer which is a Gaming site dedicated to Homosexual Gamers in an effort to support each other. In this assignment we were directed to examine a few Forums dedicated to different niches of video gamers. I chose this site due to my inexperience with the topic and the fact that it was linked in the rubric.

Call to Arms

This first thread is dedicate to gay gamers in a cry for opposition to mainline politicians who are detrimental to the Homosexual Community. The primary thesis of this post and the discussion that ensues is that politicians do not seem to care about the rights of their homosexual constituents. This thread is dedicated as a cry for more action in defense of the rights of the homosexual people particularly in the United States. The members of the forum talk about their need to mobilize and organize a grassroots movement to support their claim. IN the end this thread seems to be a desperate call to arms by a tired and downtrodden member of a minority and deviant group.

Which is more difficult?, coming out as gay or as a gaymer?

The second thread is dedicated to the idea of coming out of the closet as a homosexual versus that as being a video gamer. In this thread the author begins his post by requesting for a comparison between coming out as a homosexual and coming out as a gamer. This in turn actually took a humorous turn. Some people thought it was a pretty ludicrous comparison and the author came back and explained his real meaning just as an attempt to get known on the forum and compare somethings that the members might have in common. And then it was generally diffused into something tongue-and-cheek.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately Gaming communities and websites are an interesting phenomenon. The deviance which they present are in part due to the fact that they are minority groups. Through in some other form of deviance such as homosexuality and you reach an entirely new level of small estranged groups of people. Through the internet these people have come together to band together for survival as a kind of survival mechanism.

It is my belief that these kind of communities have always existed. The introduction of the internet will just help foster their growth and existence over wide distances. These groups of deviants will continue to band together because of their use of technology.