I've been a gamer since I was a kid in the 80's. Being a "gamer" is not my identity, it's something I do. I'm also a home chef, a programmer and a husband. No o

I've been a gamer since I was a kid in the 80's. Being a "gamer" is not my identity, it's something I do. I'm also a home chef, a programmer and a husband. No one of these things identifies me entirely. There's a lot of teenage males who play video games and consider "gamer" the entirety of their identity. This is because they haven't developed an actual personality yet. These are usually the people who are constantly slinging racial/homophobic epithets and flipping out whenever they encounter a girl online. Their behavior does not affect how I view myself, or the hobbies I engage in. It has no bearing on whether I am a gamer or not. To say that it should or does is pretty stupid. It's like saying because Paula Deen is a racist I shouldn't identify myself as a home cook. There are douchey people out there who engage in all hobbies. The correct response is not to pretend you don't enjoy your hobby or to damage your enjoyment of it. The correct response is to let these people know what douches they are and call them out to their face. People like the author of this article are the problem as much as the immature, stupid kids are. Because when they encounter those kids acting awful online, they stay quiet and do nothing. You should stand up and call them out. When I run into racism in DotA 2 I tell the kids "Does being racist help cover up the fact that your parents are first cousins?" or when they engage in homophobic slurs I point out "The most homophobic people are usually the ones giving blow jobs in the airport bathroom." This usually shuts them up. Pretending you don't play games, or stopping a hobby you enjoy is doing nothing but damaging yourself.