I don't know if it's a silly question to ask, but after using search I haven't found any similar topic, so pardon me for starting one.
All TASers who I'm familiar with appear to be male (please correct me if I'm wrong). But it's ridiculous to believe that TASing is a man's game, since girls play video games too. I'm just curious to know if there are female TASers here who have made remarkable work, or what's the proportion of girls on TASVideos?
For guys coming into this topic, one extra question: How do your girlfriends or wives or close female friends see or understand what you're doing? Do girls like watching TASes or people making TASes?
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Creating (and to a large extent watching) TASes, and speedruns in general, is a rather nerd hobby, and these kinds of nerd hobbies tend to be populated mostly by males. This is not a statement on whether that's a good, bad or neutral thing; just stating a fact.
(Playing video games is different, because it's not such a "nerd hobby", but a rather "normal" hobby, especially nowadays, which is why it appeals to all demographics much more evenly.)
I'm not sure if creating TASes completely belongs to one of the nerd hobbies, since to me, TAS is the art of video games, not only speed competitions. Since it's art of some kind, and there are lots of female artists these days, why not female TASers?
I'm from China so I don't really understand nerd culture. Is computer programming a nerd hobby? But there are also female programmers these days, at least in China.
Also, if what you said is a fact, does that make us all nerds? Somehow I don't feel like a nerd myself...
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Joined: 8/14/2009
Posts: 4083
Location: The Netherlands
According to forum statistics, ~6% of people with a gender flag set theirs as female, and ~87% as male. Take those stats as you will.
http://www.youtube.com/Noxxa
<dwangoAC> This is a TAS (...). Not suitable for all audiences. May cause undesirable side-effects. May contain emulator abuse. Emulator may be abusive. This product contains glitches known to the state of California to cause egg defects.
<Masterjun> I'm just a guy arranging bits in a sequence which could potentially amuse other people looking at these bits
<adelikat> In Oregon Trail, I sacrificed my own family to save time. In Star trek, I killed helpless comrades in escape pods to save time. Here, I kill my allies to save time. I think I need help.
According to forum statistics, ~6% of people with a gender flag set theirs as female, and ~87% as male. Take those stats as you will.
But having registered on TASVideos forum doesn't make one a real TASer. And there could be guys setting their gender flag as female for some reasons, so it's hard to tell what the real situation is.
Recent projects: SMB warpless TAS (2018), SMB warpless walkathon (2019), SMB something never done before (2019), Extra Mario Bros. (best ending) (2020).
Joined: 10/6/2011
Posts: 1690
Location: RU · ID · AM
It’s probably irrelevant, but 3 of 5 workers of the programming department of the company where I work in, are girls. I’m not one of them though, but being kind of disappointed with my gender, I prefer to be a girl virtually here.
S3&A [Amy amy%] improvement (with Evil_3D & kaan55) — currently in SPZ2
my TAS channel · If I ever come into your dream, I’ll be riding an eggship :)
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
WST wrote:
but being kind of disappointed with my gender
Never apologize for who you are.
Believe in yourself, and be self confident. You are unique, you are special, you are you.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
And there could be guys setting their gender flag as female for some reasons, so it's hard to tell what the real situation is.
Nothing keeping this from being the other way around either.
Nach wrote:
WST wrote:
but being kind of disappointed with my gender
Never apologize for who you are.
Believe in yourself, and be self confident. You are unique, you are special, you are you.
Being disappointed in one's gender is sort of different from not believing in yourself in other ways, but I don't want to get into it here. I would be interested in talking to you about it WST if you want.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
I'd go with the 6% and accept that as the answer, GoddessMAria and Memory clearly are remarkable TASers but taht would be hard to define in general, and i wouldn't want to exclude other TASers from being on the remarkable TASers list.
As for girlfriend's opinion, I TASed while dating my ex-girlfriend and she really didn't mind the activity but did find it a weird objective, because i was "cheating" the games instead of playing them normally.She did play games(team fortress2,zmbies ate my neighbors, CQ red alert) herself occasionally so you could say while she was into the normal side of gaming,but she didn't really get TASing at all. Also I'd never TAS with her because anytime she came over i had my attention set on her, otherwise it would be a waste for her to show up. Other women in my life don't even know me that well for me to show that very niche side of my life, most people in general don't know I do this and it's pretty irrelevant to the common people.
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Memory wrote:
Being disappointed in one's gender is sort of different from not believing in yourself in other ways
No group is perfect, and you can find fault with all of them.
If you're disappointed in a group as a whole, of which includes yourself, it is a strong indication of a lack of self respect and self confidence.
If you yourself are imperfect, you can work on it. If those around you are imperfect, you can advise them how to improve. Taking responsibility for those around you doing their own thing of which you differ on, in cases where they are not your subordinates, is you either really not appreciating yourself for you, or thinking to yourself that those around you are your subordinates when they are not.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Being disappointed in one's gender is sort of different from not believing in yourself in other ways
No group is perfect, and you can find fault with all of them.
If you're disappointed in a group as a whole, of which includes yourself, it is a strong indication of a lack of self respect and self confidence.
If you yourself are imperfect, you can work on it. If those around you are imperfect, you can advise them how to improve. Taking responsibility for those around you doing their own thing of which you differ on, in cases where they are not your subordinates, is you either really not appreciating yourself for you, or thinking to yourself that those around you are your subordinates when they are not.
I think we're talking about two different things. Being disappointed in an entire gender and that you're in it isn't really good I agree. I however interpreted the comment as simply a desire to be a different gender rather than a comment on the gender itself. I see that as a preference rather than a lack of confidence. Nothing wrong with wanting to wear blue instead of red or vice versa.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Memory wrote:
I however interpreted the comment as simply a desire to be a different gender rather than a comment on the gender itself. I see that as a preference rather than a lack of confidence.
You're describing a "grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" scenario. Truth is, everything has pros and cons, and you often cannot appreciate them fully unless you live it. In some cases it's also impossible to truly live the other scenario(s).
It's important to see the grass is always greener scenarios when they come up. They often boil down to a lack of confidence or a lack of understand the cons of the other side of the fence.
Memory wrote:
Nothing wrong with wanting to wear blue instead of red or vice versa.
What you wear isn't who you are. Never confuse what people are wearing with what they're actually doing.
Never apologize for who you are.
Believe in yourself, and be self confident. You are unique, you are special, you are you.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Never apologize for who you are.
Believe in yourself, and be self confident. You are unique, you are special, you are you.
One should never apologize for who they are, of course. However, "who you are" might not appear to be as simple as it is on the surface. If you are disappointed in "who you are" then maybe that isn't truly you. IMO you are who you strive to be. I tried accepting myself as how I was described before by others and it did not work out at all. However, when I started trying to be the person I wanted to be, I became much happier and more confident. This included not only things like attitudes and mannerisms, but also things like gender. In the end, I've become a much more happy and confident person so I'd say it was worth it and justified.
EDIT: I would like to not drag out this tangent too much longer in this topic, if Nach or others would like to discuss with me, shoot me a pm on forum. I would do IRC, but I'm on a backup laptop that likes to disconnect from the internet every 2 seconds.
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
Well to answer OP's question there are at least a couple.;)
Only 75 people on the forum have female flag? That's less than I would have thought. I wonder how many have player or higher rank.
Well to answer OP's question there are at least a couple.;)
You and Maria are both pretty darn good btw! <3
[16:36:31] <Mothrayas> I have to say this argument about robot drug usage is a lot more fun than whatever else we have been doing in the past two+ hours
[16:08:10] <BenLubar> a TAS is just the limit of a segmented speedrun as the segment length approaches zero
This is a quite interesting question to pose here. This is something I have thought about for a long time, but never bothered to bring it up.
It is quite possible in this community and many similar gaming communities that most female members wish to keep their gender a secret, or sometimes even lie and say they're male, and they would presumably do this out of the fear that they will attract unnecessary attention to themselves, or worse face literal discrimination, just for being female. I'm not saying that one should give female members unnecessary bias or attention but I could definitely see that kind of thing happening. So I would say that there are probably a lot more female TASers than we think there are. But regardless, even with that approach, I can surely say that the male population here greatly outnumbers the female population, because as was said above, whether it's good or bad or whatever, this activity is much more likely to be appealing to males.
I have a very close female friend that loves to watch speedruns and TASes, and appreciates a lot my and the community's work. She's not interested on speedrunning/TASing herself, but her appreciation on the subject really motivates me to TAS more :)
And I believe she's the only IRL female friend I have that knows anything about TASing, and even my IRL male friends don't show as much interest as she does lol
Joined: 8/14/2014
Posts: 188
Location: North Kilttown
I can only really comment on the spouse thing honestly.
When I first started TASing I was with my last girlfriend before my wife and she thought the whole thing was stupid and dumb. Not just TASing but being a "gamer" in general was dumb to her. But, especially at that point in my life a lot of people I knew felt that way. Once I started branching out from that group of friends and met my wife I saw a lot more people that were open. My wife isn't so much into TASing or speedrunning herself, but she's more of a story-focused RPG gamer. Still, she's very supportive and asks a lot of questions about what I'm doing while TASing.
I guess the point I'm getting at is personally I've seen people react every which way to TASing/TASers. Don't really believe there's any gender lines or anything like that.
Incidentally, I've always wondered just what percentage of gamers period actually like TASes. But I don't wanna go off topic any more than I have.
I don't know if it's a silly question to ask, but after using search I haven't found any similar topic, so pardon me for starting one.
All TASers who I'm familiar with appear to be male (please correct me if I'm wrong). But it's ridiculous to believe that TASing is a man's game, since girls play video games too. I'm just curious to know if there are female TASers here who have made remarkable work, or what's the proportion of girls on TASVideos?
For guys coming into this topic, one extra question: How do your girlfriends or wives or close female friends see or understand what you're doing? Do girls like watching TASes or people making TASes?
Welcome to a nerd corner of the internet. You can expect <=5% girls. It's like this with basically anything that has its roots before the web 2.0 (when the web became mainstream), like IRC, old gaming communities and really anything that is aimed at technical audiences.
You also find this phenomenon heavily in academia like in courses that include computer science, physics, engineering, etc. These 3 disciplines have among the lowest participation of women overall. This trend obviously continues in the workplace.
You better come to terms with this fact. Don't expect to meet any girls in these parts of the internet anytime soon.
All syllogisms have three parts, therefore this is not a syllogism.
My Youtube analytics suggests me that guys care much more about TAS than women. For some reason, older women like it slightly more:
https://imgur.com/a/iZmvv9g
