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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Does it make me a person who needs to be kept the fuck out of any group if I say "I don't want this gatekeeping"? Not all gatekeeping, but specifically this kind, the kind I see most often, the kind that targets big sweaty guys who are already obviously miserable as fuck and usually hiding funny and generous personalities behind a tough facade built by years of being shit upon.

It is always the guy at games workshop with bad bo. It was funny at first, because there was a guy like that at my games workshop too, but it's not like there aren't other nerd stereotypes, and body odour is such a minor problem! Do you know what I did the third time I entered the tiny store to feel my eyes watering and throat seizing up? I introduced myself to the guy and told him his body odour was killing everyone. He was in it all day so he didn't realise, and nobody else anywhere had the courtesy to tell him. He started wearing deodorant and washing his clothes properly and soon he was one of the most popular guys there.

Body odour, overweight, ugliness - these things are halo/horns effected, so I understand it is instinctual to be negatively predisposed towards them, but to me it also means you have to try to look deeper. Sex pests can fuck off, but I think nerd communities were indisputably better when they had sweaty ugly guys than when those guys got kicked out for making passive aggressive newbies uncomfortable. Hell, the internet was better too.

No, I don't think so honestly. I more mean people who rail against the concept of gatekeeping at all. Once we're just arguing over the specifics, that's a different matter, to me.