Where The Chicks At?

Wow, take a look at these boingboing reader survey stats. 85.05% male, 13.79% female, 1.16% both/neither. That is a serious gender imbalance. I remember much the same being true of the TPM surveys. Are the chicks all just posting personal shit on myspace? Not caring about the latest Abramoff revelations, or that one Japanese dude who's so amazing at Dance Dance Revolution, or giant squid? Is blogging just another form of male-oriented nerdism which I embrace, much like the D&D of yore or math meets? All the dudes at math meets had a crush on me, I can tell you that right now. Am I a freak?  I mean, more than usual?

Comments

[ben wolfson]

BoingBoing sux, and cliche has it that the (preteen) girls are all updating their LJs!!! or XANGAS!

[ben wolfson]

Also, all the dudes on the blogs have crushes on you, so not much has changed.

[Vanessa]

Can't I both read BoingBoing and have a LiveJournal, she asked plaintively? I swear that I'm no teenage girl. I just didn't bother to answer their survey.

But I do love me some giant squid.

[Carlos]

I'm surprised it's so high. Xeni Jardin got a lot of feel-the-hate when she joined BoingBoing, as far as I can tell mainly because of her chick status.

[PZ Myers]

WHAT??!? The ladies don't like the squid?

Where were you with this vital information when I was in high school?

You know, this does suddenly, illuminatingly explain a lot. Damn.

[foo]

When you say D&D of yore, do you have in mind a specific edition?

[Russell Arben Fox]

I'm sure Belle's was an old-school D&D purist, foo. Complete with the balrogs and everything.

[foo]

None of this "advanced" crap the younger kids play these days? Or even the re-issued "all-in-one" d&d they released, at some point? When I was born, they were still selling the rules in separate boxed sets, each one covering about 3-5 new levels. Does that mark me (still) as wet-behind-the-ears?

[Julian Elson]

AD&D doesn't even exist anymore. That was scrapped with 3rd edition, I think. Or 3.5.

There couldn't be any selection bias, here, could there be? Brash, macho, swaggering males boldly clicking on the "male" button and clicking on the "submit" button, while coy, submissive, gaze-averting females try to work up the courage to click on the "female" button, before deciding to click the "back" button and stay anonymous rather than identify themselves, even if just for a statistical survey?

Just kidding!

[foo]

It exists as a collection of dusty books in my closet, man. :-)

[Joe o]

This guy found out that he had a D&D module worth about $800 dollars.

[Jim Treacher]

"85.05% male, 13.79% female, 1.16% both/neither."

Just like Xeni! Hey now.

[Argle]

Xeni Jardin got a lot of feel-the-hate when she joined BoingBoing, as far as I can tell mainly because of her chick status.

The alternative theory is that it was because every other post from her was about f**king bukkake.

[belle waring]

jesus, people, why all the hate? we all hate on bukkake now, is that the problem? we're jealous that she got to go into space? I think Xeni kicks ass!

[belle waring]

seriously, having dyed blonde hair and red lipstick is a problem? interest in porn is a problem? Interest in geeky tech issues? I'm having trouble seeing the difficulties here.

[Jacob T. Levy]

AD&D doesn't even exist anymore. That was scrapped with 3rd edition, I think.

Hm-- I'd say AD&D is all that exists now. 2e, 3e, and 3.5e are pretty clearly descendants of AD&D, not of the Basic-Expert-Companion-Masters sequence that came in the color-coded boxes for each new batch of levels. The titles on a bunch of the core hardcover rulebooks even remain the same; and the ways that AD&D differed from Basic (monks, barbarians, good-evil alignment axis, psionics) remain present in 3.5e.

[Russell Arben Fox]

Jacob's right; "D&D," the Gygax-created original game, hasn't existed for a couple of decades or more, and of the two primary off-shoots--the supposedly streamlined Basic/Expert D&D, and AD&D, the game we all played--only the latter survives in any form.

When the 3rd edition rolled out, after Wizards of the Coast bought out TSR, I spent a few hours in a bookstore, looking over it all; I was impressed, and nearly started rebuilding my collection, though I had neither the time nor the opportunity to play. I wasn't aware there was now a 3.5e. Is it a whole new set of books, or just some supplements?

[Jacob T. Levy]

Is it a whole new set of books, or just some supplements?

It's new (but not very different) books for the core three rulebooks, and as new books are printed they're tweaked to match the rule adjustments. 3.5 is supposed to be basically interplayable with 3.0-- people can adopt 3.5 elements piecemeal without buying the new books.

[Carlos]

Like I said. Some flamboyant self-promoting woman shows an interest in porn and tech and blowing shit up, and the fanboisie _just can't deal_. "Please Cory, could you get rid of Xeni and go back to telling us about the useful things you found in Toronto dumpsters? She threatens our self-image and WE DON'T KNOW WHY!"

Assholes.

[foo]

"D&D," the Gygax-created original game, hasn't existed for a couple of decades or more, and of the two primary off-shoots--the supposedly streamlined Basic/Expert D&D, and AD&D, the game we all played--only the latter survives in any form.

This isn't completely true, right? I mean, if we're talking about "survival," TSR released a repackaged version of the Basic/Expert boxed sets as a "Rules Cyclopedia," (this was at the same time that AD&D 2nd edition was current) -- those are definitely still floating around. Hell, I've got at least one of 'em.

But if we're talking about 'survived' in the sense of, TSR/WotC is still distributing them... well, doesn't "Mystara," one of the original worlds which was developed over the course of the Basic/Expert boxed sets, still exist? Aren't products still written for it; wasn't it ported to one of the newer systems, at some point?

(This was, for me, truly the moment when it all jumped the shark...)

So part of the older game is still alive, at least. On the other hand, maybe I'm too much of a Levy/Fox fanboy here -- correct me if I've got my not-quite-ancient-TSR-history wrong here?

[Another Damned Medievalist]

A serious question that came up between me and some other bloggers at AHA -- where are all the bloggers of color?

[Doctor Slack]

interest in porn is a problem?

BoingBoing is a pretty foreign universe to me, so I have no idea who Xeni is or if what's claimed about her is true. But I'd note that I find people -- male or female -- who are obsessed with (as opposed to just "interested in" or "comfortable with") porn pretty damned creepy, and I'm probably not alone. Could be that Xeni's being unjustly pilloried, however.

A serious question that came up between me and some other bloggers at AHA -- where are all the bloggers of color?

Seems to me it should be possible to do a "fun" routine on this in the vein of the periodical Drum or Yglesias "Were are all the women bloggers?" flamefests. To match the tone and tenor, someone should ideally kick off the downward spiral with an "I'm a blogger of colour and you're all too wrapped up in your elitist whitebread world to notice" rejoinder, and then go on to act shocked and dismayed when other people get hostile with them as a result... but I don't have the heart (and anyway my blog's been dormant since '03). Steve Gilliard might be willing to oblige you, though.

[Matt Weiner]

As with the perennial kerfuffle over women's blogs, you can probably find some blogs by black people if you look hard enough. (Latinos too--someone named Koz or something. Kaus? Nah.) I went to Pam's House Blend, clicked on the link to That Colored Fella's Weblog, and he's got a list of bloggers of color.

[Doctor Slack]

Oh, hang on: Xeni Jardin as in the tech journalist who also writes for Wired. How about that, then, I actually agree with Carlos.

[Carlos]

Ew.