– If I play badly, I rarely dare to speak. Because then the fact that I am a girl will be used against me, she says. The 25-year-old has several thousand followers on the streaming service Twitch, where she mostly plays Valorant. Now she sits in front of the screen in news’s gaming house. Photo: Anita Stellander / news She lives here, streams and games six to nine hours a day for news. When Langø plays, she meets the most boys. – If I do well and get a high rank, I often hear: “you are boosted” or “you are carried to that rank”, says the well-known gamer. She has started playing alone, to avoid allegations that she has been helped. The way Langø is greeted does something to her: – I get a bit like that, do I really deserve this rank? And then I start giving myself a really hard time, she says. Unsafe in the boys’ arena – I always think it has been very scary to be a girl when I game, Langø continues. She has been playing since she was in sixth grade at primary school. – Gaming has always been my “go to”. If I have been sad, happy, if there has been anything, she says. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani / news Photo: Lokman Ghorbani / news Photo: Lokman Ghorbani / news At the same time, she has felt unsafe. She believes it is connected to the fact that gaming has been and is an arena where the boys decide what is allowed. Where the boys tease the girls if things go badly. – There are a lot of originals like that: “get in the kitchen, make a sandwich”. It’s just something that gets planted in their heads. This is something that should be said to girls, it seems, reflects Langø. She describes how she experiences the constant downgrading: – I think it’s very annoying. I want gaming to be a safe place for girls. It should be the same for everyone, because they don’t say that to the boys. Langø is clearly engaged and gestures. – It is very important that girls feel welcome in the game, too. That they should not be the character who should heal or look after everyone. And we can be good and make them shoot, us too. Or in other types of games, where you have other types of purpose, she says. Don’t know for sure why the girls are dropping gaming The Danish Media Authority states that the proportion of girls who are gamers is back at the 2018 level (63%). The decline is greatest for the 15–18 year group, where six out of ten girls played in 2020, compared to less than half in 2022. In 2020, the same age group had an increase from 2018. Mari Velsand Photo: Mathias Fossum / Norwegian Media Authority Mari Velsand, director of the Norwegian Media Authority, says that it is not known why the proportion of girls who played increased during this period. Nor does the supervisory authority know for sure why the proportion is now going down from 2020 to this year. – There can be many different reasons why there are a significant proportion of fewer girls than boys who are gamers. It may be that the girls prefer social media to games, or that the girls experience incitement and other harassment when they play, she says. Gaming has positive effects Velsand believes it is a challenge for society that girls stop playing earlier than boys. – Research shows that children who play get better digital skills, greater technological understanding, are better at collaboration and task solving than other children who don’t play, she states in the report. Researcher: a lot of shit-throwing Beate Wold Hygen Photo: Private Researcher Beate Wold Hygen at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology confirms that incitement and sexualized harassment are possible explanations for dropouts. – There is a lot of shit-throwing. If a girl reveals that she is a girl, she may experience rough treatment. It is ungainly stuff, which is not suitable for reproduction, the researcher describes. She believes that other and complex reasons can also explain the decline in teenage girls. – It is conceivable that social media will take over for some girls as they get older. Many games may be designed so that they appeal more to boys than to girls. They are made on boys’ terms, says Wold. She also mentions greater social acceptance of boys playing games. Clear message to the guys In the gaming house, Veronika Langø ends the game she has been half-way through, during the entire interview. The other players are mad at her, she says. Photo: Lokman Ghorbani / news – It’s a team play, so it’s very understandable that they get annoyed when you leave the game, she explains. She has a clear message for boys who incite: – It is very unnecessary. Accept people into the game. Try to have seen yourselves in the girls’ footsteps. It should be fun to play and you are ruining it. So stop! she says firmly. Read the full report from the Norwegian Media Authority here. Hi! Do you have thoughts about the case you have read or suggestions for something else we at news should check out? Feel free to send me an email! If you are curious about what else news Kultur writes about, you can find all the long reading cases here: https://www.news.no/kultur/langlesing-fra-news-kultur-1.13267199
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Fewer girls as gamers – news Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country
