Every few months, a similar study is posted onto Reddit's r/gaming forum. Every time, the denizens of Reddit are surprised at the results. The study, invariably, says that the average "gamer" is female and in her 30s-40s. In addition, women are much more likely to be "hardcore gamers" then men. This is, of course, very different from the common stereotype of a "gamer". Clearly, there is something clearly wrong with the image of an acne-covered white male sitting in his mother's basement trying to get the +15 Sword of Social Awkwardness in World of Warcraft, swearing into an XboX headset in a nasally voice (because, as everyone knows, WoW is a console game), and wondering what this mysterious creature called a "female" is.
I blame shows like The Big Bang Theory for depictions like this. Not every nerd is an MIT valedictorian who plays Klingon Boggle on the weekends and has no idea how to interact with normal people. But there seems to be something about the statement "I am a gamer" that brings all this baggage with it.
