I think the best word I’ve ever seen is “gaymers.” You know exactly what I’m talking about now, right? It’s a great word. Now if they could only make a word that says, “don’t shut that door!” in one snappy, short syllable.
But back to the gaymers. In case you couldn’t tell, it’s a clever amalgamation of “gay” and “gamer” — as in “World of Warcraft,” “Dungeons and Dragons” and other such nerdy pursuits. Just as the thought escaped my head, however, Josh Norman — who runs the Nashville GLBT Gaymers and Friends Facebook page with his boyfriend Justin Hosford — corrected me.
“At one point games were relegated to being for nerds and geeks. There was a stigma attached to it,” Norman, who has an 8-bit Mario tattoo on his arm, explains. “But over the last decade it has really grown into something that a lot of people do in one form or another. Between Facebook and iPhone apps, I'd wager that a majority of people spend at least a couple hours a week gaming.”
In fact IRL, (In Real Life, for those of you not as “hip” and “with it” as I) Norman and Hosford are in their 30’s, grew up south of Nashville, and work at Vanderbilt. Hosford explains, “We do the same as other people- drinking and carousing, going to the movies, trying new restaurants, running 5ks.”
In talking to them, I became curious about what it’s like to be a gaymer. Norman said, “Being gay and a gamer still has the issue of having to deal with the homophobia that shows up in online games and forums — the people that use racial, homophobic and misogynistic slurs and call it ‘trash talk.’” Hosford said, “Many of our straight followers, especially women, like having a group of gamers they can associate with that doesn’t participate in the trash talking Josh mentioned.”
The gaymer culture is a small but growing group of gamers. “I believe there is a lot of potential for the gay gamer subset to really organize, but its something that many people haven’t thought to do until recently,” Hosford said. Reddit is abuzz with gaymers (reddit.com/r/gaymers) and their Facebook group is taking off. Members of the group even meet IRL! They said, “It's been a lot of fun meeting different people who have similar interests. We started the page because we wanted a gay-friendly group of gamers. Since then, the people that we meet, both gay and straight, have been welcoming and really embraced the page and a small community is developing.”
Whether you’re into big storyline games like “L.A. Noire” or tiny puzzle games on your iPhone, check out the Nashville GLBT Gaymers and Friends Facebook group at facebook.com/NashvilleGlbtGaymers and get to know a bunch of great people.