PAX East, Day 3

Well friends, after 3 long, glorious days PAX East 2011 has officially come to an end.

Learning from our experience with panels yesterday, Lynsey and I headed right to the theater for the “One of Us” panel that featured our fellow blog buddy Alex.

Check her out, folks. She's awesome.

After a few uncertain moments the ladies and gentlemen of the panel really got rolling on the issues facing minority gamers, specifically the differently-abled, non-heterosexual and female gaming population. Although the entire panel was very interesting there was one thing that really stood out to me. The panelist from gaygamer.net (who’s name escapes me, please forgive!) tackled exactly what it is that you should do when you come across the inevitable hostile player in the virtual world who aren’t too keen on the fact that you’re not as they are.

The answer: stand up for yourself.

It actually reminded me of a conversation held on a recent episode of Analog Hole Gaming where Christy talked about a young boy in World of Warcraft asking her to send him pictures of her tits. Instead of rolling her eyes and ignoring him, she called him out on the absurdity of his statement and shamed him into stopping. It made me think back to the times were I’ve been harassed on-line and how I blocked them and moved on without letting them know.

And it bothered me.

After all, how can we expect things to change if we remain passive when someone’s throws the word “fag” or “dyke” or “bitch” around on-line?

We can’t and we shouldn’t - complacency is not the answer.

It really was a great panel.

Afterwards, we headed back to the show floor but upon finding 2-hour plus waits for the other games we were curious about we opted to watch from the sidelines for a few minutes before heading out exhausted but satisfied. This was my first time at PAX East and I can certainly say that I plan to return next year. Yes, the lines were long, the food was expensive, and there was a lot of confusion that first day but overall it was a terrific, nerdy experience.