Video Games Create An Unrealistic Body Image For Men

Video Games Made Me Do It: "Today’s video games are doing an absolute horrendous job in portraying real men. Their depiction of the male form is, to say the least, cruel."

[TRASHBOAT___]

Cruel is having stupid people saying stupid sh1t to get traffic to their websites

[miyamoto]

Exactly!
I dig the super hero or japanese long legs proportion

BUT

I loved Nathan Drake because I can relate to him as far as my body proportions are concerned. He has a low waistline and short legs like me yet he can do the amazing stuff.

Thank you Naughty Dog for this brave and bold move.

[xHeavYx]

Uh, I guess some people don't get the sarcasm unless there is a /s somewhere.

[Irishguy95]

I don't get it anyways, do you want Nathan drake to be a 200 pound obese man performing the acrobatic skills he does?

In video games you play as soldiers or active people at least. Most of the time.

[Ozmoses]

That's what Doughnut Drake is for :)

[Death]

Ouch.

I clock in at 200 lbs and would hardly be considered obese. I also stay active, enjoy running and work out.

[Irishguy95]

Ah I don't mean 200lbs is obese Death, you can be 200lbs and be built like a tank too. 200lbs can be obese though you know? Depends on other factors.

But I being too harsh I think haha. My bad. Lets rephrase it

"A 5ft0 man who sits on his ass all day and weighs 250lbs"

[Hellsvacancy]

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Makes Uncharted look like a comedy

[Spenok]

People, this is a satire article in response to that ridiculous article by huffington post about the unrealistic portrayal of women in games.

Here: http://www.huffingtonpost.c...

[-Foxtrot]

Yeah but the thing is unlike females with the way some (and I said some) of them go on when they complain about the way the female "body image" is portrayed by female characters, we don't care about it.

We just enjoy the bloody game, we don't care if you have all these thin, muscular male characters because we couldn't give a crap. It's not messing with our experiences when playing the game. Why waste time nitpicking on crap like that.

[WilliamUsher]

This right here.

A lot of times guys just want to play a game and play a cool looking character in the game (most times).

It's an interactive fantasy and it doesn't always have to reflect the sensibilities of reality.

[matt139]

You are completely deluded if you believe that. The younger generation in particular have enormous body issues, both boys and girls and having all these 'perfect male ideals' in movies/games and social media only further perpetuates such body disorders and contributes significantly to low self esteem.

[marison]

Matt, you gave me hope.

And mens like us are much less valuated by our bodies and faces. Women are recriminated if they have a single scar, some weight or anything that drags them from the perfect image society claims. They have the right to complain about that.

[Death]

If video games are dictating childrens body image, parents are 100% to blame. My youngest was starting to game for an unhealthy amount of time daily. I made adjustments which is what a parent is supposed to do.

[DragonKnight]

"The younger generation in particular have enormous body issues, both boys and girls and having all these 'perfect male ideals' in movies/games and social media only further perpetuates such body disorders and contributes significantly to low self esteem."

This only occurs because of people telling them they have body issues. When all you see is "women are portrayed in unrealistic ways" all the time where impressionable youth are around, sooner or later they'll soak it up like a sponge. Movies and games are not to blame. They are fiction, they aren't meant to represent reality. If your kid is playing games and feeling bad about how they look, that's on you as a parent not the game. You should be telling your child that those characters aren't real, they aren't meant to be real, and not to judge themselves based on people who don't exist.

That said, there are plenty of real people that look just like gaming characters because that's how their body is or they work at it, and that's their choice too. This idea that it's the responsibility of entertainment to cater to the fragility of some people's egos or raise children to feel good about themselves completely removes that responsibility from the parents, who ought to be responsible.

[wakeNbake]

I swear every soldier in Gears of War is jacked on steroids.

[Death]

Wuuhhhaaat? You mean we aren't all supposed to look like that? Are you saying there is a difference between fantasy and reality?

[Kurisu]

If only Doughnut Drake was Nate's in game model, then Uncharted wouldn't have got dragged in to this xD

[Germany7]

Now we just need to create a site and make all these characters fat, because that's the "reality"./s

[OhMyGandhi]

It is sort of interesting that most video game men are ruggedly handsome in some way, and if there is a character with some "negative" trait like being overweight or shown to have a physical/mental handicap, they often are viewed as indecent, often sneaky, even immoral.

I call hereby call this, the "Newman Effect".

[Sora_1994]

So now male characters are dragged into by his crap to sigh..who cares its a game!! If i wanna play as a skinny 5,2(im short sue me) guy ill buy 2k or madden and make him. Its not for reality its for entertainment to be who or what u want come on now

Edit: also Nathan drake of all people he looks perfectly normal? He looks like a freaking real life actor as a matter of fact

[Irishguy95]

Real life 'actor'

XD

Just sayin'

[Sora_1994]

Lol wat?
Oooooo is it because i said real life than actor immediately after lol...u know what i meant

[Spenok]

This is clearly a satire piece in response to that ridiculous piece on how women are portrayed.

This one: http://www.huffingtonpost.c...

Also, many in game actors are based on real life people. Though often have things added or removed etc.

[DanielGearSolid]

WOOOW I geniunely thought this was satire

[Spenok]

It is. Look at the last image and what he says about the wrestler. Or MMA fighter, wtf ever he is lol.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

"Real men don’t have six packs and he would’ve been much more relatable if the artists introduced love handles to his design." LOL, are saying a character that live a very active lifestyle should be out of shape? Solid Snakes' physique is in no way freakish or out of this world, neither is Nathan Drake's.
These characters are simply fit and why wouldn't they be. Ryu, although more buff than he should be for weight, would be fit looking he fights for a living. Many people in the developed world are out of shape. The author of this article was likely unfit.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

I never even noticed this article may have been satire lol.

[xX_Altair_Xx]

to be honest Hollywood does this far more than games; games are just CGI at the end of the day; the actors on screen are human, and most of these guys are obviously on steroids, giving a false impression as to what can be acheived.

[RedTriangle53]

Nice satire. I keep seeing "feminists" abuse the bigotry card to assign blame for displaying the "wrong" female bodies, which is ridiculous seeing as judging someone by their body is a form of bigotry. If you remove the fact that the females depicted are considered attractive, the entire argument slips. Helpless support character? Pick one of the hundreds of both female and male ones. Helpless *attractive* support characters? Now the feminists are upset, and blood will shed by the gallon.

They don't want to admit it, but it all boils down to jealousy. They disagree with the standards by which men feel sexual attraction, and therefore go out of their way to punish people for finding curvy bodies attractive, in essence stigmatizing most of all men, and all attractive females. It's a senseless crusade of hatred.

I'm not nearly as offended by the much stronger macho culture. Grow up, women. This isn't feminism, it's pampered and spoiled demands for privilege. Protection from feeling envious is not a right. Fuck off.

/rant

[flyingwombat33]

Are you even remotely familiar with the general platforms of third and fourth wave feminism or did you just land on an opinion in complete ignorance and start waving it around the internet? In many circles of modern feminism (not an actual moniker, but I'll use it for this purpose), strippers, prostitutes, and other forms of female exhibitionists and sex-workers are glorified as a form of empowerment over sex-starved inadequate men who can't control their desires. It makes me sick to my stomach when I see the mindless legion of idiotic man-children who don't know what the fuck they're talking about on the topic start soap-boxing on forums. How about you ACTUALLY read about it before having such a polarized opinion? Worse yet, your ignorance is celebrated by a community of the uninformed, and I will likely be chastised. This sea of aggressive, willful ignorance is truly disheartening.

The topic is NOT as simple as you're trying to make it.

[RedTriangle53]

You've indulged yourself in monologue, and obviously concluded that you are somehow superior. Now would you happen to want to make some sort of point, or is baseless insult and non sequitur pronouncements of irrelevant factuality the limits of your rhetoric abilities?
My points stand.

[flyingwombat33]

Sigh... Like I said, aggressive willful ignorance. You're not interested in knowing more. You're interested in feeling right. You're points do not stand--it'd be like if I wrote a paragraph full of words that I was just using incorrectly and insisted I was right. You're just WRONG on the definitions. How are these facts even slightly irrelevant? I would never conclude that I'm a better person than you, but I do think you're aggressively oversimplifying this specific topic in a way that's very frustrating to someone who's well-informed.

[RedTriangle53]

then my points stand until you quote your definitions to correct me.

[angelusbrz]

and movies/tv shows aren't ?

[F0XHOUND]

Street fighter females look realistic though atleast.......

[Sora_1994]

Them thunder thighs be on point XD

[Ozmoses]

I'm pretty sure more graphical detail was put into Solid Snake's Ass in MGS4 than any female character ever created...

making sexy appealing character models definitely applys to both genders..

it's not a one sided thing like the feminists claim it to be.

[iron-fist-jockie]

did this article really just say that real men don't have six pack abs..........

[sovkhan]

OMFG!!! What's needed to be invented to generate traffic, these days, is beyond incredible!!!

[ShaunCameron]

Projecting much?

[Rachel_Alucard]

Video games create unrealistic body images. Meanwhile, in hollywood and the media in general https://pmchollywoodlife.fi...