The importance of Fusion’s new series ‘Girl Gamers’

The gaming industry is a pretty complex sandbox, all things considered. There’s a wide variety of people who play video games on an everyday basis – but, as it turns out, not all of those people refer to themselves as ‘gamers’, and that’s in large part due to the fact that the descriptor comes with a complicated backstory attached to it.

Why is the word ‘gamer’ such a loaded one? And who decides who gets to call themselves a gamer, anyway?

That’s exactly the issue addressed in the first episode of Fusion‘s “Girl Gamers,” a five-part series hosted by editor-at-large Latoya Peterson. In the five-minute ep, everyone from female game designers to YouTube personalities break down their opinion on what the true definition of a gamer really is. Of course, no one can really agree on the universal standard for a gamer, or the common criteria that have to be met in order for one to qualify as a gamer. But maybe that’s the point.

Latoya says she always identified as a gamer personally because no one was around to tell her any differently or convince her otherwise. “There weren’t many black female gamers on the scene, but the ones that were there made a huge impression.”

The reason that the word ‘gamer’ isn’t so easily defined is because we all have different ideas of what gamers should look like, or how they should act. For Latoya, however, it’s pretty simple. “The only real requirement to be a gamer is to love games, and since games are popular sites for bonding it’s more about the memories we create rather than what we call ourselves.” We can’t think of a better way to describe it.

There’s a lot of thoughtful commentary in just this one episode alone, and we can’t wait to see what subjects Latoya and the rest of the Fusion crew tackle in the “Girl Gamers” series. Check out the first episode below:

(Image via YouTube/Fusion)