Women in gaming often face relentless discrimination and sexism from bitter man-children – and iJustine is no exception.
She recently received a barrage of hate and death threats surrounding her appearance at the Game Awards and the Intel Extreme Masters gaming tournament. The criticisms mostly surrounded the fact that she “did not play League of Legends” as “much as they did”, and did not deserve to watch a LoL tournament.
Let’s be real. They’re just jealous nobody wanted to invite them.
iJustine posted a fiery response on her Tumblr, defending herself from people that claimed she was “faking” being a gamer to “get attention”.
iJustine Draws a Comparison to Spectator Sports
iJustine makes a strong argument, comparing watching a gaming tournament to watching a football, basketball, hockey or Olympic game. “How many have ever played the professional sport they’re spectating?”
She Lists Her Gaming Credentials
Justine then decides that she needs to give some background on her history with gaming. According to her, she even skipped prom to go to a LAN party, and her mother would often take her computer and games away as a punishment.
When she was sixteen, she saved for an Apple G4 tower instead of a car. One Christmas, she even asked for RAM and a Windows emulator to play PC games on her Mac.
Justine then quotes Taylor Swift, “Haters gonna hate hate, hate, hate, hate.”