Maybelline New York, which launched its ‘Brave Together’ global initiative late last year with the stated aim to make mental health support accessible to all, has debuted a new campaign targeting gender-based harassment in the video game industry.
The campaign, titled ‘Through Their Eyes’, includes a social experiment wherein male-identifying gamers Joel ‘JoelBergs’ Bergs and Drew ‘DrewD0g’ Warne used voice alteration devices and unique player profiles to sound and look more feminine while playing online, GamesHub reports.
The video talks to female gaming influencers Luminumn and PaladinAmber about their experiences playing online with voice chat, before getting JoelBergs and DrewD0g to experience it for themselves by playing with voice modulation and female-presenting player profiles.
Unsurprisingly, this experiment led to both players receiving vicious harassment. As detailed in the Maybelline campaign, they’re told to ‘get back to the sink’ and to call other players ‘daddy’. Some competitors refuse to speak to them, or immediately drop out of gaming sessions when they talk on chat. Several comments are censored, but appear to be invitations for sex – consensual or otherwise.
‘Bitch, shut your mouth,’ one competitor instructs. ‘Oi, sweetbee, shut your [censored] up.’
‘Is that a female?’ another asks. ‘I want to [censored] [censored] [censored], baby.’
The comments detailed in the Maybelline New York campaign, while shocking, are likely to come as no surprise to female-identifying video game fans, GamesHub further reports. Online multiplayer spaces remain dominated by abuse, and it’s for this reason that many non-male gamers choose not to enter these spaces, or not to use voice chat in games.
Maybelline cites a 2023 Bastion Insights National Gamer Survey that shows 83% of female-identifying gamers have “directly experienced and/or observed offensive behaviour or language while online gaming,” with many believing this is harassment has created unsafe spaces for women who love video games. This is despite 45% of video game players worldwide identifying as women, per Forbes.
The video ends with a call-out for all gamers to “speak up and help each other out” when experiencing this kind of harassment.
Maybelline isn’t unique in trying to draw attention to this issue in online gaming. Gamespot reports that recently, Twitch streamer SteffyEvans called out gendered harassment in online gaming by setting herself a challenge to make sandwiches every time someone tells her to in game – and pointing out how much the sexist comment is still thrown around in online matches.
The Maybelline New York campaign only highlights this further. In calling for players, particularly male players, to speak out when abuse happens, the company aims to foster more inclusive gaming spaces.
