Who ended up being G4′s Next Gamer Girl anyway?

You know, a year and a half ago, I never suspected that a certain term  would make my skin crawl with annoyance. The description is just two words. Two words that are absolutely fine on their own but when mushed together, it ignites a fire of irritation in me and the majority of the video game industry.

That term is: Gamer Girl

Tiff, a former writer for Destructoid.com explains this term perfectly:

The term ‘Girl Gamer’ is intended to define the populace of female gamers who identify with said terminology and who particularly rely on the alienation of their gender as a means of gaining attention from the larger gamer demographic.

In the early spring of 2008, there was an Internet contest that was searching for G4′s Next Gamer Girl. Being the young and stupid little lamb that I am, I entered the contest thinking that I would have my chance to live out my dream of informing gamers worldwide of the breaking news in the video game industry and release dates on upcoming titles. It’s embarrassing to admit now but I bugged everyone on my Myspace and favorite gaming forums, asking for their daily vote so I could be one of the girls who got to be in the Top Ten spot and have a guaranteed interview. GotCast.com and the G4 Television Network were searching for the ultimate Gamer Girl for future G4 projects, that would include hosts and correspondents for current and upcoming programming and I thought I’d be the perfect girl.

If you remember the time when this contest was going on, you’ll more than likely remember a horrible time for gamers. Models who thought that a “pixel” is a tiny fairy ended up joining every gaming site possible to ask strangers to vote for them so they could get a spot on television. Girls got catty with each other and talked down on their competitors to whoever would listen. The worst part was that the friends (fanboys) of girls would talk about the competitors like they were some type of Goddesses who were to be worshipped. Everyone was just entirely sick of it. Everyone, including me.

The contest lasted from January 30th, 2008 to February 29th, 2008 so it was a good month of constant bitching, promoting and voting. Before the casting close date, I was sick and tired of all of the drama that birthed from the stupid popularity contest.

The Top Ten girls were told that they would pick one of us in a week or two after our interviews with the G4 Casting Director but at that point, I don’t think anyone really cared anymore. Days turned into months and months turned into a year and I just realized that I never did hear a follow up to the contest. Who the hell did they pick anyway?

Or did they even pick anyone at all? One thing that I and the other girls had in common was that we are all Internet- savvy. Everyone’s involved with at least one video game website, podcast or webshow. I feel like I would have at least heard if one of the other females was actually contacted to be the next G4 host.

Then again, maybe I just haven’t heard anything online. God knows that I haven’t even watched G4 since even BEFORE the contest started, so there could be a new host and I just never knew it. Why? Well, in all honesty, G4 started to suck anyway. (True Facts!)

The Top Ten gaming females included StarSlay3r, BunnyXablaze, L337Lauren, Nikole, Aktrez, Fluffy Hell Kitty, Britini Martini, Nuyo Riquena, Miz Calamity and little ol’ me finishing as #10 with a humble 1,428 votes.

After talking with the other contestants for a bit, we noticed that G4 was not looking for a kick ass gamer with mad skills, they were searching the world wide web for another smiling, beautiful, dim-witted host who could pretend to understand what she’s reading in the teleprompter. Of course, that’s show business and that  failed to surprise me.

Faith, a blogger from Destructoid.com summed up the contest perfectly:

Gotta give it to G4 though. They created a great marketing tool with this contest because everyone of the girls in the contest will be promoting themselves to tons of people and in turn will be promoting G4TV. Brilliant on their part.

Either way, that contest was fucking ridiculous and a waste of everyone’s fapping time. It was just another Internet-based popularity contest that turned everyone against each other and polluted the Internet with more “VOTE FOR ME” spam all over their social networking sites. I’m glad that it’s over and I know I’m not the only one. I never did become the next Olivia Munn or Morgan Webb but I’m perfectly happy with that. I thought being on TV talking about my passion would be amazing but realized it was not really something I would want to do.