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This is one stereotype about gamers & tabletop/card gamers especially that is just so thoroughly true and highly cross-cultural. Any in-person events within the "nerd culture" halo exhibit this phenomenon as well. You'd think "oh just do a smell test on people entering the venue and bar smelly people from entering" but it doesn't work like that. Their smell develops over time as they sweat and the bacterial colonies on their bodies & clothing activate. Hygiene can't be a one-day thing, you have to keep those clothes from getting smelly for as long as you own them. Barring actually forcing people to take a supervised shower to ensure they soap their ass, put on deodorant & issuing them a clean set of clothing on entry this will always be a problem.
I just don't get it. I've been playing games my entire life and I've never had this problem. Why is this such a prevalent issue?
You don't even need to shower every single day (it's not good for your skin) unless you're a naturally sweaty person or do stuff that makes you sweat or get dirty, so it's not even a matter of needing to shower daily, this is just lacking basic hygiene. But damn man if I'm going out to a con I'mma make sure I'm fresh every day.
lacking basic hygiene
Yep
A lot of these guys don't even know how to do laundry because it's woman's work
And you better believe a lot of these guys refuse to wash themselves properly because it's gay
A lot of these guys don't even know how to do laundry because it's woman's work
This was me, not because I was worried about doing women’s work, but because my mom was so insistent on doing certain things for me that I stopped trying to learn until I moved out for the first time. It’s embarrassing to be a grown man and not know how to do laundry because of some random sexist bullshit you were submitted to. I thought for a long time that I was just ungrateful for my mom doing my laundry for me. But now I’m a parent and no, I was fully justified in being pissed. I had genuine interest in learning to clean and in being clean and my parents refused to teach me. That’s bullshit, especially when it was sexist on top of it.
You expect me to touch a man's body? 🤔🤔🤔
LMAO
Fellas is it gay to be clean? 💀
have you considered some of them are just lazy and/or don't give a fuck about what others think about them?
Also to be fair theres at least some who have executive functioning issues (me) but thats not the majority of guys at these things lol.
As a fellow autistic I understand but also my tism compels me to be clean because I have sensory issues otherwise, I hate hate hate being dirty/having cluttered space/etc
idc of it's bad for my skin a warm shower is my one respite at the start of every monotonous shitty day
I have to take a hot shower every day or I feel greasy
And not in a fun way
that too. and my hair always starts smelling really bad at the end of the day, not that anybody is sniffing my hair or anything but the smell of hair is gross to me
Same. Unless I'm camping, I have to shower every night before bed or I feel gross and greasy. I don't get how people go weeks without it.
Anyone entering the premises gets sprayed down with a hose. No exceptions.
it might work if the hoses were drawing from a tank of pure chlorhexidine but that has safety issues
It's g*mers though so that's a risk I'm willing to take
just so thoroughly true and highly cross-cultural
Dudes smell bad. Young dudes who are just going through puberty typically don't realize how bad they smell, because they didn't smell this bad until they started growing hair and whatnot. Only children and other kids cut off from older mentors or other wiser peers often don't realize how/why they're so off-putting. And when you combine smell with a host of other physical/social/intellectual hang-ups common to teenagers, its easy to see how "You smell bad" gets lost amid the crowd of other generic insults that get flung around.
Hygiene can't be a one-day thing, you have to keep those clothes from getting smelly for as long as you own them. Barring actually forcing people to take a supervised shower to ensure they soap their ass, put on deodorant & issuing them a clean set of clothing on entry this will always be a problem.
Its a bigger thing for men (especially hairy men) entirely because of physiology. And when you spend a lot of time around other men who also smell bad, you go a bit nose-blind.
Depending on the culture of the group you're in, this can be self-correcting or self-reinforcing. Teenagers with older brothers/sisters will often get the talk about why young dudes are gross much sooner. Kids with younger parents / younger aunts or uncles or cousins / big extended families often get clued in sooner, too.
But - historically speaking - these aren't the kids that gravitate towards CCGs as a means of peer-bonding, because they're chasing their older peers' hobbies rather than clinging to games made for the
demographic
Events like this typically have refs and other staff in the room during games, so I think this might be solved if they were given the authority to eject people for stinking too much. Would take a while to be normalized and would probably see a lot of opposition initially. Would work well if official word on this came from Bandai/WotC but I can't imagine they give a shit.
The thing is they don't necessarily smell noticeably rank unless you sniff right up near the actual parts of them that are stinky. Instead their odour slowly percolates and builds up through the entire event space, like a durian. And it's usually multiple peoples' odour all working together.
For Yu-Gi-Oh they actually do have the authority to give stinky people a loss and demand they leave and only come back if showered and in clean clothes.
It's not an explicit rule for MtG though.
I'm also not sure if the rule is global or just NA only. But I'd think it'd apply everywhere.Duelists are expected to be showered and appropriately groomed when they enter a tournament. Neglecting to wash or put on clean clothes contributes to an unpleasant atmosphere at the event, as the tournament can be crowded, and the day can be long.
Duelists who neglect self-care to the point that they are negatively impacting the tournament may be asked to correct the issue in order to continue in the event.
All entrees must enter a designated showering zone within the venue. Like one of those decontamination booths at highly sterile locations