Reader Richard would like to use his full name as his gamer tag, but XBOX has decided that “Gaywood” is offensive. Here’s his letter:
After that fuss t’other day when Xbox Live banned the gamertag TheGayerGamer, I wondered if this would happen; lo and behold it has. They’ve banned my gamertag too. What makes this funny is that my old tag is just my name — Gaywood is my surname, which they could easily verify from my Live profile etc. I can’t decide if I’m amused or annoyed by this.
Thought you might like to note this in your coverage of the story. I’d suspect anyone with the string “gay” in their name is going to get a free new Gamertag soon. I haven’t played much on public live servers of late, so I suspect this is more likely to be down to an automated script trawling the database rather than individual tags that have been complained about. So, where does this end? What if my home address is in Scunthorpe?
Our sister site Kotaku obtained Mr. Gaywood’s driver’s license, which is more than Microsoft bothered to do:
PREVIOUSLY: “Gay” Player Name Banned By Xbox Live
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@Bladefist: Reminds me of the old lawyer’s saying, “If you’re strong on the facts but weak on the law, pound the facts. If you’re weak on the facts but strong on the law, pound the law. If you’re weak on both the facts and the law, pound the table.”
@Robert Synnott: I agree. At what point is it considered to be appropriate to tell a child raised by a gay couple that its parents are both the same sex? Gee, the child might grow up thinking there is nothing wrong with being gay. Horrors. Let me grab my pearls and my crotch to save them from the bad people.
I tried the name Eugenie as a name in Rock Band and was denied on XBox Live. I STILL can’t imagine where the “swear word” is in that.
The term ‘gay’ as refering to homosexuals is, as far as I know, quite recent. The word really means to being joyous. If you know the old song “When are harts were young and gay”, you know the song doesn’t refer to being homosexual. Words are only ‘bad’ in the mind of the beholder. Microsoft should really get out of the censering buisness and stick to gaming or software or what ever it is good at.
That, along with Gaylord, or Dyke, which are valid last names (and sometimes first).
(Funny thing, today I saw one of those limo drivers at the airport holding up a sign for Runt, D…. D runt. The Runt. HA)
@Robert Synnott: well put.
i’m a little shocked that the conversation went from discussing the validity of banning someone based on their last name to, realistically, full-on anti-gay comments. Yikes.
@spinachdip: Tip on saying the welsh double L
put the end of your toungue against the roof of your mouth where it meet the top of your front teeth. relax it so it *nearly* seals the airway. now try saying the Ls as if there was an h at the start (i.e for Llan… say hlan).
For extra effect acompany with lots of phlegm, add back of the throat, gutteral spitting (as if you’re going to hack up some extra phlegm) and you’ll be pretty close)
if you want to cheat, my dad’s solution was to say Clan with extra h-iness…
Disclaimer: IANA Welsh Person
I had a friend growing up whose father’s name was Jack Haas
To be fair, shortening “Richard” to “Dick” isn’t all that common in the USA, either, except in 1) the over 50 crowd, and 2) in order to make a joke.
With this attitude, we’d never have gotten a president named Bush on a ballot.
I’ve noticed this increasingly lately. My previously used gamertag that i had for 3 years was recently dubbed as offensive and i was forced to change it. It was jackofasses. Most people on live never complained to me about it, or found it offensive. Most just giggled and found it clever. But, i assume due to a bot swear filter, it has now gone and decided any words containing a swear or ‘offensive’ words is no longer a valid gamertag. I’m willing to bet that making a gamertag with Cockatoo in it, or even cockroach won’t be allowed. Yet i see people finding ways around these filters with the twist oof a word or two.
I understand people will get offended by certain names. Welcome to life. One mans pleasure is another mans pain. But how far do we take political correctness? Why is it, that hundreds of gamers get to be ‘punished’ because of another group of gamers on a private medium. Live has privacy filters, they have ways to avoid players, so why do people still feel the need to rag on someone for a name, which is probably just a joke, or an actual name/nickname the person has in real life, or on the web.
I’m growing increasingly tired of always having to change MY way for the ‘greater good’ of letting people live in their little bubbles where vulgar language and violence and crude behavior don’t exist.
The truth of the matter is, if you’re going to get upset, and take offense to a screen name, then you really need to get out more. I don’t care if you find it funny, or if you don’t find it funny, so long as you know, that it’s just words on a screen, and there is no harm meant by it.
The same people who are crying about our screen names are probably the parents of 12 year old Jimmy who plays gears of war and Left 4 Dead screaming swears and talking trash to people twice his age when mom and dad aren’t home anyway. There’s nothing he’s gonna read, or hear on xbox live that he hasn’t already heard during mommy and daddy’s fights, or in the playground at school.
If you don’t want to expose your kids to vulgard language on the internet, don’t subscribe to xbox live, World of Warcraft, or even the internet. Hey, why not take it a step further, lock your child in the basement away from the light of day with no means of talking to the outside world. Paint the walls powder blue, with flowers and rainbows while you’re at it. Then lets see how well adjusted your brand new sociopathic child turns out to be all because you didn’t let him grow up in the REAL WORLD where nothing is fair, where violence and vulgarity exist and take place in a million different ways EVERY DAY.
Next time you want to cry about something, why not cry to the news stations about broadcasting all that REAL violence taking place in iraq. Or talking about child molesters, rapists and murderers. That is the REAL stuff you should be complaining about and trying to stop. Not vulgarity over the internet.
I own the private car number plate P33 NOB. So i decided to change my xbox gamertag to P33 NOB.
Within 24 hours the username was banned, yet i can still drive my car legally.
I think some people get offended far too easily, and complain about the smallest things!