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What ethnicity/nationality gets little representation here?


Kai

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I understand a lot of these concerns, and it's interesting reading them!

I have a character who is Indian, but raised in America mostly.
Also, being Native, I have another character that is from the Tongva Nation.

I normally don't RP 'Americans', I don't personally resonate with that. To me, I'm Siksika first. But thats just me. 🤷‍♀️

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This is a subject which is useful for us to talk about no matter what kind of RP we enjoy, how well we RP, or whatever else. This is a subject that deals with the diversity which brings all of us together. I wanted to share some deeper dive observations about the greater topic underpinning this. Bit of a long post, read if you're interested, or don't, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life.

 

A reoccurring theme is stereotypes. GTA roleplay encourages players to often RP different cultures dramatically different from their own. That can be a very good thing, but people often create characters to fit criminal organizations or to fit other symbolic ideals in their fantasy of this culture. Sometimes the memes and cliches about nationalities start to go into outright mockery, racism, and reflections of personal prejudices. 

 

GTA roleplay communities are melting pots of culture, both of the fictional characters and the players themselves. A lot of roleplayers are able to really give a great shake to a culture and have fun along the way. Sometimes leaning into cliches is fun--stereotypes can reflect some truths--but also taking the time to educate yourself and to continuously seek to improve your portrayal can allow you to add nuance to your character. If a player openly identifies as the culture you're portraying, it might be worth approaching them and seeing if they're down with sharing some of their experiences with your strange ass.


Stereotypes and racial exaggerations of characters happen to every culture in different ways, but historically GTA roleplay has treated some groups more offensively than others, and that's usually because of our real world cultures, prejudices, misconceptions, upbringings, religions, or anything in between. Sometimes it's just plain old naive ignorance. 

 

Last thought before my picks for this topic? I want to use the example of the treatment and portrayal of female characters in GTA RP since the beginning. This dates back a ways, all the way to the earliest GTA RP servers about 15 years ago. When niche RP communities were springing up on an obscure mod for a recently released PC port of GTA:SA, it was mostly bunches of teenaged boys from North America, Europe, and a random smattering of players from all the rest of the countries across the globe. A bunch of kids on the relatively fresh and new internets. Throw in that half the female skins were for prostitutes, it wasn't a great place to be for female characters. It's taken a long time of this hobby evolving and the players growing up in social forums with people of all viewpoints--we've watched the treatment and participation of female characters to have improved substantially. It's still not great, but we still have a lot of players who have grown up in highly misogynistic cultures or who have gotten resentful of a lack of female attention in their real lives and who are all the angrier about all the female GTA characters who don't want them either.

 

Here are some ethnicities and nationalities I think need a little more representation:

 

1. Indian Subcontinent - India, Nepal, Pakistan, etc.

Specifically Asian Indians, we'll get into American Indians in a bit. For many people the most powerful cultural image of an Indian man for the longest time was Apu, the Kwik-E-Mart owner and clerk on the Simpsons. "Thank you, come again." This and other stereotypes have made most Indian characters in RP pure comedic relief, absurdity, and mockery. Indians in America tend to be recent immigrants or first generation (born in the USA). Frequently, the Indians in America are smart and diligent workers, especially the first generation and on who tend to benefit from the infusion of Western ideals with working class upbringing. It's common in California to see Indian surnames in successful roles ranging from business executives, engineers and innovators, politicians and journalists, and so on.

 

2. Southeast Asians - Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, etc.

In the US, especially on the west coast, you will meet a lot of people whose heritage is from Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and other nearby countries. Entire neighborhoods across many cities in California will prominently feature southeast Asian culture. Often these are scrappy, hard-working, disciplined people. Most southeast Asian immigrants place a high value on educating their children, and often this is a very pragmatic desire that their children are able to be successful. 

 

3. American Indians.

American Indians, or Native Americans (click here for a video talking about this issue, and why I generally use the term "American Indian"). Their culture is intrinsically rooted to the USA where GTA RP happens. Like Asian Indians, there are a lot of strong cultural stereotypes which people anchor on to--chiefs, axes, feathers, so on. This is not for no reason, but it's complicated. There are 574 recognized tribes in the USA. To put it in perspective, there are 195 countries in the entire world. The tribes have their own government and nation within and alongside the USA. As you can imagine, that culture is really complicated, especially when you mix in lots of tribal warfare, imperialist genocide, lots of resettlement, the general scattering of a highly mistreated people, and hundreds of years of cultural mixing with other races. Many American Indians in California are going to be as American as any other person you'll meet, but that cultural background will have shaped them tremendously. Their experience is difficult for outsiders to personally comprehend. RPing an American Indian without a decent bit of research will mean you're guessing at nearly everything. But that being said, there is a lot of potential for these characters in a space like GTA:W and I think it's a worthy challenge for capable RPers.

 

4. Africans.

Africa is a stunningly enormous continent that dwarfs the scale of the United States and Europe combined. 54 countries, and a complicated web of different colonial influences, imperialistic and religious conquest, and hardships. Western Africa is especially underrepresented in GTA RP, particularly Francophone Africans. Most of the African immigrants I've met in the US speak ~3 languages, especially if they come from a country which was not under English control. In addition to English and a European/colonial language, they often speak one or more tribal languages. There is lots of variety all up and down the continent and plenty to draw from for RP.

 

5. Literally everyone else.

Kind of a cheat answer, but everyone here knows it.  Not every Italian-American needs to be a gangster. Not every Russian needs to be an alcoholic or Bond villain. Not every Japanese character needs to be a car enthusiast or a murderer. Maybe it's time for the trend of everyone making ethnic factions to start coming to an end and for people to start creating more interesting, dynamic factions which evolve naturally from in-character interactions rather than people generating dudes of a certain race to join their OOC buddies in an existing generic racial mafia #4951 which has been roleplayed hundreds of times across dozens of GTA RP communities. All these "Race+Crime=Family" factions which have plagued GTA RP for longer than some of the players on this community have been alive just serve to keep treading the same exact ground over and over again. It forces people to lean more heavily into cliches and stereotypes. It forces people to make increasingly vile and offensive characters. It encourages this play style of sudden influxes of crime cells with a dozen stereotypical felons die-hard loyally bonded together in a drug-hustle-gun-chasing-murder-orgy who all somehow totally evade the notice of federal authorities. Play humans from different parts of the world. Let them find their own way without all coming over as exported criminal labor or floating through life waiting to find the first dude with a similar ethnic background in a night club who says he's a total boss and "needs some hard working guys." You'll have a lot more freedom, creativity, room to explore, and an identity to make which is the product of the faction's RP rather than just the stereotypes we all know about the real life model. You'll also save yourself a lot of OOC cock-measuring about who knows more about the inner workings of XYZ criminal organization and who has watched more movies and TV shows about it.

 

 

 

To wrap this shit up, because holy fuck I wrote a god damn novella here, it's important for us as a community to be aware of racial stereotypes and seek to improve our understanding of other cultures. it makes us better individuals, a better community, and a better use of our time. My number one bonus piece of advice for portraying a character for whom ethnicity is important? Ask how your character got to the US, specifically. If they're the immigrant, why, how, and what did they have to do to make this happen? Why did they choose here? If they're born in the US, how close is immigration to their upbringing and how did it affect their perspective on being an American?

Edited by Ink
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Mexican americans who aren't criminals, I know that there are few who aren't of course. Plus on the side, a bit of spice, like descendants of the Maya for example. Someone who is american, yet does not neglect their origins. Doesn't need to wave mexican flag everywhere they go, but slide in few recognizable fragments into their culture or I don't know, daily life. Like for instance add religion to your roleplay. Who knows, popular belief is, that modern people of any country do not care about their ancestry. Many do.

Edited by Engelbert
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Just remove them Bri'ish characters bro, very unrealistic & cringe that everywhere I go and do /ex "SPEAKS WITH A HEAVY BRITISH ACCENT"

When we speak about it, there was this one guy I RP-ed with long ago, I have no clue where he is, but he used to speak in Scottish accent that hails from 14th century, believe it or not, fuck that man, RPQM, do something about this british invasion

Edited by FJ
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