Hey o/ been awhile..hows it going? Me again..
So i was talking to a duster roleplayer today about..Role playing
Was telling him how i was pretty much one of the pioneer duster RPers..trying to relate with him...then this was said
Thal Vadam > congratulations, you invented our stereotype that we suffer under
Avio Yaken > Which is?
Thal Vadam > we are all death hungry criminals who only enjoy killing, dying, and getting drunk as F***
Thal Vadam > what makes me think you started was you said you were the first, i've joined some RP channels where the first thing said to me was "Are you like Foley Jones?"
Soooo despite Foley being a terrible character and me being a "Shit stain on the Rp community"
...Should i feel good about this? i kinda feel good my name is known, albeit not in the good kind of way
The word 'stereotype' has a negative connotation today. We have come to associate the word with ignorantly lumping genders/ ethnic groups into one category and slapping a descriptive label with negative associations on them. Jews like money, Blacks are lazy, Irish are drunks and so on.
However, character 'stereotypes' was something originally invented by the film industry. (I think it was the Russian
Kinopravda in an Eisenstien film actually.) Until that time, actors would just play any role they were handed and expect that the audience found it convincing.
For example, in a scene with a thief, a Priest, and a soldier, the roles are played by:
1. A middle aged man with a long beard,
2. An athletic clean shaven man with short hair,
3. and a scruffy looking man with wild hair and shifty eyes.
Is it possible that the solider could be the old man with the beard? It is unlikely, but possible. Can priests be athletic clean shaven men? Certainly! Could a priest be a scruffy looking man with wild hair and shifty eyes? Absolutely!
In the mind of the audience though, beards = Priests, Athletes = Soldiers, shifty eyes = Thief.
In EVE roleplay, Prime fiction cultural stereotypes are the acorn from which mighty oaks grow.
Amarr = Religion,
Caldari = Corporatism,
Minmatar = Rebel slaves,
Gallente = Hippies.
It's up to you to decide how stereotypical your character's behaviour is, or isn't. Do you progress towards the stereotype, or veer away from it? There are Amarrian Atheists and Caldari Communists, but these characters wouldn't be thrown into sharp relief unless there was the stereotype of their faction as a whole.
TL;DR: Stereotypes are bad in real life, but a useful mechanism in fiction.