Gaymer.org looks to trademark 'Gaymer'
Can a man own the term "gaymer"? Chris Vizzini, owner of community site Gaymer.org, is looking to find out as he's applied to trademark the term. Now, before we lose people in a hail of righteous fury and legalese, it should be noted that Vizzini is only looking to trademark the word from online groups trying to use the term in another context. It's also worth noting that the controversial term "gaymer" had been used to describe the gay gaming community before Gaymer.org showed up on the scene. Also, as can be clearly seen in the photo, Gaymers original cider has been enjoyed since 1770 by the island of Britain.
There is currently some heated debate about the issue on the Gaymer.org forums and the other large gay gamer community site Gamers.Experimentations.org. Although many don't identify with the term "gaymer," it's still interesting that the term has gotten to the point of needing trademark protection.
GayGamer.net's site owner, who goes by the handle Fruit Brute, says, "I know there are many people that frequent our site who are members of both Gaymer.org and GamersExperimentations and I am all for that. I wish there was someway we could combine them all together in one big, happy, rainbow filled, pink glitter sprinkled family, but situations like this really seem to cause people to draw their lines in the sand."
To bring the issue into wider focus, what if someone tried to trademark terms like noob, pwn and other commonly used words part of gamer speak? Should one man control a word's destiny online when it's tied to a group in our gamer community?
