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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
All entrees must enter a designated showering zone within the venue. Like one of those decontamination booths at highly sterile locations