The Bunnygirl/Maid Boy dichotomy of video games

What a revitalized interest in dress-up means for the current state of gaming

As far as gamer internet is concerned, there are three tyඣpes of people: , , and . The former two have been around for a while; the top definition for “bunnygirl” on my favorite etymology site, Urban Dictionary, is from 2005 and the top definition for “catgirl” is from 2004. The maid boy is a newe💦r phenomenon, but all three terms have had a recent sur🔯ge in popularity thanks to things like 20-somethings on TikTok, online gamer culture becoming more firmly enmeshed with , and people finding ways to release otherw🐎ise “unseemly” emotions through clothing.

But before we get into that last 🍸part, just how popular are these anime girls and maid boys? Well, of 20-year-old influencer @chxsley dancing to K-pop in a tiny maid costume got over 80 million views since being posted𝓀 in 2020, and, according to Google Trends, terms like ꦛ“catgirl costume” are recent , meaning they “grew by more than .” 

So, like, pretty popular. 

But like I said, they’ve always been 🍌popular in some respect🀅s. Catgirls have existed forever in and anime. And although bunnyꦫgirls are🎶 associated with now, it’s g🀅enerally accepted thatও they went global because of the , who were a cultural force in the ’60s. ‘Maid boys’ becoming the sexy costume du jour is likely just a subversion of the Bunnie💦s, which makes sense considering the young person’s idea of gender identity is .

But although women dressing like a sexy cat or submissive (but, crucially, also sex꧋y) 𓂃bunny has been big for cosplayers and people who play , the “breakout” popularity of the🌱se terms have brought themꦺ to even the most mainstream, casual gamers.

This is because, thanks to a and gamer-focused sites like Twitch and Discord, gamer cu🌺lture itself has elevated to overall mainstream popularity. It makes sense that niche interests within it would rise along with it. But I think there’s another reason for the 🍌oceanic rise of smutty costumage. 

Gamer culture has emotional problems — women are bullied, men are aggressive, and diversity is lacking. When gaming was only for a sꦐelect group of hardcore gamers, these problems were easier to glaze over because they didn’t hurt as many people. But as gaming becomes mainstream and more marginalized an𝐆d casual gamers join servers, streams, and chat rooms, people want solutions.

And for some people, dressing up offers one. Gamer girls transform into smutty, anthropomorphic versions of themselves because it allows them to step into a character to explore their sexuality, a 🎶difficult task in a climate that often begs women to be sexy only to punish them for it. Maid outfits for men serve a similar bu﷽t opposite purpose. Putting on a tiny maid outfit, something from what these (mostly) cisgender, heterosexual men wear, allows them to slip𒊎 into a softer, ওobedient persona, one that might get them bullied in gaming if they didn’t have a costume to blame it on.

Granted, dressing isn’t a “solution” in the same way as marginalized gam𝐆er-focused comm🌸unities like 𝓀 is, or even encouraging people to ban and not encourage the most toxic players they know. But catgirls, bunnygirls, and maid boys are creative fantasies for gamers to express feelings they might typically feel ashamed of havin♍g. Alternatively, maybe people are just horny.