If you haven’t been up-to-date on what’s happening over on TikTok in terms of gaming lately, this is probably the biggest news of the bunch: The ‘Babygirlification’ of Simon “Ghost” Riley from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.
The release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II has seen fans old and new coming to the series, with the title boasting the most successful launch for a Call of Duty game ever. The graphics are crisp as hell with some moments in the game requiring a double-take because they look so real, and the campaign seems to be a hit with players.
The game’s campaign follows Task Force 141, a joint multi-national special operations unit formed by SAS Captain John Price. The team consists of Sergeant Kyle “Gaz” Garrick, Lieutenant Simon “Ghost” Riley, and Sergeant John “Soap” MacTavish. When it comes to what I’ve seen on TikTok, there’s quite a bit of back-and-forth between Ghost and Soap, who are English and Scottish respectively. These two are quite popular, but it’s Ghost that has garnered the most attention.
From my perspective, Ghost from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II is what I would consider to be a ‘TikTok Sexyman’, which is TikTok’s own version of the Tumblr Sexyman (this will make more sense of that). Since more of Call of Duty’s campaign has been played, more and more girls, gays, and even other straight dudes joining in on the fun have been latched onto Ghost as their favourite, perhaps in an “I Can Fix Him” sort of way.
I’m convinced it’s because you can’t see his face but you can hear his low, rugged English accent (Corpse Husband, anybody?), but also because his character progression from guy-that-doesn’t-need-friends to guy-that-loves-his-friends is somewhat endearing. Anywho, the TikTok girlies have decided that he is their favourite, and that he is their ‘babygirl’.
So what’s wrong with this? Why is this a problem? Well, apparently some dudes on TikTok aren’t too happy that the girls on TikTok like a character in a video game this much, and have accused the Ghost fans of ‘sexualising’ him, going further to presume that they ‘don’t even care about the game’.
A now-deleted TikTok from a Ghost-lover hater has been duetted a number of times in ridicule, mainly consisting of fan edits and people dunking on him:
@gwooves Hes so babygirl 🧎 #mw2 #cod #ghost #fyp ♬ original sound – Cera
Now, there’s a lot of things that really get me about this whole situation.
First of all, what exactly can we define as ‘sexualising’? From what I’ve seen on TikTok, looking up ‘Ghost MW2’ on TikTok will get you a myriad of cool-guy videos mixed in with ‘fancams’ (stylised edits of celebrities/characters with music in the background) of the character. Folks from both sides of the spectrum show their love for the character in different ways, but none of them are really ‘sexual’ when you consider what kind of stuff exists on the internet of video game characters.
Is there as much Rule 34 of Ghost as there is of, I dunno, Valeria Garza, the female antagonist of the same game? And yes, we can make comparisons of characters all we like. Realistically, female characters in video games get sexualised a whole lot more in comparison to male characters in video games. While it’s all pretty weird, I think there’s a clear difference between having a crush on a fictional character and pages upon pages of porn existing of a character.
It sickens me to bring up, but there’s a LOT of porn of female video game characters that are underage. Are fancams of Ghost and things like that really comparable? According to one commenter on a TikTok, apparently so.
@kogarrashi Replying to @speedstercomics #ghost #ghostedit ♬ original sound – Jack Jacobson
I think we all have our own opinions on the sexualisation of video game characters at the end of the day. Sure, there are female characters in video games that I would love to see on the internet without having to also see them getting their back blown out, but what am I going to do? That’s just the way the internet works. It’s an icky place.
Coming back to Ghost, is it really a problem that girls like a video game character that has clearly had work put into their character development as well as a great voice acting performance? I mean, there are probably bigger moral issues when it comes to Call of Duty, but I think calling a character that isn’t real ‘babygirl’ and making fan edits of them is relatively harmless. Also, at this point, a good amount of people saying Ghost is their ‘babygirl’ are doing it as a joke, so it’s okay to laugh!
Of course, every opinion is valid. If you disagree, you’re well within your rights to do so. Me personally? I think my opinion is very cool and normal.
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