History Main / ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet

Nowadays, the lingering sentiment can only be seen as a [[MemeticMutation meme]] in [[Website/FourChan certain corners of the Internet]] and in people's assumption that anyone they meet online is male unless obviously otherwise. You can still see this in the gaming community, but that too is fading with time. With the advent of Voice over IP, it's pretty obvious who's female (at least physically) as your voice will "give you away". It's still good to keep in mind that sometimes the software distorts or changes the voice so that people will question your sex regardless.

Nowadays, women dominate communities such as {{Fanfiction}} sites, SoapOpera boards, Website/{{Facebook}}, ''VideoGame/SecondLife'', Platform/LiveJournal and its clones (particularly in JournalRoleplay), Website/{{Tumblr}} (the successor to [=LiveJournal=] for fandom blogging) or Website/MySpace. As such, this is mainly a DiscreditedTrope these days.

* Averted with ''Website/{{Pinterest}}'', a site whose user base is filled with far more women than even Website/{{Tumblr}}.

As the Internet grew, women became more common. Interestingly enough, men pretending to be women also became ''more'' common as well; it soon became apparent that announcing you were female online (and thus a geek girl) was a way to get lots of attention and accommodation from other users, even to the point of some them being tricked into mailing gifts, cash, or passwords. In some circles the backlash was huge and violent, leading to anyone claiming to be female to instantly be accosted with demands of "proof" (eventually codified [[InternetJerk as "Tits or GTFO"]]).

* In ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'', Hank [=McCoy=] believes that he is spending his time chatting with a supermodel mutant named Naomi. It's actually the Blob, searching for info on Magneto's death. [[spoiler:Cue things turning sour, when Hank accidentally lets it slip that Magneto's still alive and agrees to meet "Naomi", only to have Brotherhood telepaths rip their leader's location out of [=McCoy's=] head]]. Blob even says that everyone on the internet is either guys or guys pretending to be girls.

Nowadays, women dominate communities such as {{Fanfiction}} sites, SoapOpera boards, Website/{{Facebook}}, ''VideoGame/SecondLife'', Website/LiveJournal and its clones (particularly in JournalRoleplay), Website/{{Tumblr}} (the successor to [=LiveJournal=] for fandom blogging) or Website/MySpace. As such, this is mainly a DiscreditedTrope these days.

* Averted with a passion in ''LightNovel/AndYouThoughtThereIsNeverAGirlOnline''. Hideki/Rusian tried to confess to a girl online, but she admitted that she was actually a guy in real life. However, when his present-day guild decides to have a real-life meetup, not only does the girl he ended up marrying in-game turn out to be an actual girl, but his other two guildmates turn out to be female [[CrossPlayer Cross Players]]. [[spoiler: Also, the first girl ended up being a girl after all, and one of his guildmate's friends, also a girl, ends up joining later.]]

* ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}'' Kanra=Izaya. And he's particularly girly online, leading to many fanworks of him cross-dressing to get "in character." Also, [[spoiler: it's suspected in the novels that Pure Water 100% is Aoba pretending to be a girl.]]
** Subverted in that Setton (a basically androgynous user) turns out to be Celty, and Saika is a girl... well, originally a knife, but NOW a girl...

* Lampshaded in ''Anime/SwordArtOnline'' during the Aincrad arc, where the majority of [[{{GIRL}} female players were revealed to be male players using female avatars]]. This also holds true for Gun Gale Online, where Sinon is one of the only girls shown onscreen in the male-dominated game.
** This phrase is said word-for-word by Asuna in the first episode of the DVD Blu-Ray mockumentary ''Sword Art Offline''.

[[folder:Film]]

* Tucker of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' fame says this at one point to [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext his alien baby]], advising him, among other things, that "all the girls on the internet are actually dudes".

* For a while, some users playing lady Night Elves in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' got the idea of stripping off their armor and doing the /dance animation on top of the Ironforge mailbox for tips. Doing so was an immediate way to be branded as a girl (and a scrub). Although in reality, probably a lot of the dancers were guys irl. Whether or not anyone made significant money doing this is still hotly debated as well. Despite the fact that this stereotype is widely believed in the fanbase, ''Franchise/Warcraft''has actually had a large female following since ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII''. Also the game's primary fansite [[http://www.wowhead.com]] was started and is run by two veteran women players: as are several of the most prominent youtubers. For whatever reason though, there is a persistent rumor that there were no women playing the game until the Mists of Pandaria expansion. The reason usually given for this, is that this expansion introduced the Pandaren who are cute anthropomorphic pandas. This is a game that already had cute anthropomorphic cows, absurdly cute werewolves, and the ability to turn into cute animals via the Druid class. Also the Pandaren were introduced in ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'' actually. A factoid that the female gamers are far more likely to remember than the male gamers who spread the rumors, which might have ''something'' to do with the male leads of that game being particularly attractive.