Handedness is quite obviously not as significant as gender, race, or sexuality. But it is at least similar in kind, in the sense that we live in a world that is built to benefit right handers. From things as minor as needing to rearrange cutlery at every restaurant or a lack of understanding about how to teach handwriting to lefties when the script is designed for righties, to more significant things like lefties dying on average 9 years younger than righties.
It was being left-handed that first helped me really internalise (as opposed to merely having an intellectual understanding of) the importance of representation in media. I’ve never played a Zelda game. I’ve never really even owned a Nintendo console, except for a Wii which only got used for Wii Sports. But I heard that Link was originally a lefty, and that they switched him to right-handed in the Wii version. And it hurt, man. A game I’ve never given a shit about, but learning they got rid of one of the only prominent lefties in games hurt, and I realised on a deep level “oh, this is why representation matters”.
And it looks like they kept Link right-handed even in later post-Wii games.
They added handiness in No Man’s Sky which I really loved, especially with VR. More games need to add handiness. Just mirror my avatar, I literally do not care if all of my stuff is backwards. Just let me swing my sword in my left hand.
Yeah, there are potential issues with it in multiplayer games so I can see why they wouldn’t have it in, say, Mount & Blade, but for single player games they definitely should allow it.
As a lefty and a lifelong Zelda fanboy, I will never forgive Nintendo for taking away our best representative.
My headcanon is that the Hero of Time and the Hero of Winds are lefties, and the Hero of the Sky and the Hero of the Wild are righties.
The Hero of Twilight is, uh, ambidextrous. Don’t ask me how he flips the handle and strap around on his shield.
25% of the US astronauts were lefthanded.
In 1st-3rd grade I would get reprimanded if I wrote with my left hand, but my right handed writing was unreadable so they thought I had a learning disability. They tried to put me in special needs classes which I excelled at because I didn’t have a learning disability. I got pulled out of that and then got tested for AD(H)D which I didn’t have.
Teacher: “oh you’re left handed, definitely need to be in the special needs class then”
Yet more evidence that Lemmy is overrun by extreme leftists…
(/j)
My grandmother was beaten in school for using her left hand. Then they tied her hand behind her to force her to write with her right hand. Being left-handed was the sign of the Devil in those days.
As a lefty myself, I’m glad they don’t do that anymore! Now they just leave us alone with our terrible smeared handwriting.
Yikes :S They didn’t do that to me, but they did ‘correct’ my left-handedness in preschool. I’m now only slightly ambidextrous, but I did discover I can write with my left hand… backwards. It’s sloppy, but every stroke is a mirror image of what I write with my right hand…
Being left-handed is fun because we were the only people who got to play Super Mario 64 DS with reasonable controls back in the early aughts.
I have a few left-handed friends, and it always surprised me how hard it can be to find a mouse or scissors suited for them
I’m left-handed but I use my right hand for mousing and cutting. That’s never been a problem for me.
On the other hand, (ha) I actually only use my left hand to write and to eat. For nearly everything else I use my right.
EDIT: apparently I discovered this morning I also use my left hand to shave.
I do things very similar! Write, eat, pull open doors and drawers with my left. However I grab and carry, use scissors, wipe, use a mouse, and brush my teeth with my right. Anything else is literally either hand.
This is actually called mixed-handed and I find it to be so much more useful rather than restricting myself to one handed living - I can scroll using a mouse wheel with my right as I take handwritten notes with my left. Once you start to see your ability as not being restricted by your hand choice I think you may find this fact about yourself to be super cool and unique as well as highly useful!
Interesting, thanks for sharing!
Scissors I get but I and many other left handed people I know just use their mouse with their right hand.
Indeed, but it must be quite annoying.
I imagine having to use my mouse with my left hand, would be really weird, not just because I’m not used to it, but because this is not my main hand.
I grew up using it like that. So it’s not weird at all.
You also don’t feel weird using cutlery in both hands, do you?
Thanks for sharing.
I would probably feel weirder having to cut meat with a knife in my left hand than to pick things with a fork in my right hand.
I learned to do some basic things like that with my left hand after developing chronic tendinitis in my right. Brushing my teeth or eating, for example. It’d be surprisingly easy if it was just moving the cursor, but it’s so ingrained that the index finger does the main clicking and the middle finger the secondary key that I couldn’t get used to it.
Been in IT for over 20-years and have never seen anyone using a mouse on the left.
I once mentioned to a left handed friend that I should really own my leftyness by learning to use a mouse with my left hand. She pointed out that by using our right hand we can also use our left hand to write notes at the same time, which is basically a superpower. That had never occurred to me before.
When will the ambidextrous have their day?
Today.
And funny enough, tomorrow as well.
And the day after…
They have all the days.
Fun fact: the creator of Counter Strike, Minh Le, is left handed. The original view models were modelled left handed, and a setting in the game mirrors the view models to be right handed albeit making them technically incorrect. It’s thanks to him being a leftie that CS as a AAA franchise has settings to customize the player character’s handedness.
Most lefties are at least somewhat cross-dominant and/or ambidextrous. Unclear whether that’s biologically or societally caused.
For me, I use a mouse and scissors right-handed. I also bat right handed (whether in cricket or baseball). Same with golf.
It’s adaptation. Most things aren’t made for left handed people so you’re forced to learn how to do things with your right hand. I do everything with my right hand except eat and write
I use my mouse/trackball with my wrong hand, trackpad I use with either, I shoot a bow and a gun wrong handed (bow because there were only righty bows when I learned, and a gun due to an eye injury injury and I had to relearn).
My parents were very supportive of my left handiness, my father even going as far as learning stuff lefty to teach me.
I golf right handed, bat either (but prefer left), pitch either (but prefer left becauxe I only had the one glove lol), scissors gotta do right handed or the pressure is wrong for cutting it seems like. When I eat I use both hands, not the cave man stab, cut, and switch hands for fork.
Not sure how it happens, but youre right, I do feel like I have decent mastery over both of my hands. My brother is a lefty also, but he’s an obligate lefty so I’m not sure it’s biological. I bet someone has written a paper on it.
scissors gotta do right handed or the pressure is wrong for cutting it seems like
Yeah that’s exactly it. Your hands don’t actually cut by pressing totally up and down. There’s a slight lateral motion which, when using scissors in the hand they’re designed for, pushes the blades away from each other where you’re holding them, which has the effect of pushing them into each other on the other side of the pivot point.
When I eat I use both hands
Eating right-handed means the knife is in the right hand, fork in the left.
Outside of knife-and-fork eating, the spoon goes in the dominant hand, unless doing the spoon + chopsticks you get with some noodle soups, in which case chopsticks are in the dominant hand and spoon in the secondary hand.
scissors gotta do right handed or the pressure is wrong for cutting it seems like.
And that is why there are left handed scissors.
Only problem is I can only buy a case of 72 and no more!
In actuality though, the scissors I use most are my beard scissors and now I’m not sure I could do it with lefties.
Only problem is I can only buy a case of 72 and no more!
I was able to add 21 cases of 72 to my cart no problem!
And if you are a lefty, or have a child or partner or friend who is a lefty check out !left_handed@sopuli.xyz
I’m right handed, but eat left handed.
I was born left-handed in the 1970s, and forced to become right handed because for some reason my parents and teachers did not approve.
As a right handed person who follows the left handed path, I appreciate my lefty cousins!
My dad wrote and played guitar right-handed, but batted, caught, threw, and played golf left-handed, because his sister taught him sports.
