I’ve always loved playing video games. I’ve owned almost every Nintendo device available — from a 3DS to a Wii U to a Nintendo Switch — and I’ve spent hours sitting in front of my TV with my Playstation 5 controller in-hand. Marvel Rivals is the latest in my rotation. Its selling point is the ever-expanding roster that features some of the most iconic Marvel superheroes, like Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Spider-Man, Storm, Wolverine, and so many more. While I found my rhythm in Marvel Rivals very quickly (it plays similar to Overwatch, another PvP game I have a lot of experience with), the game is also where I stumbled upon the Flower Crosshair Theory.
What is the Flower Crosshair Theory, you ask? Essentially, it’s two assumptions rolled into one. First, it’s that anyone with a customized reticle or crosshair (like a flower) has terrible aim and overall poor gaming skill. Underneath that is the assumption that only women use flower crosshairs. If you do the math, you get a pretty misogynistic result.
Broadly, the gaming community is deeply unwelcoming towards women. If you’re bad at any game, you need to “get back in the kitchen.” If you’re good at it, “you must be cheating” because “there’s no way a girl can be that skilled.” The Flower Crosshair Theory is yet another example of thinly-veiled misogyny that aims to berate women for simply trying to add a bit of whimsy to their gameplay experience.
It’s not just Flower Crosshair Theory, though. It’s assuming that support players — those generally in charge of keeping the team alive through healing and strategy — are women, and then deliberately attacking them in text or voice chat over minor mistakes or things completely out of their control. It’s always calling women out of their names the moment they speak into the microphone — to the point that they have to use the masculine voice changer to protect their peace. In the year 2026, gaming is still seen as a guy’s thing, and many are determined to keep it that way.
People who genuinely believe in the Flower Crosshair Theory fail to account for a simple fact: You can’t always attribute a player’s skill level to the types of crosshairs they use. It’s also not true that every single person with a flower or otherwise customized reticle is a woman. Plenty of women are just using the defaults, which is perfectly fine. Across ranks, there’s a diversity in skill level amongst gamers, regardless of their gender or the type of reticle they use.
At the end of the day, any woman who chooses to customize her reticle shouldn’t be shamed for it. It’s as serious as buying the latest, exciting skin — meaning, at the end of the day, it’s not important at all. If a flower crosshair brings more whimsy and fun to the game you’re playing, then so be it. And at the end of the day, if you think something like Flower Crosshair Theory is costing you matches in ranked, that’s a skill issue. And you may just need to work on that.