Are gamers really that pathetic?

[Trainz]

Oh, FINE. I must be wrong, then, just like I'm always wrong about everything. The story of my sodding life, that is. I do beg your forgiveness that my misguided views thus tainted your thread.

*sigh*

I guess it's time for me to leave now.

NO. Don't be sour about it.

It takes a big man to admit he's wrong (maybe you are, maybe you aren't), but by admiting you're wrong, it demonstrates that your intellect is able to review paramaters and re-evaluate them. There are too many conceted people around that do not have that ability. They would rather go down squirming than admit error and evolve.

A trick: if you admit that you're wrong in an elegant way, most people will automatically put you a notch higher in their minds because you display maturity and intellect.

Works for me !

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Ignoring someone's problem is not always a kindness; and usually enabling someone is very unhealthy for them, because it keeps them trapped in their problems instead of helping them to better themselves.

Nisarg

And there is the crux of the matter. Are you in fact "bettering" someone by trying to get them to conform to your personal standards? If the people you speak of are happy with their own lives is it your place to tell them that they should not be? We are not talking about addictions to drugs or self-destructive behavior, we are talking about social norms here.

Maybe these people are not as popular as they could be, but if they are OK with that, then who are we to tell them to change? Perhaps they are the people most commonly associated with the sterotypical gamer, but rather than try and "fix" what appears to be the exception among gamers in order to better the gamers image, why not instead educate those who put all gamers into that catergory that most gamers are fairly well-adjusted and would be considered normal by most standards. Either that or just ignore those people completely and just play the game you enjoy and not worry about what other people think of you for it.

 

[Nisarg]

This is such and old dead horse. It has been around as long as there as been any kind of fandom. I remember back in the 70s in Trek fandom worry about the image certain freakazoids were giving the rest of us.
.

um, yes.. and that's a perfect example of a fandom that was once relatively mainstream that slowly got absorbed by the freak kingdom.

In the early and mid-to-late seventies, Star Trek fans were normal people in every sense of the word, who just really loved the series. There were a few really wierd people in there, some social misfits, but for the most part you had just as many men as women, you had old people, you had kids, you had familiest, etc etc.
But slowly, the number of freaks started increasing, more and more, and no one did anything to stop it, they were tolerated.. but people who were uncomfortable with this freakiness slowly started "dropping out" of Trek fandom. They left the scene, only to be replaced with more freaks.
By the present day, Trek fandom is solidly in the freak kingdom.. you can't see a reference in pop culture to Star Trek without it being derogatory, implying Trekkies are wierd, socially malajusted, perpetual virgins, slightly insane, and not good people to be around.
Its only the largeness of Star Trek that saves it, that there are still a great deal of normal people who watch ST, without being "Trekkies".

Furry fandom had way less luck. It went from being a comic-arts subculture that admired stuff like Usagi Ujimbo (sp?) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the original comic, not the awful tv cartoon), composed of largely normal people, until it got slowly overrun by the Fursuit freaks and the Yiffers and the people who wanted the artists to draw pics of 12 year old wolf-boys being raped... naturally, serious artists started abandoning furry art in droves, matched in velocity only by the normal people who would otherwise have found furry art cool, but today wouldn't touch it with a fifty-foot pole.

RPG gaming in North America is probably slightly bigger than Furry fandom, and much smaller than Trek fandom, which has in one way given it the worst of both worlds.. popular culture doesn't even have furries on its radar.. but it sure does have "·D&D geeks". It knows just enough about roleplaying to portray the roleplayers as the geeks and losers on sitcoms, to present the peopel who play it as either nerd-kids or total loser-adults. For anyone who seriously tries to tell me that RPG fans aren't seen negatively by popular culture please show me a TV or movie reference in recent years where being a roleplayer was seen as a cool or at least "normal" thing to do? Where RPGs weren't referenced in an insulting way?

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

Is it really that important for you people to leave home the soonest possible? I can understand if one has to go to a far away university, but otherwise?

You have to understand LIchtenhart that in north american/Anglo-saxon culture, its considered inappropriate to keep living in your parent's house after your early 20s. The point of view in this culture is that if you are not living on your own by then, you are being irresponsible, putting a burden on your parents, not being mature, not being independant, its not seen as desireable to women(or to men), just plain wierd etc. etc.


I know that in Latin cultures its different. There, someone in their late 20s living with their parents is not seen as wierd.

But in North America at least, its a sign of being a loser, if you're living with your parents (and had never moved out), beyond about age 25...

Nisarg

 

[jester47]

Oh, FINE. I must be wrong, then, just like I'm always wrong about everything. The story of my sodding life, that is. I do beg your forgiveness that my misguided views thus tainted your thread.

*sigh*

I guess it's time for me to leave now.

Nope, no forgivness here. Simply put your views have not tainted this thread but rather just made everyone else think more.

Your being wrong will continue to be the story of your life if you walk away now and don't learn from your experience. If you stay and fight and learn, your chances of being right will be greater next time.

A.

 

[Lichtenhart]

You have to understand LIchtenhart that in north american/Anglo-saxon culture, its considered inappropriate to keep living in your parent's house after your early 20s. The point of view in this culture is that if you are not living on your own by then, you are being irresponsible, putting a burden on your parents, not being mature, not being independant, its not seen as desireable to women(or to men), just plain wierd etc. etc.
I know that in Latin cultures its different. There, someone in their late 20s living with their parents is not seen as wierd.
But in North America at least, its a sign of being a loser, if you're living with your parents (and had never moved out), beyond about age 25...

This much I understand. I am interested why is it that way in Anglosaxon culture, and if you feel compelled to get out because of peer pressure or because you actually feel uncomfortable.

 

[Incenjucar]

Furry fandom had way less luck. It went from being a comic-arts subculture that admired stuff like Usagi Ujimbo (sp?) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the original comic, not the awful tv cartoon), composed of largely normal people, until it got slowly overrun by the Fursuit freaks and the Yiffers and the people who wanted the artists to draw pics of 12 year old wolf-boys being raped... naturally, serious artists started abandoning furry art in droves, matched in velocity only by the normal people who would otherwise have found furry art cool, but today wouldn't touch it with a fifty-foot pole.

Yep: There's a recorded incident where some moron put advertisements for some furry convention in to an alternative lifestyle magazine, and the fandom went to pot all but over night. Over-pushy Fetishists in general tend to be a big problem these days, as is evident in the Gay Pride Parade, which has brought protest from many homosexual individuals and groups. I've heard of incidents like burning a leather flag (Yes, there's a leather flag) and the rainbow flag to protest making hetero persons think that gay=horny indescrete perverts. Tolerance has its downsides. Freedom vs. security.

 

[Nisarg]

If that's what you said since the beginning, than we didn't understand each other and we perfectly agree. In fact I said nothing in my posts about "ignoring" their "odious personal habits". What you just said is quite what I called "helping them find solutions to their problems too, instead of showing them the door".
I was under the impression that we were talking about excluding people because they behaved or smelled in a certain way tout court, without first trying to talk with them and help them getting out of their bad habits.
I'm glad to have been wrong.

No no, I'm not implying excluding them outright.

I am however arguing that they should be confronted about whatever their odious personal habits are, and told very clearly that those habits are NOT acceptable in our community. They should be given the chance to change, but if they are unwilling to change they should not expect to be able to continue being part of the community.

Obviously the best result for all concerned is if people can change and better themselves, can address whatever problems they have or issues they hold, and can be a productive part of the community. I'd rather have one more socially healthy gamer than end up with no gamer; but I'd rather have no gamer than keep an socially unhealthy gamer.

Nisarg

 

[jester47]

You have to understand LIchtenhart that in north american/Anglo-saxon culture, its considered inappropriate to keep living in your parent's house after your early 20s. The point of view in this culture is that if you are not living on your own by then, you are being irresponsible, putting a burden on your parents, not being mature, not being independant, its not seen as desireable to women(or to men), just plain wierd etc. etc.


I know that in Latin cultures its different. There, someone in their late 20s living with their parents is not seen as wierd.

But in North America at least, its a sign of being a loser, if you're living with your parents (and had never moved out), beyond about age 25...

Nisarg

The predominance of the conjugal (or nuclear) famliy developed in english speaking regions on a large scale in the 20th century, peaking in the 50's and 60's. So for the most part it raises questions, and in a time where people don't know thier neighbors, assumptions are generally made. Before it was known if the person was simply a bachelor, down on thier luck, an idiot, or a good for nothing.

Aaron.

 

[Nisarg]

And there is the crux of the matter. Are you in fact "bettering" someone by trying to get them to conform to your personal standards?

If it makes them more capable of interacting in society, yes. Its not about my personal standards, its about basic societal proficiency.

And no, "individuality" is not measured by how filthy you are or whether you feel the urge to scream at gaming tables, or hit on adolescent girls/boys in gaming shops. Telling you not to do those things is in no way discriminating against your individuality.

Your individuality has nothing to do with your capacity to interact in society; its one of the things "nerds" tend not to get, that you can choose to be capable of functioning in society and it won't make you a "sell out" or one of the "mundanes", it will just mean you won't be freaking them out and causing unnescessary strife.

If the people you speak of are happy with their own lives is it your place to tell them that they should not be?

It the people in question are part of my community or culture, then yes. It is my place, because how they act will bear upon how society at large views my community or my culture, it will also bear upon the future of my community or my culture.

Imagine you have a village.. now, you get one guy who likes to pee on his front lawn, in public. The village decides its not their "place" to tell him that's unnaceptable. What will happen?
In a short time, people in other villages and cities will hear about how your village is the one that has lawn-pee-ers. Whatever is good about your village will be overshadowed by your fame for having front-lawn urination considered acceptable in your community (which it isn't in most communities). Eventually, you will have other lawn-urinators coming to live in your village, not because they actually like your village that much, just because they think its a "safe place" to urinate on their front lawns. They feel "accepted" there and not "judged", so they come to your village, and pretty soon your village stops being about what it once was, and starts being more and more about lawn-peeing.
Eventually, you will get people who think its ok to pee on the front lawns of others. And people who think its ok to do other, worse things on their lawns and the lawns of others, and the whole village is turned into a dump.

If you feel like part of a community it is always ok to ask other people who identify themselves as part of your community to live up to certain basic standards, the same basic standards that society at large and most other non-deviant hobbies expect of normal mature human beings.

Nisarg