Gamers and Stereotypes

[Elf Witch]

I'm not sure I have any idea what it's about actually. Then again, when did not having a point has never stopped me from posting in the past. *grin*

I think it had to do with seeing the post from Elf Witch that seemed to make fun of, what I felt was me, and a large amount of gamers I know. I don't like gamers fighting other gamers or making fun of them. I mean, our hobby is small enough as it is, and I feel most of the non-gamers make fun of us enough as is, we don't have to add to it by making it a war between the "clean cut, normal job, closet gamers" and the "overweight, geeky, dedicated gamers".

I also think the second point is, that I have no idea how a stereotype that's probably as old as I am manages to fit me so closely despite no effort on my part to fit into that stereotype. I am who I am, I've always been this way. I guess I'm just looking for a reason why the stereotype exists. I assume it must mean that a significant number of gamers fit the stereotype. The question is why? Why are all these people all over the place all similar in appearance and attitude. There is a reason the comic book guy is funny.

I was not making fun of anyone. I don't make fun of people because I know how that feels. I spent my teen age years being picked on because I was fat and a geek.

In my 20s I found SF fandom and it was like coming home. I met people who accepted me for who I was and did not judge me. It was great. I was heavily involved in putting on cons and this taught me a lot. I learned a lot of self confidence I learned to speak in front of large groups of people. As I gained self confidence I found that I could talk to anyone even people who were not in fandom.

SF fandom is the same as gaming fandom it is made up of different kinds of people. And there were your sterotypical fan who still lived at home had hygenie problems and did not really connect with the mundane world. I never made fun of these people I could have been one of these people if things had been different. I had a lot of scars and bittnerness coming out of my teens and I could have gone this route and said to hell with society why should I try and even try to fit into a society that had treated me so badly.

But luckily there were a lot of other people in fandom who had their lives together and were able to balance their fan activities with real life. And that was the road I chose to take.

As for weight I struggle with mine all the time I keep trying to lose. I do walk everyday. I take extra care with my grooming because fat woman are judged more harshly than men I may be fat but no one can say I am a slob. I do feel better about me when I have my make up on. I like being a woman and doing girlie things.

I don't like sports and really hate watching them so what I follow the news enough to know how the local teams are doing so I can at least be part of a conversation. And it does not take that much time.

I love to read mainly fantasy and mystery novels but I make a point now to fit in non fiction books to expand my mind. I am on AOL so I read the news on the internet everyday just snippets if that is all I have time for.

I try and find a balance in my life between my hobbies, responsibilities and the people I care about.

 

[AOS]

Go to a Convention. Then report back

Will do when I get the chance, the last convention was on a saturday and I work then :\

 

[Teflon Billy]

Neither is hocky. How can you have a sport without a ball? All hockey has is a puck. The only other place I've every heard of a puck is the little air freshner they drop in urinals. Something that involves batting around a bathroom freshner is not a sport.

*quacks*

 

[iwatt]

This is slightly off topic.... I always thought all this extreme high scholl stereotyping was something you just saw in the movies. I come from a completely different educational background, which maybe explains why I'm having so much trouble relating to this thread. Is there any "reason" for the extreme clique forming at American High Schools? Also, is there a reason why intelligent individuals can't let go of things that happened more than 10 years ago? I don't want to start a flame war, and I'm not implying there weren't problems in my school years, but I find it remarkable that High school has such an extreme effect on the personalities of so many Americans.

 

[MarauderX]

I recently took a professional engineering exam, and the cross section of people taking it was identical to that of gamers. When I was there I heard a different language of geekdom, that which was related to methodology and engineering issues. At the exam there was enough geekhood to easily overwealm an equal number of gamers. It is not just gamers that have these 'symptoms.' Don't think this industry is special for that.

I mentioned it to my wife, and she had the good point that people make an effort to get what they want. If they want to be better looking then they will work at it and achieve it. If they are lazy and want to ignore it, fine, but not everyone finds that acceptable.

If you're worried about self image, then do something about it. If you're worried about what other people are thinking about you, then work on it. Put yourself together, dress well, eat better, etc., it's not too hard to figure out, after all we understand how PrCs, DR, Bull Rush and Saves work. You can't help but get a clue about the physical qualities that people prefer, just look at any GAP advert. But you have to want to.

So it doesn't matter what you geek out on, often times there will be some that just put thier effort into that interest and let everything else fall behind.

 

[Scribble]

oh man... a foreign exchange student!!!

you're even worse then the geeks in popularity!!!

 

[Lasher Dragon]

This is slightly off topic.... I always thought all this extreme high scholl stereotyping was something you just saw in the movies. I come from a completely different educational background, which maybe explains why I'm having so much trouble relating to this thread. Is there any "reason" for the extreme clique forming at American High Schools? Also, is there a reason why intelligent individuals can't let go of things that happened more than 10 years ago? I don't want to start a flame war, and I'm not implying there weren't problems in my school years, but I find it remarkable that High school has such an extreme effect on the personalities of so many Americans.

How long did you go to high school, and what were the hours?

 

[Empress]

Naa, it works the other way around. I wear the shirt because that is what I like and who I see myself as. The shirt is not me, I am the shirt. If I didn't like that stuff or I cared about what other people thought of me much, I wouldn't wear it. To me, not wearing it is like pretending that I'm someone else.

That's just a welcome excuse not to wear something else, because it's easy to appear like a slob and disregard what people are saying. Because if you'd actually make an attempt to clean up, and people would still paint you as slob, what would that make you? A slob. But now, these people just don't know the "real you".

And of course you care about what other people think. You posted a rant on a message board because of what other people might think of you!

And I believe funsagite said it correctly: If you believe you are no longer yourself when you don't wear that "Iron Maiden" shirt, you're way too superficial for your own good.

Besides, right now I have a sweater and dress pants on.

Even if you wore lingerie, what's that supposed to tell us? That you are capable of dressing differently? Of course you are. You just don't want to because of society's stupid rules.

I fit the stereotype, as I pointed out, not because I'm trying to be that stereotype, but

...because it's easy to hide behind that stereotype.

I find that I have the most in common with geeks because I don't have to go through an explaination process to explain what I'm interested in. I can say "Hey, don't you think that part is cool in Return of the Jedi where the emperor is using lightning on Luke?" and expect an answer back like "ya, but wasn't it cooler when the death star was destroyed" instead of "Umm, I don't remember that, I haven't seen Star Wars in years."

Wow. That is really a unique experience. Not. And you don't have to be a slob to talk about "Jedi".

More than willing to admit this. If there's anything that describes me well, it's lazy. Heck, if I was less lazy, I might take up swimming as a hobby or go to the gym. But, well, I AM lazy. It's been me for as long as I can remember.

Oh, so you're lazy. I can already see it. "I'm sorry, I'd like to help you out. But I'm so lazy." Great excuse - one size fits all. Except that it's no excuse anyone will ever accept. But life is easy being lazy, isn't it? Just do whatever you feel like, right? Who cares if the bathtub hasn't been cleaned in six months - nobody is ever going to see it.

But then - you'd better not invite anybody home. What if they see the bathtub. You know "being lazy" won't cut it. And what better way to avoid people than to make them avoid you? Yeah. You're not the first one on this road, and you're not gonna be the last. It's just a matter of taking the exit before it's too late, and you're a fatbeard.

No, actually, I talked to her just fine. And I enjoyed it. I probably will try to talk to her again, but it's unlikely I'll get to do anything with her.

And that's why you won't get to do anything with her. I mean, she could become a great friend. Or a lover. Or a great horror story to tell your friends. But if you go at it with such an attitude, you can just as well not go at it.

I'll tell you a secret: Women aren't perfect. Your coworker probably wondered as well whether she hit a nerve with her geekiness. And maybe she hides the fact that the last time she confronted the Sabbat on the outskirts of Chicago, she had a load of fun dominating them while the Gangrel tore them to pieces. But YOU will never know, because you actually don't want to know. See below.

Nor do I really like any of them enough to want to spend more time with them then required.

I agree that I do sit around waiting for things to happen to me too much and I should be more proactive. I'm perfectly aware of that. However, I have talked to all sorts of people, I go out of my way to listen to stories people tell and what I find more often than not is...they don't really interest me.

Of course they don't. You're a special snowflake, you're more intelligent than they are, and you don't have any patience for their base instincts. What could the company of other people give you? How could they actually enrich your life? No, you don't take them seriously, because if you would, you'd also have to take their opinion of yourself seriously. And you're not going to face that, am I right? What if they pierce the image you have worked so hard to built up, to hide behind?

A large amount of the real world is just really boring to me. I deal with it when I have to and no more. I do like music and can talk about the music industry, current times, some politics, the movie industry, philosophy. I like talking about these things.

Then talk about that! Do you really think you can only talk to geeks about movies, politics, music? Gah.

However, I have no interest in sitting around hearing about this time that one of my friends got so drunk they could barely walk and then when they passed out, they woke up at someone's house they had never met before and got out of there before the other person woke up. To me that just reads "ok, you did something stupid...why do I need to know about it?"

And you say of yourself you're not socially inept? Do you know why your friend tells you this? Because he wants you to empathize with him, with his ordeal, and also because he wants you to experience some of the fun he had, if only indirectly.

Fun? Yes. I can get behind you on doing only the rationally appropriate, on being always in control. But unfortunately, most things that are fun are also a little bit on the stupid side. Arguing about the poor workers killed on the second Death Star? Stupid, but fun. Getting drunk and waking up where you can't remember? Extremely stupid, but possibly also extremely fun - if it doesn't happen every second day. Playing poker the whole night, smoking cigars? Stupid, costly, and fun. Switching to strip poker - now we're talking!

But you'd have to let yourself go for a while. And maybe what comes out of hiding then, what you will loosen your grip on, will also be you but a part of you you would rather not admit is there.

I also have no interest in spending multiple hours each week doing exercises whose only purpose is to make me look better to other people.

The purpose of exercise is to make you feel better about yourself. A healthy mind in a healthy body, and all that. You wouldn't believe how great it feels to run through the woods for half an hour, breathing fresh air, and then taking a shower to cleanse yourself. It's not that other people will find you more attractive - it's that you yourself will feel better. It doesn't matter if you actually lose weight, what's important is that you don't think of yourself as unattractive anymore.

As it is now, I barely manage to fit sleeping, work, eating, and some time for myself into each day.

Pfft. You work what? 8 hours? 10? How long do you eat? Let's say half an hour each in the morning and at noon, and an hour for dinner. You sleep 8 hours? 9? That leaves you with 3 hours every day to do as you please. If you run half an hour, then have a shower, every second day, you take at most half an hour per day away from that. Is that really so difficult? No, it's not. Of course not. And you know it. But - I know - you're lazy.

I dress in nice clothes for nice occasions. I shower as often as I have time for and is required by society. If I'm going somewhere with people around, I will shower and get dressed up, unless I know it's mostly geeks.

Our group consists of geeks, and yet all of us shower every day, six times a week at least. We wouldn't accept you. And, yeah, our problem. But we're great people, and fun to be around. I'm even single at the moment. So maybe it's your problem, as well?

Just no real interest in most non-fantasy books.

O.k., what have you read (and I'm not talking about forced reading for school)? There are great, wonderful, terrifyingly enjoyable books around that are like the Toreador sire to most fantasy books' neonates. You don't want to have an interest in them, is what you mean. Read "Life of Pi", for example, and you'll see that many books have a lot in common with fantasy, but are better. Or read a book about the movie industry (since you like to talk about that), e.g. "Easy Riders, Sitting Bulls" by Peter Biskind. There's a subforum for books here - I'm sure a lot of people will gladly point you to non-fantasy books that will open your mind, blow you away (the two I offered above are not even the cream of the crop).

I don't have much time to read anymore anyways.

Look, nobody has time to read. Time to read is always stolen time. Nobody can afford to spend two hours on the latest Grisham, and yet thousands of people do. The thing is, no matter how valuable the time you stole, with the right book it's worth it.

I have at least 3 or 4 D&D books that I've been meaning to actually read for the last 6 months or so and haven't gotten around to it yet.

Of course. You're so stressed out by working, eating, sleeping and having 3 games per week. I can totally relate. I'm sorry, you really have a tough schedule going on there.

But also, that extra hour of Knights of the Old Republic is a lot more fun than the hour of exercise.

Than the first ten hours maybe. But then, you'll be looking forward to excercising. Knights of the Old Republic is not going to run away. You can play an hour later, if you must.

So, I've now wasted one hour of my time travelling in order to spend 1 hour doing something that I don't like doing so OTHER people can like what they see in me. I hate wasting time and try to optimize the use of it. If something is fun and makes me happy, it's a good use of time, if it doesn't, it gets scrapped.

Look, I know I seem harsh, but I come from a similar place you're in. What you're saying here is, you hate wasting time and yet you'd rather spend your time playing videogames than doing something proactive like going out? What's the benefit you get out of playing KotOR? Do you earn money with it? The pursuit of happiness is not bad, per se, but what you are looking for is instant gratification, and instant gratification will always ring hollow. Having finished Jade Empire for the third time will not make you happy. It will only serve as a clothesline to hang false smiles from, to hide the loneliness behind. Someday you'll turn the X-Box off and then?

Don't let your life run past you. And I repeat, it's not about your looks, but how you feel about your looks. I've seen the ugliest men get great-looking women; heck, I've been attracted to some of those men myself, only because they were confident for who they were. And whoever that was, it sure as hell didn't depend on what shirt they wore.

 

[iwatt]

How long did you go to high school, and what were the hours?

First of all.....I'm not American. Never went to an American High school. There are 5 billiion people in the world out there, of which you guys are only 250 million. Those numbers not withstanding, Hollywood does have a huge cultural impact in the world.

But I'll take your question on face value: I went to school in Chile (Long/thin country in the West Coast of South America, reknown for its wines and Copper mines). The Chilean system has the whole 12 year span in the same school. That means the 1st graders are in the same location as the Seniors. Another important difference is that students remain in the same classroom the whole day and it is teachers who shift from classroom to classroom. This is true during the whole school experience. When I was in school, my schedules were: In at 8:30 AM, had a 45 minute lunch break and then on to classes up to 4:30 PM. Then, if you had after school activities (theater/sports/etcc) you stay longer.

About Chile: this country is predominantly Catholic with strong family values. You don't leave home when you're 18. You don't send your grand parents to retirement homes. You have large family groups. I'm guessing this is different from the American norm, from what I can infer from my exposure to American culture (albeit this is based mainly on TV and Movies so it might be skewed ). I don't think any system is better than another, I just want to clarify some cultural mores which might explain differences in "high school experiences".

 

[maddman75]

This is slightly off topic.... I always thought all this extreme high scholl stereotyping was something you just saw in the movies. I come from a completely different educational background, which maybe explains why I'm having so much trouble relating to this thread. Is there any "reason" for the extreme clique forming at American High Schools? Also, is there a reason why intelligent individuals can't let go of things that happened more than 10 years ago? I don't want to start a flame war, and I'm not implying there weren't problems in my school years, but I find it remarkable that High school has such an extreme effect on the personalities of so many Americans.

Did you read the article about nerds linked above. It matched my experiences 100%. It was a strict caste system, and your peers let you know exactly where you stood. I myself got in with what the article called freaks - though then (the early 90s) they were called 'hoods'. The scary looking kids with Metallica or Ozzy Osbourne shirts and denim jackets, pierced ears and long hair, spending lunch smoking at the gas station across the street from the school. You also had the jocks, the rich kids (often the same), the nerds, and the losers. Only real difference between the nerds and losers is that the nerds were at least smart. Losers had nothing going for them, and usually were poor.

Membership in these different tribes was determined largely by uniform. Name brands and overpriced sneakers got you in with the rich jocks. Hand me downs and thrift store clothes got you in with the losers. Nerds could come either way - a nerd in Nikes is still a nerd. I listed my uniform above. Another part that rang true was those at the top of the food chain really didn't pick on the lower ones. They sometimes even defended them.

Why is it like that? As the article said, the teens are largely left to their own devices to set up their own societies, and that most often looks like Lord of the Flies. Teenagers don't have a fully developed conscious, and therefore can be horribly cruel to one another.

Ultimately, you learn that high school doesn't matter. No one is going to care if you were the biggest loser or most popular guy. In fact, there almost seems to be an inverse correlation. Most of the time when I see one of the popular kids, who were treated as gods on earth in the old days, they are now doing something terribly thrilling like tending bar or waiting tables. Not that there's anything wrong with those professions - just that these people were assumed to be so much better than everyone else. Meanwhile the nerds, and the brighter of the hoods, go on to have actual careers. Its like the popular ones burn bright in high school then burn out, while the rest of us come into our own later and stay that way a lot longer.