[OT] sociology paper- how does mainstream society view Gamers

[nopantsyet]

But I do admit it go a lot of "ewwww........." remarks at first. But the more we explained that its not as creepy as its percieved, most were cool about it. But it still gets the "ewww......." at first. That much hasn't changed.

That's my general experience too. Haven't gotten hassled since elementary school. (Someday...I will have my revenge!)

Okay, that was 20 years ago, I suppose I've gotten over it. Some people get it, some people dont, but people do enough wierd s... these days that gaming is pretty mild.

Edited:Oh, wait...I forgot...When I was 9 my Mother got wind of some virulent anti-dnd propaganda and told me to stop playing. I think I was probably the only kid on the block with role-playing books under his mattress! (Revenge, sweet revenge... )

 

[Voneth]

Until a couple of years ago, I lived in rural communites. There was still a pretty stiff stigma, I had a coworker who acted worried about me until she saw that I wasn't going to change much and just mostly harmless.

The oddest thing about gaming is what it has taught me about self-image and self-esteem. I was introverted and then became an extrovert in my gaming group, now I am in PR and I help with our business development, can't get much more extroverted than that. I still won't volunteer that I am a gamer though and I still feel nervous about telling someone about it, which has been very educational since I am a white male whos not a sports nut.

If just my hobby makes me feel vulnerable to social judgement and perhaps a "glass ceiling" at work, how do those with alternate lifestyles and cultures feel about the level of judgement they could face? It's made me a little more tolerant of others since I get a small taste of what they face.

My ex-wife started out as an occasional gamer, but after we married, she saw the game as competition to her attention. She also kept saying that "You know when you go out in the real world, no one plays these games." Then a week later, I found out that a few of our neighbors did the "oh we played it, but grew out of it" scenario. It still took the air out of her sails. My ex still mentions that she worries that since I am into fantasy (in comparison to her regular diet of fantasy genre books she reads) that I will get our son confused on the level of reality and fantasy.

Now a days I compare a lot of gaming phenomenon to the "drug days" of the 1980s. You'll discover a lot of people than you expect who tried it at least once to see what all the fuss was about. When it turned out to be just a ... game, then they went on to more exicting things. I also have nicknamed the time DND was under attack as the "Second Red Scare." It's sort of a play on words about how the media/religion attacks where as much a witch hunt (no pun intended) as the McCarthy era and the tradtional color of devils = red.

Something I have noticed is that gamers have also spread themselves out in the last few years. There are gamers who have secondary hobbies such a computer games, and anime clubs. It seems to me that this has been pretty beneficial on their part. They expose others to the existence of gaming in an atmosphere where it would seem a little pointless to claim that the other hobby members had "more of a life." Though some still do. So gaming has sort of seeped into other pop culture hobbies and become a part of them to a degree. Perhaps there will be a standard some day that a pop phenomenon is not considered geek chic until a role-playing game is related to it.

Ironicly, the people at the bottom of the gaming totem pole are the younger players, especially young teenagers who seem to don’t have anger management skill yet and still seem interested in ccgs or cmgs. If gamers continue to lambaste these guys, they will cut off the new blood for future generation of gamers. The irony doubled by the fact that those who make the most noise about those “kid” gamers are those who seem to be on a same emotional level as these youth.

just some observations

 

[ninthcouncil]

Oh, wait...I forgot...When I was 9 my Mother got wind of some virulent anti-dnd propaganda and told me to stop playing. I think I was probably the only kid on the block with role-playing books under his mattress! (Revenge, sweet revenge... ) [/B]

Some years ago a friend had all his D&D books burnt by his mother for the same reasons

 

[Alaska Roberts]

If just my hobby makes me feel vulnerable to social judgement and perhaps a "glass ceiling" at work, how do those with alternate lifestyles and cultures feel about the level of judgement they could face? It's made me a little more tolerant of others since I get a small taste of what they face.

I think this is one of the best analogys I have ever read about gamers and their society. An alternative lifestyle, that few people understand, but may have heard about. I wont try and compare it too the real problems Alternative Lifestyles have to face, but it sure follows alot of the same rules and attitudes. Though I am sure that we dont get the extremes that other groups do, besides that jerk, Jack Chick, but hes a nut, and we all laugh at him anyway.

 

[Zerovoid]

The way I understand it, you can construct a hierarchy that represents how "into" gaming people are. Something like:

completely hates it < doesn't care < plays computer RPG's < plays DnD casually < is really into DnD < gaming elitist who looks down on DnD < LARPER

Everyone feels that that their level is superior. People with less dedication to gaming are missing out on some fun, but they're more "normal", so they can't really be judged. People more into gaming can be made fun of because their games have gone so far that they are disrupting a "normal" life.

 

[King_Stannis]

Ah, the ageless topic – us on the social ladder. My thoughts are this: Roleplayers have in many respects earned the derision that is heaped upon them. How is John or Jane Q. Public supposed to react when, on their first day of college, some smelly nerd dressed up like Graham Chapman in “The Holy Grail” accosts them and starts blathering on about the Monty Python Club and the RPG Club and how much fun it is. I should know, it happened to me - and I was a gamer at the time! Yet I still cringe thinking about it. I started thinking then that, “we have met the enemy, and he is us”. I started wondering why it was that most gamers couldn’t carry on a conversation about sports, politics, the weather, etc. without bringing gaming into it. Not all, mind you, but quite a few. Perhaps that is changing – who knows. In the real world, I would like to think I’m a fairly broad person who can talk with non-gamers about a bevy of topics without bringing in gaming. Does that mean I’m “better” than the nerdiest of nerds who blathers on to his workmates about “Veldor”, his 9th level barbarian? No, not necessarily. But I would say that I, and people like me, are a better ambassador to the public than those people.

If you’ve ever gotten a reaction from people like “I didn’t know YOU gamed!”, chances are you may have just changed people’s perceptions about our hobby. If people run from you because you are conversant in only one thing, don’t wash and have bad breath, you haven’t changed anyone’s feelings about gaming. In fact, you’ve just reinforced several negative stereotypes.

My advice to the most hopeless of gamers is this: hit the gym or the weightroom, open the sportspage every once in a while, go out and have a beer (leave your Princess Leia T-shirt at home), and try to actually make conversation with a non-gaming acquaintance about something other than “table-talk”. Sorry about the tough love, but it’s because some of these “I don’t care what the public thinks of me” lose..errr, I mean…gamers, that keep the rest of us in the closet, so to speak.

 

[Teflon Billy]

King Stannis has summed it up beautifully.

When I first moved to the "Big City" from my hometown, I joined up witha gaming group of incredibly cool people. Successful game designers, stage actors and particle accelerator techs were in the group.

We met weekly, and switched off on GM'ing duties. All were capable of speaking on a variety of topics and were interesting, fun people with other hobbies.

I thought to myself: "Gaming isn't what I thought it was. Cool people do it. My hometown group was an anomaly"

Then I went to Gen Con and had every single one of the gamer stereotypes confirmed beyong any shadow of a doubt.

Hygiene issues were first on the list. The number of people who stunk "like a guy eating a block of gorgonzola cheese while getting a perm in the septic tank at a slaughterhouse" were too numerous to count.

Lack of social skills were next on the list. I gave up talking to anyone but friends of friends, because I just did not have the strength to listen to another one-sided conversation about some goof's favorite character..

Some goof: "...and his name is Bone-Gar and he's a 75th level fighter with a magic bow +5 that let's him Plane Shift at will and...

Me Interrupting: "What game world do you guys use?"

That Same Goof: (Pause w/Blank Stare)...and he killed a Bahamut Dragon , but raised it and madei t his steed and..."

Etc.

And who can forget the old guys with their t-shirts up over their bellies complaining that "me and my kind" had ruined gaming (I'm assuming they had me pegged as a White Wolf Exclusive gamer, I wasn't--I played only GURPS at the time--but it colored my opinion of these "Bearded Gits".



The people who I liked at Gen Con I liked a lot (the original WotC crew: Peter Adkison, Jesper Myrfors, Anson Maddox, Andy Rusu), The Freelancers I came with (Nigel Findley R.I.P, Fraser Cain) and a lot of the White Wolf crew (names escape me, it's been years; Chris and Travis?)

...but they were a miniscule percentage of the attendees.

Maybe this shouldbe in the Gen Con thread.

I've rambled too long.

 

[King_Stannis]

....Hygiene issues were first on the list. The number of people who stunk "like a guy eating a block of gorgonzola cheese while getting a perm in the septic tank at a slaughterhouse" were too numerous to count....

that, my friend, is a classic

isn't it amazing how your sense of smell is assaulted at these things? i mean, you're in the lobby, and you get the whiff every so often of something sort of mildewwy. then you pony up your $10 to get in, and it's like a sentient stink cloud has attacked you. no matter where you go, you are beaten down by it. in fact, i don't know how people could actually play in that kind of environment.

 

[Desdichado]

Teflon, I'd agree. The people I game with aren't "gamers"; they're people who game, among other things. I hardly know any "gamers" from the sense that that's all they do.

I think the "binning" of folks just doesn't work. I don't consider myself a geek. The hobbies that I have that are "geeky" I've never considered geeky. Sure, I like science fiction and fantasy, but most blockbuster movies these days are science fiction or fantasy, and so are a lot of bestsellers at the bookstore. Sure, I'm a big Star Wars fan, but 99% of the people I talk to have seen all the Star Wars movies several times and consider it as much a part of our culture as baseball and apple pie. Does this mean that geekdom doesn't really exist, and that what is labelled as geeky is actually mainstream?

I don't know. Gaming is probably the only hobby I have that I feel is geeky. I have no problem talking about Star Wars, for instance with people I work with, but talking about D&D does make me a bit incomfortable to talk about. Maybe that's because of my age and the stuff that was going on with D&D "back in the day" but I feel like that's the only "geeky" hobby I have that truly is seen as geeky.

 

[King_Stannis]

...I don't know. Gaming is probably the only hobby I have that I feel is geeky. I have no problem talking about Star Wars, for instance with people I work with, but talking about D&D does make me a bit incomfortable to talk about. Maybe that's because of my age and the stuff that was going on with D&D "back in the day" but I feel like that's the only "geeky" hobby I have that truly is seen as geeky.

well put, and i agree 100%.