The Death of the Gamer

I’ve played a lot of video games. You could make an argument that I am in fact a gamer. I wanted to start this post with something like “the first game I ever played was…” but now that I’m thinking about it, I realize I’m a bit fuzzy on the timeline.

The memories themselves are very clear in my brain, but it’s hard to say which came first. I recall seeing Reader Rabbit on the CRT monitor of my parents’ vaguely beige-colored computer. Without me, that sweater-wearing-bunny would never have been able to ride that Ferris wheel powered by solutions to single-digit math problems.

I remember playdates with some kid who belonged to one of my mom’s friends, where we played Super Mario World on his “Nintendo” (later in life I learned that it preferred to be called the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and apologized for my rudeness.) For the record, I was a whole weight-class bigger than that kid, but out of respect to my host, I always played as Luigi.

One Christmas season, my older brother brought his PlayStation to my grandparents’ house, and repeatedly, mercilessly destroyed me in Frogger. I think there was once or twice where I was winning about halfway through the race, but then cracked under pressure. IIRC, I was around 3 or 4 (for all of the above memories). I’m sure I reacted with poise and grace when I lost, just as I always do now when I lose in a video game made for children.

I could go on and on about the very visceral images that spring to my head when I think back to my earliest gaming memories. But instead, I’d like to discuss another topic: the Death of the Gamer.

Growing up, most of my friends had a game system of some kind. Some of my peers were certainly more powerful gamers than others, but I can’t think of many instances where kids got bullied for being some sort of ‘video game nerd’. It sort of felt like everyone was gaming, but everyone was playing different games.

Granted, the peers I’m remembering are mostly male, but I can think of plenty of female classmates and friends who played enough video games to know their way around a controller. I sometimes forget how often my younger sister would join my brother and me in our gaming binges, and she’ll surprise me with a “Hey it’s Squirtle!” upon seeing my son amiibo.

I don’t think I met very many true “gamer girls” until high school or college, but I’m sure most of my female peers would have at least gotten competitive over like Wii bowling or something. I’d be willing to bet the same thing for many of my non-binary friends.

My point is: the archetypal “gamer” featuring glasses, a fedora, plaid shorts, a sword, etc. is no more. Well, not really, there are definitely plenty of those around. Certainly enough to make it worth watching your back in case they teleport behind you.

But nowadays, that’s not really an archetype, and more of a caricature. A movie about Gamers vs Jocks and Cheerleaders wouldn’t make any sense these days. In my own IRL experience, off the field, the Jocks probably play Madden, 2K, FIFA, and/or a one of the many popular shooters. Hell, I played plenty of Mario Kart with the baseball players on my dorm floor in college.

Any of those Cheerleaders could probably take up streaming and make money than I do at my full-time job. They’d undoubtedly have to deal with gross harassment from weirdos, but other, more polite weirdos would do their best to make up for it in donations.

It is my belief that the gamer stereotype is not long for this world.

Like I said, I’ve played a lot of games over the years. Today, professional athletes celebrate their big plays with Fortnite dances. Movies based on video games feature top-billed actors and $150 million budgets. “Gaming Journalist” is a real job title. Video games even fucked up the stock market for like three days and a bunch of hedge-fund losers got owned.

And yet with all of this, I’ve always been self-conscious about my love for video games. I think I’d hesitate to share just how much of a gamer I am on a first, second, third, fourth date, maybe longer I dunno.

Why do I feel compelled to conceal my power level in this way? Well, that’s probably a discussion I should have with my therapist rather than publicly on the internet, but I’m gonna try to do a bit of both.

I plan to write a lot about games over the next few weeks, assuming I have the time. I figure it’s better than writing nothing. Here are some topics I plan to cover, in no particular order:

• The Evolution of the Gamer
• The Gaming Industry
• Streaming
• Video Game Music
• Story-Driven Games
• Some of My Personal Favorites
• Gamer Culture

Thanks for reading 🙂

Oh, also, gonna plug my friend Justin’s short film (I’m also in it): https://twitter.com/liveactionluigi/status/1379205447060623360?s=20

If you have any suggestions on what I should write about, let me know! Tweet @ me (@friendwinner), DM me, comment on the blog, whatever you want.