The Glasses Fit

Today in my Literary Journalism class we had presentations. One girl was excitedly telling us how much she was fascinated by "the gamer." She went on and on to describe how her friend had completely replaced all forms of social interactions with his online gaming activities. His gaming activities have since been reduced thanks to his increased exposure to the college atmosphere.

I casually asked if he had been to Lan parties because it would be interesting to see how him and other gamers interact in the real world while playing games in the virtual world. I could hear the sqeauking of chairs in the other classroom, and feel the blank stares from my fellow classmates as the silence filled the room. I sighed and went head first into a rant about how lan parties were where gamers get together in one area with all their computers and game. My nerd status was thus confirmed in front of my entire journalism class. As if it wasn't bad enough I told them if I had to be a superhero I would be the Silk Spectre II from the graphic novel Watchmen. Yeah I know she's pretty much the slut of the novel but she's the only girl.

Back to LJ, little did she realize this cultural observation of hers was one that I experience pretty much everyday around my friends. Now my friends do not isolate themselves from the rest of the world just to play video games. They play basketball and do the occasional essay or homework assignment, while gaming, but they get their work done. Terms like RPG and 3rd person shooter game sound like basic gamer knowledge to them.

As a class we are required to give feedback and ask questions as to how she would go about doing research and writing for her article. People brought up things about Second Life, WoW, Left for Dead, and Halo. All of the things we discussed I recognized as normal parts of daily conversation between my boyfriend and our friends.

Gaming relationships have truly come a long way. With the advent of more interactive online games that require the cooperation among a group of strangers in third person shooter games such as Gears of War, the "gamer" is slowly being forced to socially interact with his counterparts. Most people are completely unaware of this new phenomenon. Games are slowly becoming a more acceptable form of social interaction. No longer is the gamer restricted to communicating with his teammates via text, but they are allowed to trash talk other players through a headset. Typing a series of profanities does not have quite the same effect. Thus the more realistic the interactions, the stronger the bonds formed between these gamers.

I have a friend who used to be ranked #1 in the world in Splinter Cell. He has friends in other MA that he keeps in touch with on a regular basis, and he has even visited them on occasion. He entered a Splinter Cell tournament with them through Best Buy and ended up winning the whole thing getting a car and about $3000. He has a girlfriend so he is clearly capable of establishing relationships with people, despite the gamer label that has been placed upon him. Had he not played Splinter Cell he probably would have never made friends with these people in MA.

You meet a variety of people on Xbox Live that you would not meet otherwise. You can go to the local movie theaters every Saturday night but you are bound to see the same high school kids flirting incessantly and talking loudly. Through Xbox, my friends have had frequent encounters with a number of colorful people like frustrated British kids, trailer trash, and even an overprotective husband who yelled at my friend for supposedly attempted to hit on his wife through a head set. Clearly the husband would not have been so protective if these relationships with other people weren't capable of being formed through gaming.

Revenge of the Nerds? They're capable of maintaining their grades as well as their friendships. Sucks to be popular.

Being a nerd is way more fun anyways.

KRS10