“In their first proper podcast, the kids thoroughly discuss international employment opportunities, social oppression, and the latest in bottle-cap technology … and Zeus won’t shut up.”
WARNING: EXPLICIT (that means we say bad words sometimes)
Kids in this episode: Switch, Tombstone, and Zeus
Every episode of our podcast show will feature a column as a sort of “final word” on the show’s theme for that week. Be sure to check that out after the show!
If only my hard drive hadn’t died, and I still had my folklore term paper on gamer culture…
You can’t even know what someone means when they self-identify as a “gamer” anymore. Are they a casual gamer, a genre-junkie like an FPSer or an MMOer, or are they a table-topper or LARPer (was that cloth-ys you called them?)? Within gamer culture, the term gamer has a lot of different meanings. I think in general that it’s become a really broad term that serves to stereotype people, similar to the term “jock” – you have no idea what sport a person plays, or if they don’t play any sports and are just athletic, if all you know is that one label. You’ve got a similarly small amount of information if you only know that someone is a gamer or a jock.
And yes, female gamers are a spectacle all their own (female gamers, represent!), because we’re on the fringe of all those stereotypes about gamers. To the outside world, we’re just kind of weird, because who would want to play that teenage boy stuff besides teenage boys? To gamer guys, we’re that enigma, that fantasy; since gamers girls are still rare, we’re that chick who’s just too damn good to be true – that is, until we whoop said boy’s ass at his favorite game. Then it’s on, bitch!
BTW – Zeus sounds just like Kari Byron from MythBusters.
There’s a job opening at Intel right now for an “Environmental Artist.” They don’t really explain what it is, but under qualifications it lists “Avid or hard-core gamer.” Is that reverse discrimination?
That’s an interesting point. If we get into the discrimination stuff again (and I’m sure we will) I’ll have to remember to bring that up.