So NOW it's cool?

[MajorTomServo]

Seems like every middle school boy and frat boy broski think it's cool to play Black Ops for hours at a time.

A few years ago, these same people would make fun of kids who spent a lot of time playing Halo online. What's the difference?

Dont get me wrong, Im not bashing either game, Im just wondering what the deal is.

 

[MrLumber]

Heres a metaphor for you;

People enjoy standing in lines.

 

[Harlemura]

I think Call of Duty's always been for the cool kids, ever since MW2 anyway. Halo's still classed as nerdy by most people.
I'm not really sure though, it's only in the past year I've started paying attention to anything CoD related anyway.

 

[TheTaco007]

CoD is a game that anyone can be good at. Halo you need to be a certain kind of gamer to do well. Assholes, especially in early school (middle/high school) hate everyone who's good at things they aren't. Why do you think smart people get picked on? The bullies don't like them, because they get good grades and the bully doesn't. Same concept for video games. Bully is bad at Halo, therefore Halo sucks. Bully is good at CoD, therefore CoD is awesome.

 

[iLikeHippos]

*Internet tough guy voice* 'Cause Call of Duty is so much more hardcore.

Who cares? They're just opinions. They're less harmful than ants, even. Not even going to speculate on that.

 

[Shoelip]

It's cool now. Don't question the cool. Only a square questions the cool. You aren't a square are you?

 

[Azaraxzealot]

same thing with how people started wearing michael jackson shirts after michael jackson was dead. suddenly, since he was dead, we all forgot he was a child-molesting pervert who aspired to be a little white girl.

my only question is... who or what died?

 

[Azure-Supernova]

It's the same logic that allows equally devoted sports fans to be ultimately cool and look down on Trekkies. It's simply the nature of the thing that's followed. The more people that follow the cooler it is to be in that group.

Of course even that logic isn't foolproof when you broaden the net and pit say, sports fans vs science fiction fans. Both are shockingly similar. They have a devout and casual community, cosplayers and big public events.

 

[similar.squirrel]

It's violent and patriotic. Now, I hate to generalize, but a lot of asshats fall under those headings. Halo is less palatable for that demographic, mainly because sci-fi is for f*ags or something.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

CoD is a game that anyone can be good at. Halo you need to be a certain kind of gamer to do well. Assholes, especially in early school (middle/high school) hate everyone who's good at things they aren't. Why do you think smart people get picked on? The bullies don't like them, because they get good grades and the bully doesn't. Same concept for video games. Bully is bad at Halo, therefore Halo sucks. Bully is good at CoD, therefore CoD is awesome.

by that logic... Prototype is the best game ever made (now i love prototype, but even i have to acknowledge how easy it was, even on hard)

 

[VanQ]

This video sums up how these kinds of people's minds work pretty well, if in a bit of a cynical way. Though it's using clothes and fashion as an example, you can apply the same concept to games.

Spoiler: Foamy clip, may contain mild swearing and large amounts of truth.

It's really a fascinating trend, this happens to a lot of things other than games and clothes. People's minds just change and become more open as they age I guess. At least that's what I like to tell myself anyway.

 

[Shoelip]

Another possibility, the sorting hat said it was cool.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1945789

 

[Netrigan]

Sci-Fi is often ridiculed. Just a fact of life. You spend your days engrossed in a purely fictional world and people think you're odd. Same people might obsess over daytime soaps, sports, or other real world pursuits/fiction, which isn't the same thing in their mind.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Since when did these guys look down on Halo? From what I remember of the time period where Halo was on top, it was the one game you couldn't get jocks and frat boys to shut up about, and was if anything more of a "bro" game than the CoD games are now. Is my memory faulty here?

 

[fenrizz]

i hate this particular trend. most recent one is walking dead... ive been reading walking dead wayyyyy before the tv series introduced it to everyone now most people on facebook are like "just bought vol 1 of walking dead/1 aww yeahhh!" and have a few hundreded likes... being ahead of the trend aint a bad thing i suppose:/

Is it really so bad?
More people opening their eyes to this kind of fiction can only be positive, as it's more likely that the makers can make a decent living of it, and thus being able to create more.

I don't see anything wrong with that.
Besides, The Walking Dead is brilliant.

OT:
It's the same with WoW and facebook.
Some things catch on a gain widespread acceptance and is consumed by popular culuture.

Others, such as Everquest and [random social nertwork] don't and fade into relative obscurity.

C'est la vie my friend.

 

[Wolfram23]

How long ago wasn't it cool? I'm 24 now, but back in highschool I think most guys played video games. Now, maybe when I was in elementary and everybody played NES and SNES, it wasn't cool for highschoolers to game? I don't know.

Plus, they might have made fun of kids playing Halo but they probably played Goldene Eye and Perfect Dark.

 

[teisjm]

Gaming has just become a lot more mainstream socially acceptable the past few years.
The social stigmata is wearing off, and people are now starting to wonder whether those people they called freaks and all sort of stuff a few years back might actually be part of the enlightened recriationally superrior sub-species of humans known as "pros"