Okuu_Fusion said:
So there's this guy on some radio show I listen to who, whenever anything that involves video games(or animation, comics, sci-fi, fantasy, or whatever remotely related), is mentioned, he always answers with...
"I don't watch/play/read that stuff... I like girls... I like sports... I like ESPN..."
Basically, everything else not sports related or involves real women to this guy is not manly... its all kids stuff...
People in my daily life are starting to say similar lines and its starting to piss me off...
So, Besides ignoring them (or turning the radio off), What is a good response to people who think that everthing you like is not "Manly"?
How would you respond to these "manly" people?
I think it's a myth that those things are mutually exclusive, especially with games and other escapist media being dumbed down for the mainstream. With the way society is changing I think a lot of people are feeling threatened due to the slow but noticible erosion of the things they are interested in.
The bit about girls is intended to be insulting (plenty of gamer girls out there for example), but to be honest I've been reading some stuff about sports franchises growing concerned over an increasingly divided interest from the mainstream. They will not go away by any means, but I think other forms of entertainment/massive investment for the everyman, and a lot of the truely ridiculous bickering, politics, and scandals are causing a lot of people to turn away from it. Today it seems 90% of the sports news revolves around arguements about crazy amounts of money, and/or who is using drugs to cheat. What's more the entire thing has gotten so mercenary and mixed up, that there is increasing detachment from an area's team since the people playing for teams are no longer local, but bidded from a national, and increasingly international pool of talent. It's been like that for a while, but I think a lot of kids coming up today (consider human lifespans) are seeing very little reason why they should cheer for say "The Boston Red Sox" as a matter of local pride, when the guys aren't even from Boston or anywhere around the area.
That, and there is still some association with how games used to be (check out the article about kids and old school RPGs) where to play video games you used to have to be some kind of introvert who spent tons of time just figuring out how to make computers run properly, on top of the games themselves. Someone who spends 8 hours or so a day (on top of anything else) doing that is not going to have a lot of time for other things, and if that's what he does it says a lot for his interests....
Today with gaming being geared to roughly the level of lab monkeys, and computers who do almost everything for you without any understanding (stick in a disc, hit install, then hit play for the most part) that's differant. Now Joe Blow can sit down and rev up a video game, play for an hour, and then do something else.
In short, I wouldn't worry about it. Plenty of people like sports and other mainstream things alongside video games. I think your just listening to people who feel threatened by the way the world is changing due to increasing numbers of people who could care less about the antics of the latest 'roid monkey (wow yeah, this guy makes some impressive plays, but now let's theorize for the next four hours on whether or not he shoots up on illegal ape hormones to do it.... ), yet enjoy video games, with those people increasingly being less "nerdy" hence the need to try and peer pressure them.
