CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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"Do You Think It's Okay For Men To Play Video Games In Their Thirties and Over?"

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

this entry brought to you by ida maria, "oh my god"


I found this clip on-line, and I thought it was worth talking about.

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The hostess, I don't know her name, reads a question from a viewer, "What's with men and video games?" And, before she can even complete the sentence without guffawing, continues, "Do you think it's okay for men to play video games in their thirties and over?"

Kathie Lee Gifford immediately blurts that it's weird, and Donny Deutsch, their guest, responds emphatically, "No."

Now, firstly, I don't expect Kathie Lee Gifford to know shit about shit. And, frankly, I don't expect Donny Deutsch, a 54 year old ad exec, to know that much about video games either-- or, frankly, to be hip about anything. I'm not offended, because while it's come up less and less frequently and the average video game age gets older and older, this sort of thing just shows how some people are just behind the times and, frankly, just old fuddy-duddies.

Still, it does come up from time to time, and to me it brings up a much larger question about masculinity. One must wonder what it is about the traditional definition of "man" that allows some things that brought him joy as a child to maintain into adulthood, while others are arbitrarily discarded as being beneath them.

I'm not a fan of any sport at all, especially football. Still, even though I have a complete disgust and total lack of interest towards football, I understand that I'm in the minority. Men like football, and, despite what I like to tell myself, I also understand that intellectual men like football. It's a pretty universal thing, and it's pretty masculine.

But it's a child's game. It is literally men throwing around a ball. You could not define a children's game more concretely. I'm not trying to say that men can't enjoy this child's game, but I don't understand what is acceptable about men over 30 watching other men play a game you literally teach your children to play the moment they are capable of throwing a ball, but is not acceptable playing video games.

This is true of virtually any sport. All of them, almost without exception, are for children, are played by children, have rules so simple a child could understand them. And granted, I also understand that this is what makes them so universally loved, but I don't see how it makes them somehow special. You could say that there is a talent involved in playing sports, and of course there are. There are also guys who could do things in video games I could never do no matter how many hours I invested in it. And you could argue the vitality of the human drama that is highlighted so much in sports, but this is true about any aspirational story any field in life. The fact is that the thing you are watching is a game, and most sports are played with a ball, which is a thing children play with.

Again, it's not that I begrudge anyone of their hobbies. I just don't understand how the idea of a man being into video games is somehow laughable, yet men watching meaningless games that they cannot affect no matter how intensely they watch is acceptable.
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with love from CRS @ 11:47 AM 

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