Today, I Am Ashamed to be Called a Gamer

Monday, February 2, 2009
Today, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be called a gamer. When I consider the term applied to me, my initial reaction is something akin to

"Hey now, whoa, not so fast--don't include me with those guys."

But perhaps I shouldn't begin in media res.

The 'action', as it were, began a short while ago, browsing Kotaku.

Now, I have long been aware that our breed permeates the internet. The dirty, dark basements of the web are home to our ilk; And I know there is a certain, disturbing amount of overlap between gaming and such things as tentacle fetishism, hermitism and what can only be described as intrinsic social awkwardness. And I know that it is because of these things and the people who love them that gaming has its--shall we say, fringe members who may not hold the values of the more 'traditional' game nerd. Or maybe it has nothing to do with them. It could be the people whom gaming has suddenly invited in with open arms. Or, probably, it's none of them--they're all gamers, in their own right. Perhaps this is all the sudden, bitter flavor of my own naivete. The point is this: I simply didn't expect to see what I witenessed today.

The headline read: "Now the Hell Will Start". How appropriate.

In the article, his holiness Brian Ashcraft described his busy schedule and how he managed to make time for books last year. Now the Hell Will Start was his favorite book of 2008. At the end of the note, he queried the readership. "What was the best book you read in 2008?"

Paraphrased responses I expected:

"I really liked Fantasy/Scifi book X. It was fun."
"I loved Pop Culture phenomenon Z. So did my Dad!"

etc. There were few of these, at any rate.

Far more, and far more bile-inducing, were these paraphrased responses I didn't expect:

"I didn't read at all in 2008"
"I only read manga XD"
"I consider RPGs interactive novels, so Crisis Core was the best book I read last year."
"I wish they'd start using voice actors more so I didn't have to read so much."

Gamers! What the fuck, guys?! We're the ones who read, remember?! We're the nerds! We're the ones who revel in Tolkien and debate over whether Star Wars books should be canon!

I'm not going to go all 'back in my day' on your asses, but seriously--I thought that we were the ones who helped uphold noble literary traditions. We were the ones who stood up when someone proclaimed that "reading is stupid".

I don't know. With the advent of the Wii, the inclusion of more gamers into our culture, the explosion of technology...I've been nervous that gaming will change. That gamers will change.

Maybe I'm completely wrong.

But maybe we already have.