Here’s a picture of someone you may or may not know. On many levels, she’s just a girl who enjoys the occasional game of Super Mario, Pokemon, and Fable.
In the photo, taken by the guys at roboticrice.com (awesome site, btw), she’s playing DOTA 2. Just so you know, she’s not a “hardcore games or bust” elitist either; she totes around an iPad ready to play Dumb Ways to Die at a moment’s notice.
On other levels, she’s Megan Young.
Being a beauty queen doesn’t change anything in the preceding paragraph. Someone’s title, trophies, or profession shouldn’t make a difference in what things she’s interested in on the side. Let Megan be the Young woman who plays Zombies Ate My Neighbors and watches Adventure Time.
Maybe I’m being a little bit preemptive. There aren’t any articles popping up criticizing her for being a girl gamer yet. The Internet will get around to that on its own time, in the same way traditional media outlets found a way to smear her image for being good-looking in a bikini (or out of one).
It’s ugly but it’s true; famous people will get bashed for every little thing they do or don’t do. When you stand in the spotlight, you take the heat. Take a look at our own president, for example. He’s running a country that’s tearing itself apart, trying to improve its dwindling economy while keeping international relations from sinking by saving hostages’ lives and claiming land. I think he’s entitled to a yosi and Playstation break once in a while.
So when political detractors can’t pin corruption on someone, they bash his habit of playing videogames? That seems fair.
Unfortunately, playing videogames is still seen as a childish and immature activity. Joyce Ann Burton-Titular, who wrote the article that discussed Megan Young’s videogame habits, feels it to be true.
“I totally enjoy playing computer games but don’t talk much about it—because when you say you are a gamer, people tend to judge you as childish or irresponsible or downright strange.”
— Joyce Ann Burton-Titular
Worse yet, when it’s not considered childish and immature, it’s talked about as poisoning the minds of the youth and turning kids into gun-crazy sociopaths. GTA V hasn’t even been out for two weeks and already mass media is playing the blame game with it as the star of the show.
Well, I have something to say. Considering the expected audience of this website, this may come as no surprise to many of you. For the rest, it’s this:
Everybody plays.
Are any of the following apps installed on your phone: Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Cut The Rope, Muffin Knight, Plants Vs. Zombies, Jetpack Joyride, Temple Run, or any other app from the “games” category in your phone’s app store? Remember those days playing Monopoly with your relatives and then, after a miserable loss, you decided then and there that you’ll never play it again? How about those slow afternoons playing Pusoy Dos with your friends who always, always tend to put down a 5-card combo just when you were about to get rid of your pair 5’s? Were you active in sports such as basketball, football, or badminton? Did you ever play tag, hide-and-seek, or patintero? Congratulations, you’ve played a game, and most likely pretty recently too.
Don’t feel so bad. Play is human nature, both culturally and biologically. It’s unnatural not to play; as the human race grew up, so did the purpose of our playing.
“We humans have inherited the basic youthful play characteristics of our animal ancestors, but in the course of our biological and cultural evolution we have elaborated upon them and created new functions. Playfulness in humans does not end when adulthood begins and it serves many functions beyond the learning of species-specific skills.”
— Dr. Peter Gray
I’m not about to lecture anybody on the theories of Peter Gray or Johan Huizinga – that’s way out of my league. But I do hope their efforts help people appreciate the fact that there is a lot of academic research going into playing games (and not just videogames). Much more effort has been put into things that are much less serious.
If we can accept even on just a theoretical level that play is a natural human activity, like eating, sleeping, socializing, and fucking are, then wouldn’t that make life a lot more fun? That’s not to say that there are problems with natural human activity; yes, there are people who over-eat, under-sleep, socialize needlessly and have sex with the wrong things. But even with those problems out and about in the real world, the correct way to address them is to raise awareness and seek rehabilitation. So far, considering the way videogames are so demonized, it seems there’s still a long way to go before that happens.
But I digress. It’s easier to just bash all videogames and people who play them, just like it’s easier to just bash all movies and people who watch them, or all books and people who read them.
Header image by roboticrice.com