The invention of the American Gamer
To many different generations the kinds of people you remember from high school were the various cliques of jocks, preppies, nerds, loners, and nutcases. Perhaps you know these types with different nicknames. This is the premise of the 1985 movie “The Breakfast Club.” This movie discusses the lives of five different people, belonging to the above cliques, and how they are similar to each other.
In many schools around the country and the world there are people that can fall into either category, or possibly break new ground in something different. Now at the turn of the 21st century, a new kind of clique has risen: The gamer.
The gamer is somebody that has a very good mix of qualities from all the previously noted cliques including lot of nerd qualities, a little bit of nutcase, and maybe a touch of loner.
The qualities of the nerd are people that know what they are talking about most of the time and are smart enough to know what to do. The nutcase part of the gamer is likened to a sort of quirkiness that sets them apart from everybody else, as the gamer ands nutcases know how to have fun in their own, individual ways.
Unfortunately with this quirkiness comes being alienated by many people. Fortunately this is not as bad as the gaming culture is on the rise and more people occupy this category every day. Nobody is ever truly alone in this world.
With the innovation of computer technology, gaming has become a new way of enjoying life. It began with people who hung out at the arcades, pumping their well-earned money into the arcade cabinets. Now with home consoles like the Nintendo Wii, X-box 360, and the Playstation 3, those gamers don’t even blow through their stockpiles of spare change to enjoy their favorite video games. Of course this is offset with the prices of home consoles these days, not to mention the prices of games.
Gamers come in all sizes, from the computer-savvy hacker, to the people who’ve managed to memorize all of the cheat codes and secrets to the latest Call of Duty game. Of course the majority of the gaming culture are those that just enjoy a good video game. To these gamers, video games and the like are something to relieve the stress of the day and put yourself in a world very different from your own.
So the next time you haze a guy that looks like he’s a little different from the crowd and has a World of Warcraft T-shirt on, ask yourself, am I a gamer too?