Tyra, Morgan, women, men, and video games

Note: I'm still on hiatus, but I just had to comment here.



When I read the article, I wasn't too amused. However, youtube is blocked at work, so I could only imagine how it went down. I wasn't far from accurate, but I was incorrect on how it would bother me.

Morgan Webb, from the throwaway show G4tv, manages to quickly categorize all gamers. We're whittled down to three stereotypes, which surprisingly don't seem that far-fetched. In my terms, they end up being 2.5 categories: Story whores and Competition junkies. The .5 will the be the "hero" part; it's sort of an underlying theme in any kind of entertainment. We'll let it slide.

What bothered me is the audience and Tyra's responses to the comments. All the females in the group seemed rather snide and god-complexed by their inability to comprehend. Naturally, the assumption was that only pre-teens are gamers, even though statistically they are far outnumbered by older gamers. If "the boss" likes to discuss it at work, I highly doubt it should be quickly dismissible. It's rapport that's not going to happen if talking your recent attire purchase.

Well, Tyra and Morgan, it's time for an unfair comparison to this unfair stereotyping. Since men are into silly things like interactive stories and building, I guess we have to find something to fire back at. How about the stereotypically accepted shiny-rocks, slop bags (read: purses full of junk), overabundance of shoes, and meandering shopping? What is with women and shiny things, anyway? Some of us would rather drive a car then wear an effing rock. Try wearing out a purse before buying 3 more. If you are only going to wear it once, don't buy it (marriage as an exception is plausible). And no, it isn't savings to waste a weekend driving and walking to dozens of stores to buy a single thing from each.

But to each his or her own respectively. =)

Back to reality, there really was two problems in the depicted relationship. The highlighted problem, was the man's addiction to video games. Several hours a day can be excessive, especially if there are responsibilities being ignored. The second problem was the woman's (and her support groups) unwillingness to try to understand the hobby and rather change him instead. Both parties need to be willing to compromise and that does come at the cost trying to understand each other. I can't say that this will be achieved after their appearance on this show.