Continuing my mission to prove that not all gamers are geeks, and not all geeks are gamers (hooray for that introductory course in logic at university), I have decided to analyse — and shatter a few –  preconceptions about gamers. This won’t be the usual ‘male gamers do actually shower’ kind of list! I’ll include some girl gamer (grrrl!!) myths too!

Being both a long-term hardcore gamer and someone who has been ’socially successful’ (OK, obviously that’s subjective, but I mean I can get along with other people… hold down a job… and a girlfriend!), I feel like I am in the prime position to analyse and debunk a few gamer myths. Hopefully by the end of the list you will feel a lot more educated on the topic of gamers… and appreciate that we are in fact human too. Here goes:

Female gamers… get around a bit

I thought I’d start with a contentious one to warm up with. Do female gamers actually go out of their way to date or sleep with every boy in a particular group of gamers? Do they keep a list and cross them off? If you’re one of those lucky male gamers that actually has a female in their group, you’ll probably know the answer to this one.

I’m afraid the answer is definitely ‘yes, they are hussies‘. Obviously, not every girl gamer is the village bicycle, but the vast majority do seem to ’sample the goods’. I’ve belonged to 2 ‘LAN party‘ groups and in both I experienced a certain ‘looseness’ about the girls. At university, I think of about 50 guy gamers, we had all dated the 3 or 4 girl gamers. Do the maths. But hey, us geek guys need to get our loving from somewhere… and we have a lot of love to give! We save it up over a number of years and let it all out in a… torrent… of love!

Gamers hate physical activity

Another popular notion is that gamers really hate to do things. The huge, spotty, chair-overhanging dorks obviously don’t do a lot for our cause, it’s true. But that doesn’t mean that we all hate sports, or other physical activities! It just means that we like to do… geeky activities! Like paintball, or airsoft. Or Live Action Role Play (click at your own risk). Obviously sloth-like people are attracted to gaming because it is a sedate, immobile pastime — but that doesn’t mean that gaming makes people hate physical exertion. This myth is simply not true, it’s just a stereotype that we have to shake off, thanks to our fat, spotty brethren!

Gamers are ugly

This one is fairly tied into the previous myth; we don’t exercise, thus we don’t look after our bodies. Sitting in a chair, surrounded by other sweaty guys doesn’t really inspire one to shower and tend to one’s appearance, correct?

Partially true. Much like lazy people are attracted to sit in front of a computer, those that care little about other people, and social interactions are likely to be drawn to gaming. This doesn’t mean that all geeks are ugly! There are plenty of attractive geeks out there that manage to mix up gaming and social interaction (that’s actually why LAN parties are so popular — you get to mix with people, rather than sit in your bedroom/basement all day). When we set up a gallery for my World of Warcraft guild I was quite amazed at how good looking we were! (If you want to see, I’ll be happy to provide some examples.) There definitely seems to be a correlation between social skills, and the quality of your appearance.

The related myth ‘all gamers eat vast amounts of pizza and crappy food‘ is only partially true. Pizza and convenience food just happens to be very, er, convenient — you can still use your mouse or keyboard with a slice of pizza in your other grubby paw.

Girl gamers are just following their boyfriend around

Ah, the tag-along girl gamer. Most of you guy gamers reading this will know what I mean by ‘that cute little girl at the LAN party that looks far too cute to actually be a gamer’. You know, she has braids in her hair. And she’s chatting to a friend on MSN Messenger, rather than actually gaming. Maybe she’s watching some anime. You blink, thinking this amazing vision will disappear… but she’s still there when you open your eyes. You think you’ve suddenly hit the mother lode! AND THEN… her boyfriend re-appears. Cue way too much affection and touching by the boyfriend just to make sure you really know they are going out. This guy is proud of his catch, and he wants you to be jealous. And inevitably… you are. Because he’s getting some, and you’re not.

Again, this myth is partially true. The number of girl gamers that actually attend LAN parties, or play any game other than Sims or Habbo Hotel, is still very, very small. The vast majority of girl gamers that you see in public will likely be the girlfriends of gamer guys. That doesn’t mean that the girl doesn’t enjoy games though! I know many girls that have become gamers after dating a hardcore gamer. Maybe that cute blonde will be attending on her own at the next LAN party?

Gaming is a valid career choice

Ah, the classic line that all kids tell their parents. Even I’ve used this one a few times. ‘Playing games won’t get you a job, son!’ Well, that’s not entirely true, dad. Whether as a games tester, designer or even as a pro gamer, there are possibilities to make a career out of hardcore gaming. Unfortunately, testing games for a job isn’t as fun as it sounds (it gets very old after a month or two) and it doesn’t pay well. Then of course everyone wants to design video games, but as there’s only 2 or 3 designers per 100 programmers, that’s a goal many will find unobtainable.

That leaves pro-gaming, which is certainly a possibility in today’s climate, but again only available to the very best gamers.  That’s not to say you shouldn’t try (winning £10,000 for a few hours’ work in a tournament has to be pretty good!), but you probably shouldn’t drop out of school or stay up all night playing games (until you get to university, then it’s OK!). Give it a few more years though and gaming will certainly be a career choice.

Gamers are violent

Ah, the favourite of our friends the media — we play violent video games, so we must all be closet serial killers just waiting to murder a prostitute and go on a killing spree at our local college. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Of course there are a few psychopaths that also played video games, but to surmise that ‘all video gamers are violent’ is false. Most gamers are actually very relaxed. We can obviously be competitive (there has to be a winner!), but not to the level that we’re threatening each other’s families. The exception here is that hardcore gaming can stifle the development of social skills; you all know about the geek that encroaches on your personal space — it’s that kind of oblivious nature that could cause a violent issue to arise.

If anything, gamers tend to be peace-loving types. God knows we don’t often have the physical make-up to be physically violent; our aggression tends to be the passive-aggressive type, often with snide words or social manipulation. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ — replace ‘pen’ with ‘keyboard’ and you will begin to understand a geek’s method of venting pent-up aggression! The associated myth ‘gamers play games as they enjoy killing‘ is also incorrect, it’s just ‘the modernisation’ of the gaming industry — just like modern TV focusing on lawyers or police. There are plenty of incredibly successful games that have very little violence at all — the Zelda and Mario franchises, the most popular franchises of all time, have absolutely zero focus on death and violence (other than to add significance to the plot, anyway!)

It just so happens that, like with most things in this world, games tend to mirror real life. Games are about escapism, or making fun of a popular topic — you can become Rambo, or a member of a Counter Terrorist squad — the measure of your success, then, is how many enemy soldiers you can kill, or how many bombs you can neutralise.

Conclusion

Like most myths there is often a grain of truth in everything you’ve read here. For every humble, peaceful geek there’s going to be one gun-toting maniac that spoils it for the rest of us. Just remember that as gaming becomes more and more popular (and it’s fast overtaking every other entertainment and pleasure pastime in the world today), almost anyone you meet could turn out to be a gamer. It’s only logical that hardcore gaming, and making a career out of gaming will become more popular, and even acceptable!

Following on from my ‘Gamer myths analysed‘, I was asked to confirm my claim that gamers can actually quite attractive.

First, I would like to define ‘ugly’ as ‘uncaring about appearance’ rather than ‘deformed genetically’. Even someone that is ugly by most conventional standards (wall eyed!) can be attractive if they’re clean, well-dressed and have a good complexion. I’m not going to claim that gamers are beautiful — I’m just saying that we’re not all fat, greasy and spotty. We don’t all live at home until we’re 40, eating pizza daily and showering weekly.

I propose that the antisocial gamers tend to be ugly. Those stereotypical pale-skinned loner geeks are ugly.  Social gamers tend to be quite attractive!

With the focus on gaming moving further and further towards the multiplayer experience the popularity of the LAN party will continue to increase. With an increase in social gaming, geeks will improve their image. They’ll shower daily, and brush their hair. One day, they might even go out and buy some non-black t-shirts… but one step at a time! As more girls attend LAN parties there’ll also be a huge bonus to cleaning and dressing adequately — you might actually get laid.

So here’s my wall of ‘pretty gamers’, from my World of Warcraft guild:

I don’t claim that we’re the most beautiful group of people in the world, but hopefully I’ve done a little to dispel the myth that gamers are all fat and ugly.

This week I created some buttons that, if you have your own blog, you can put in your sidebar. Hopefully you find one of the two pictures inoffensive enough to have on your blog. If not, I should have one of me in a doctor’s jacket and stethoscope next week, which should be quite pleasing to those few girls out there that like their men in uniforms… Now, on with the show!

Dear Dr Moses, Parter of the Seas,

Is it true that you can’t go swimming until half an hour after eating or is it a myth? If not, why not?

- Naturally Buoyant from Boston [Perhaps I should provide a way of uploading photos to accompany questions... -S]

Now this is one I’ve always wondered about! First, the kind of exercise is irrelevant — running, cycling, swimming — they are all equally bad after eating! This is because your body requires a lot of energy to digest food. Your stomach and intestine require a lot of oxygen, and thus blood, to successfully process your meal. But if you exercise, oxygen is required by your legs and arms, and heart — and there’s only so much oxygen to go around! That’s when your muscles cramp: your leg muscles spasm because they’re not receiving enough oxygen.

The problem with swimming in specific is: if you have cramps in your legs you might drown. Cramps while running or cycling are obviously not as dangerous (unless you face plant the curb).

Also worth noting is that if you must swim after eating, eat something light — fruit or carbs. Fats and proteins are harder to digest and require more time (and energy) for your intestine and stomach to process completely. You should probably wait 2 or 3 hours after a big, fatty meal before swimming.

Apparently there’s also a rumour/myth that you can pass out from swimming after eating. It’s not impossible, but it’s much more likely to be caused by some other physical condition: a fever that raises your body temperature so high that jumping into cold water causes shock, and thus making you pass out (and then drowning!). Your body temperature goes up a little after eating, which is probably where this rumour comes from.

Dear Seb,

I have a blog stalker!

He leaves epic comments on my blog and is overly touchy-feely when we chat online. He hugs and kisses and…  he’s just too nice, creepy-like. This has gone beyond just ‘Mr Nice Guy’ and it’s freaking me out!

I think he’s made of marshmallows and vaginas [Beautiful imagery -S]. I can tell he’s a total Mommy’s boy, and he’s overly emotional.  He annoys the hell out of me, and though I’ve blocked him because I don’t have the heart to tell him he’s smothering me on the internet, he sends me emails every day saying he loves me and misses me. LOVES me?

I’ve had about four conversations with him, during which I found myself leaning back in my computer chair, gasping for breath as I felt I was being suffocated with false affections… WTF do I do?

Sincerely,
Smothered in the States

I think this is a problem that many bloggers might’ve experienced, or may experience one day: the scary commenter that both makes your skin crawl and drives other commenters away. The chat and email situation is another thing entirely — you can block his emails, don’t forget, just as you’ve already blocked his chatter!

But the blog stalking, well, that’s potentially a whole lot more sticky. If he’s as benign as he appears, you probably have nothing to worry about — but stalking is the kind of thing that starts off as a flight of fancy, a mere crush, but quickly turns into something a whole lot more sinister!

There’s a lot of resources on the Internet about dealing with real-world stalkers, but very little on the topic of blog stalking. I would suggest you take sensible precautions:

• Blog under a pseudonym — You’ll still have a problem here if you’ve given your full name and location in the past, but this should at least stop the ‘opportunist’ predators.
• Self-host your blog — If you host your own blog (WordPress or TypePad, for example), you have a lot of control over who reads your entries. You can always turn your blog ‘private’ too, but that’s admitting defeat, and you shouldn’t suffer at the grubby, spindly hands of a stalker!
• Change your address/contact details — This is the best real life way to escape a stalker too! Think about changing your blog and/or email address. Again, this is letting the stalker win — sucks.
• Contact his/her ISP — If you have their personal details (which is likely, considering they have probably made contact), you can probably contact their Internet provider and have them suspended for harassment. This isn’t a simple task though and you should probably contact the police before you try to do it yourself!

If all else fails: send him a photo of a hairy, fat trucking type that can’t see his own penis  — claim that’s what you really look like, and that pretending to be someone else is your method of escaping the daily grind.

Seb the Biologist!

Quickly, I don’t know how long I’ve got to live!

I’m swallowing and hence withholding burps; am I going to explode?!

Hiccup,
Suck ‘n Blow in the South East

No. You might fart more though, which could be embarrassing. Stop being a damn drama queen! (This was actually sent a few days ago, so the person that sent it might have exploded before reading my soothing words. In which case, I guess I’m partially to blame…)

Would you rather be an artist or engineer?

This is a question I often ask myself on trains and planes or as I lay in the still solitude of my bed. Do I want to create art so beautiful, so inspirational that people actually enjoy life a little bit more? Do I want to develop infrastructure and technology that provides clean drinking water for the billions without?

In this crafted and cultured world, this world without boundaries that we have persisted in creating and destroying over ten long, illustrious millennia, which is more important: art or engineering?

Which was more instrumental: myth and wisdom — or creating fire?

The Bible — or the Roman Empire?

Michaelangelo’s David – or Kodak’s film camera?

Band Aid’s Feed The World — or a network of satellites that enable global communication?

Lennon’s Imagine – or Apple’s iTunes?

Art or engineering?

Do I want to be the person that enables and improves the lives of millions through advancing technology? Should I be the one that converts magic, wished-for technologies into the accessibly mundane?

Or should I be the culmination, the end point, the person that uses contemporary technologies to create art? Art that resonates within and amplifies emotions; art that triggers further explosions of creativity until we have a more beautiful world.

I keep trying to be both an artist and an engineer but I fear that it’s time to choose just one.

Michelangelo or Edison.

Einstein or Plato.

I’ve covered the sorry state of knowledge and inherent lack of truth that plagues contemporary society.

But it didn’t start yesterday or even 100 years ago! It’s an eternally recurring theme of dumbing-down and almost-truths dispensed by nasty people posing as intellectual authorities over thousands of years. There is an endemic ‘loss of wisdom’ that has an iteratively degenerative effect, gaining more momentum with each generation.

Historically these lies, these tales, were of a philosophical or mythical nature and virtually harmless. They were stories that became true through retelling: Hercules, Romulus, Arthur. The stories were told first by the travelling bard, then more abstractly through tribalism and shamanism. Polytheism followed with its anthropomorphic (god of wine, god of war) pantheon of valiant heroes and demigods. Finally monotheism trumped them all and wrapped up with its epic, fearsomely vengeful tale of apocalyptic events.

Old wives’ tales (or fables or myths or whatever!) might’ve been lies or half-truths but they didn’t really harm anyone; they might have been ‘not ideal’, but that’s not the point — they were moving towards the ideal — they were retold to children with good intentions! The same could be said for the basic spiritual maxims of most religions: everlasting life; don’t murder; try your best not to sodomise your brother’s wife; treat others how you would like to be treated. All good but… it sadly didn’t last. Something changed. All of a sudden enforcement entered the equation. Arbitrary enforcement: rules, laws and peer pressure with little or no basis in moral/cultural advancement or ethical living. If abstract/intellectual enforcement wasn’t enough, there was a strong physical aspect too: witch-hunts, the Inquisition and the Crusades are but a few obvious examples.

Why did it happen? For thousands of years our focus had been on becoming a more advanced race. But one day, probably after the fall of Rome, we woke up and well… we fell asleep again. Life was no longer about pushing the progress of civilisation. Perhaps it was our growing understanding of human anatomy and psychology that caused the change. Maybe it was due to the formation of metropolises like Rome and the urgent need to control large groups of people quickly and easily. Personally I think the continued development of written and spoken language — and rhetoric — played a big role. Whatever it was, something snapped. No longer was storytelling used to share wisdom or morals to improve our progeny’s standard of living. Gone were the tales that frightened children away from actual dangers like dank caves or poisonous fruits.

A new breed of story started to appear, tales that weaved lies and believable half-truths into their narrative. And we know that words, both written and spoken, have a terrible power. Instead of cresting taller peaks and pushing towards new horizons people started to fear their surroundings. Authorities of knowledge slowly faded away to be replaced by scary chieftains, oppressive teachers, greedy priests and, of course, a vengeful God.

I’ve written about magic before and how it is ultimately synonymous with technology. Television was magic (find an old person that was around when television was invented and talk to them about it!) but sure enough, it very quickly became mundane. What do you think would’ve happened to the inventor of the television if he had been around in the Middle Ages? What do you think ‘witchcraft’ actually was? With such an attitude towards innovation and revolution (or evolution, hah!), is it a surprise that books, education and intellectual enlightenment all but disappeared for 1,000 years?

For a very, very long time the pursuit of knowledge and truth — science! — was frowned upon, persecuted. Scientists were shunned or burnt at the stake. Why?

Because they were dangerous. Knowledge is power.

We humans learnt just enough for the monotheistic surge to take place. We learnt how to exploit the human love of mystery with smart wit and sharp turns of dogmatic phrase. We have become a scared and tentative flock too fearful to break from the pack. In essence we learnt just enough to be dominated and no more.

And now we await — or do we create? –  the next Renaissance where veracity of knowledge is returned to us.

***

Still more to come, I think; on prejudice and ignorance. Oh, and if you’re reading this on the blog itself, remember you can double click a word to find out what it means!

Darkness.

Enigma.

Secret.

Curiousity.

Surprise.

Paranormal.

Superstition.

Rapture.

Riddle.

Myth. Magic. Mystery.

* * *

The definition of mystery, though multi-faceted, is a good place to start:

Anything that arouses curiosity or perplexes because it is unexplained, inexplicable, or secret.

That [which] is not fully understood or that baffles or eludes understanding; an enigma.

But it goes further. I’m not the only one that has noticed the prevalence of mysticism in contemporary civilisation:

The skills, lore, or practices that are peculiar to a particular activity or group and are regarded as the special province of initiates.

A religious truth that is incomprehensible to reason and knowable only through divine revelation.

An incident from the life of Jesus, especially the Incarnation, Passion, Crucifixion, or Resurrection, of particular importance for redemption.

The derivation is even more interesting:

From Latin mystērium, from Greek mustērion, secret rite, from mustēs, an initiate, from mūein, to close the eyes, initiate.

So you can see, the concept of mystery is old and likely prehistoric, pre-dating all forms of modern civilisation. Though Christianity is the only religion mentioned by name in the definitions, all theistic religions rely solely on mystery as their driving force; their ‘hook’, if you will. That’s why those few that actually communicate with God (or gods) are referred to as ‘mystics’ — they’re dealing with mysterious, inexplicable, unprovable phenomena. Gods are mysteries, in other words.

The fundamental axiom of all advanced lifeforms can be generalised as ‘What’s around the next corner?’ On a low-level it might be as simple as finding new hunting grounds; for humans it might as complex as finding a new partner, a new job — either way, it’s about moving. Not necessarily forward or back, but moving. There are higher concepts but at the end of the day it’s exploration and horizon-hunting that really does it for us; what really satisfies us.

Why then are we so damn addicted to mystery? Mystery is the polar opposite of exploration, science, truth. But we embrace it! We find comfort in the not-knowing. We set out on epic journeys to seek out new continents and new civilisations, all the while seeking solace in the gods that illumine starlit skies. There’s something about that which we do not know.

And these mysteries will forever remain because we don’t try too hard to solve them. No matter how hard we try, a mystery remains just beyond the reach of our grasping fingertips — or rather, we don’t stretch our hands too far in case we actually reach the mystery. The moment we close our fingers and find it to be nothing more than insubstantial smoke and deceptive mirrors — we shatter. Our world-view contorts and shifts and finally buckles under its elusive enormity. The shattered fragments of mystery lay limp and unravelled between our fingers. There’s nothing there. There never has been. There never will be.

Gosh.

Why do we keep reaching? Why do we raise our hands to the sky in search of salvation and heavenly oases?

Why does it hurt so much when we find out that a mystery is really nothing more than random chance or laws of physics? Because we’re rational creatures; we feast on order, reason. For every effect we must attribute a cause.

Someone somewhere once prayed to the very first heavenly and inexplicable body: the stars. The constellation of Orion perhaps. ‘Let tomorrow’s hunt be a success’ he prayed. And you know what? It was. The hunt was a rave success. Forever after, he prayed to the stars.

Then one day, sometime in the near future, the hunt wasn’t a success. In fact, some of the hunters were gored by the wild boar and died. So of course he prayed harder. What other option was there?