As gamers, we're now cool.
That may seem odd to those of us who grew up in a time when playing n64 on the weekends was something only losers did, according to the "cool" kids in school. But as gamers, we're now cool, and have been for awhile. The reason I'm bringing this up is because a large population on the internet is taking great offense to Joel McHale's incessant dissing of the gaming population during today/tonight's (depending where you live) otherwise disastrous VGA (or VGX, whatever) display. I on the other hand think Joel McHale is the best thing that happened during that show. That's because, as gamers, we're now cool, and because of that, we should be able to laugh at ourselves.
I really want to punch whatever Spike executive who thinks World Premiere means games we saw displayed at last year's e3. I think this was some desperate grab to get people's attention, when they knew their show was going to be a disaster. Plus, anytime you have to listen to Geoff Keighley, God punches an angel in the balls. But there to save the day was Joel McHale, the popular actor on the not-so-popular show Community (which everyone should watch, but that's beside the point). At first, I'll admit, he was rather off putting with his seemingly mean-spirited jabs (watching him interact with Tim Schaeffer was a kind of awkward I haven't seen since Steve Carrell left the Office), but then it hit me: Joel's not the one being insensitive, I'm the one being over-sensitive.
Remembering the days when gaming was seen as the forever-a-virgin taboo, my natural instinct is defend the hobby I love with my nerd shield and cry foul anytime someone says I'm wrong. But something's happened since those days. Now, everybody, and I mean everybody plays video games. Everybody, their uncle, and their four year old kid is playing Call of Duty, five year olds are playing games on their mom's smart phones (and probably deleted important emails in the process, while mommy's not paying attention), and then there's us. The diehards, the lifers, the in-it-from-the-beginning's. While we've consistently stayed true to what we love, the rest of the world has jumped on board. Now that we're more than a niche in the community, isn't it about time we can actually laugh at ourselves? Just a little bit? Because, honestly, we can be kind of silly people at times.
Here we are on the very message board where we can argue with strangers about which half-thousand dollar box is better than the other almost half-thousand dollar box. We get invested in fictional worlds, populated by computer-controlled creatures/people/humanoids/etc... We're silly people, just like jocks who deteriorate their bodies for a few years of glory are silly, just like girls who think slutting it up in a frat house in college is fun are silly, just like just about everybody in the world is ridiculously preposterous in their own ways. But now, we're not being patronized for the ways that we're silly. We're gamers. We're nerds. But that's not such a horrible thing anymore. It's just part of the world. So, why can't Joel McHale take jabs at how silly we are? He takes crap for being on E! entertainment and having a forehead the size of Pandora. He can laugh at himself for that, so why can't he laugh at us too? And better yet, why can't we laugh at ourselves?
But, seriously Spike, learn what a f**** World Premiere means.
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