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Gamer Hierarchies and the Great Ordning
Sure, there are people who will pretty much play everything, but they're rare. There seems to be a lot of effort to justify "these games of ours" to friends, family, and society, and to somehow distance ourselves from those, "losers/children/neckbeards/stuffed shirts," over there. "That's not me, bro."
Why do you think we do this? Do you do it? Is it justified?
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- Michael Barnes
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I don't think I'll ever be able to explain Blood Bowl as more than "Oh, I play fantasy football" unless that comfort zone has already been established.
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charlest wrote: This is in all facets of life, not just gaming. We're talking more about the human condition, wanting to feel special, and dealing with identity issues.
Exactly. It's essentially the same reason racism exists at a psychological level (at least theoretically). Viewing differences as inferior is an ego-protection thing.
"Their nerd thing is worse than our nerd thing! We are the better nerds!"
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- hotseatgames
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- Legomancer
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That said I do think humans are naturally attracted to the idea of making hierarchies in some way. We say don't judge and we try to mean it but we don't mean it. We all judge pretty much all the time. It's what humans do and figuring out what the hierarchy is fits in with a natural human instinct. It's something that all animals do to some degree, not just us, it's ingrained in the DNA somewhere. Sometimes the hierarchy is justified and the judgement is correct (even though we like to pretend we're all equal and everything is subjective... it isn't) and sometimes it's wildly inaccurate. A hierarchy of gaming preferences... that's very, very low on the hierarchy of hierarchies. Some of it is just jokes too, and jokes frequently have victims. If you find yourself the victim of a joke... try your best to laugh it off and remember the time you laughed at some other victim.
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- Legomancer
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You can always look around a nerd space and find someone worse than yourself because it only gets worse. It's a non-Einsteinian space in which every single point is somehow worse than every other point. In a single day you can hear nerds giving themselves three cheers for being so intellectually curious and open minded and then hear them upset because Domino being black now is "too different" despite absolutely no one giving a shit about black OR white Domino for 30 years.
Fighting about whether wargamers or CCG players are worse is a loser's game.
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However, if I want to weigh what society as a whole thinks of boardgaming, I think an argument can be made that video games are legitimizing boardgames above and beyond the old family standards (Monopoly, etc).
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Legomancer wrote: Seriously, though, the chart I remember had furries at the bottom, which was funny because I'm not a furry and I don't think I know any furries but I've never had furries come and shit up something else I or someone else liked. Far as I can tell, they do their furry thing with each other and more power to them. I have, however, dealt with or been a part of nerd communities that are supposedly "above" furries and they regularly make shit miserable for other people. If we're not creating unhealthy sycophantic "fandoms" to weirdly organize around we're making elaborate purity tests to determine who even gets to be in the unhealthy sycophantic fandom.
You can always look around a nerd space and find someone worse than yourself because it only gets worse. It's a non-Einsteinian space in which every single point is somehow worse than every other point. In a single day you can hear nerds giving themselves three cheers for being so intellectually curious and open minded and then hear them upset because Domino being black now is "too different" despite absolutely no one giving a shit about black OR white Domino for 30 years.
Fighting about whether wargamers or CCG players are worse is a loser's game.
I've seen that geek hierarchy chart. I couldn't find a legible-sized picture of it, but here's a link to a pdf of it:
www.smofbabe.net/geekchart.pdf
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JonJacob wrote: Personally I'm more embarrassed by they hobby than anything else. I don't really go around bragging about my taste in games publicly. If it comes up, fine... but I try to downplay it and present it as a childish thing I just can't let go of.
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When I go to conventions, I just tell coworkers " Went to visit some friends in ( insert convention city name ) . Saves a lot of explaining.
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