Ep. 03: Video Games Aren’t Only for Boys
A lot is blamed on video games, but it’s all about how and why a person plays whatever they play.
From my perspective as someone who has always found solace in my video gaming, the negative behaviors, cyberbullying, and hyper-dependence on parasocial relationships are greater with people who don’t know themselves or fail to touch grass every once and awhile. Whether it’s RPGs of The Sims 4, being a gamer since I was a child has made me a better person — rather than a raging sociopath who gets pleasure out of being a d!ck to others.
This episode about video games was a lot of fun for me to unpack. Video games have been such a constant throughout my nearly 40 years on this floating rock and I can always connect with that inner child when I find a new game I am diehard about. As a person who is an only child and values my time alone, it was important for me to highlight how video gaming isn’t a male-dominated hobby or passion as well as how holding onto such a tired ass trope mimics what happens in other environments that are deemed best for white patriarchy — work organizations!
It’s kinda funny that role-playing games (RPGs) are my genre of games considering how much I observe and analyze the behavior of others when in public, at work, or in interpersonal settings.
Yes, I study you and watch your behaviors because I find it fascinating why people do and act they way they do — even when they’re being sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.
The choices people make somewhat remind me of how RPGS go — if you’re not strategic and paying attention you can miss so much, have a lackluster play, and then have to watch or read about what others achieved in that particular game. The first video games I remember playing are Dr. Mario and Legend of Zelda on Gameboy. My favorite consoles today are PS4 and for one game, my iMac, but I’ve dabbled in Xbox.
For me RPGs allow me to be strategic, adventurous, creative, and the most epic storyteller. Yet, like IRL, video games lack a great deal for me as Black cisgender neurodiverse woman. The representation in video games of Black and women characters who don’t look busted with horrible hair textures, aren’t oversexualized, or aren’t restricted to on single skin tone (dark AF), is just like life working at startups and corporations. The only caveat is I control the narrative. I control the story. And I can change shit up how I want – within the limits of what’s possible with that game based on the quality of storylines available.
Gaming is fucking expensive though. I wasn’t always able to afford video games and gaming consoles as I got older. But the main game I have always purchased throughout my young adulthood to now being a geriactric millennial is The Sims (all iterations!). With The Sims 4, I can be whoever I want but beyond that I can make other Sims be brillant, psychotic, loving, kind, or pure evil. However, EA isn’t as creative as I’d like so I play The Sims 4 with mods and custom content (cc). This allows me to add more to my storylines and improves my game play with The Sims 4. I know it’s a game I will play until I lose my executive functioning skills because it combines everything I love about being a gamer in one.
With my summer in Chicago, I get to enjoy playing as much as I want like it’s a winter holiday break from my 20s — gaming all night and completing a game in a matter of weeks rather than the months it can normally take me.
The beauty is that playing video games hasn’t made me a shit human being who terrorizes and bullies other gamers. It hasn’t made me a shut-in who is incapable of social interaction with others IRL.
Video games have helped me understand that not everyone has to be the same. We don’t need to live life the same. We don’t need to act the same. We certainly don’t need to look the same. Rather than judge others for their differences, I can actually accept, and probs, be inspired by their differences. How girlish of me 🎮 . . .
Are you listening?
