It doesn't matter what people mean when they start off a sentence like that because you can be fairly certain that the next words are bound to be offensive.

My first day in Psychology class at Belmont Abbey College the professor decided that we were going to play the game "Four Corners". For those who aren't familiar with this game (and this not meant in a condescending manner) it's where signs are put up in each of the corners of a room. You have "Agree", "Strongly Agree", "Disagree" and "Strongly Disagree" no room for neutrality.

The first statement was:

"Video games cause violent behavior"

Big shock, right? It's not like this isn't all over the news all the time and thanks to idiots like Jack Thompson the debate is not likely to end soon...

What was shocking was the fact that I was alone in the "Strongly Disagree" corner. WTF? I looked over and there were two people in the "Disagree" corner and the remaining 24 students were all trying to wedge into the "Strongly Agree" community.

Then we were asked to explain why we chose what we did and the dismaying thing was that most of the people in this particuliar group seemed to be parrotting media fodder or engaging in a bunch of stereotypes about the gaming world and most of those I disagree with.

First of all, I found that most of the people I encountered on this night held the same belief as Jack Thompson; that there was no such thing as "Gamer Culture" merely a bunch of anti-social people who spent all of their times fixated on video games and did not socialize.

Then there were some that admitted that there was a "culture" but that it was closed and unfriendly, that no civilian dare wander in out of genuine curiousity and interest.

To be fair, I was not the best representative for the gaming community merely because I don't possess the vast knowledge of it as other people do. While I do spend a lot of time gaming to some people out there, I am still one of those annoying "noobs". I am not the end all be all source when it comes to the culture nor do I pretend to be. However, I did manage to hold my own.

Today I joined the blog community here after being a reader of the webpage for several months. I was excited about being able to blog and make friends with similiar interests. Perhaps in my excitement I didn't dedicate enough thought to my first post and there was a minor flame war inside.

The troubling question in this post is when the implied statement of some gamers is "Oh You're One of THOSE aren't you?" (meaning noob I guess) where are you supposed to earn your experience points then?

Maybe it's like someone told me earlier...

"Enjoy your awkward time here"

A bit foreboding, but definitely do-able.

d00b 0ut.

Leave it to the intrawebz to feed my addictions! Honestly, like I need another blog.

So maybe I should introduce myself, that would probably be productive...

I already introduced myself with that drivel over there------->

Don't feel like being redundant so since I am just posting in order to be creative while I procrastinate...maybe focus my energy on my english paper.

Yes, that would probably be more productive.


d00b 0ut.