I really don't think the "gamer stigma" is as linked to the whole devil worship/Chick Tracts nonsense as we like to sometimes believe. We latch onto that stereotype as a way of -- after a fashion -- stereotyping Christians, and by extension stereotyping everyone that doesn't like us. It's flattering to us to imagine that everyone that doesn't like gaming, doesn't like it because of how small-minded and bigoted they are, or how they believed a speaker at a seminar, or whatever. It's crappy anti-gamer rhetoric and propaganda that we've "owned" by claiming it's reversal for ourselves; we comfort and flatter ourselves by throwing the "shrieking right-winger" label on folks who don't like our hobby.
Likewise, it's pretty flattering for us to compare ourselves to Einstein. It's pretty silly, too, though. Individually, some gamers are certainly quite bright. As a group, in fact, the average IQ at GenCon might be a little higher than the general public's average.
The hard, ugly, truth, though, is that Einstein, Gates, and Hawkings did stuff with their intellect. Yeah, they're all badass renegade supergenius types who think outside the box or whatever, but...well...they're using it. They're sharing their genius, making lots of money off of it, changing the world.
We're not.
We're rolling dice, playing with toy soldiers, and telling stories with our friends in a basement somewhere.
Yes, what we do is awesome and fun. Yes, what we do requires creative thinking, team-building abilities, communication skills, imagination, quick wits, and all that good stuff. Yes, as a community we're terribly, monstrously, imaginative and bright. But -- and this sucks to say, trust me, but it's true -- ultimately, we're squandering it. What we do isn't terribly productive, when you get right down to it, any moreso than Lady Gaga's latest song, or Brad Pitt's six-pack abs.
To non-gamers, pen-and-paper RPG games just don't matter, and by extension neither do the people who play them. When a game gets "mainstream" -- and look no further than WOW for an example of this -- you suddenly see people talking about Druids and Wizards and Fighters...people everywhere, commercials for it on tv, characters on popular primetime shows, mainstream soda bottles coming out in Horde and Alliance colors... but that came from going mainstream. That didn't happen after thirty years of sitting in our parents' basement and rolling dice. It came from breaking the "gamer" mold, and going public. Selling out, in a way. I've got buddies that refuse to play WOW because of that. It's some weird geek backlash stigma thing. WOW's too popular, so they're like the kids that hate a band when it hits big; it's not "indie" enough for them, so they stubbornly refuse to give it a shot.
People don't give gamers a bad rap. Gamers give gamers a bad rap.
