10,000 Foul Mouthed Teenagers
As a middle-aged gamer who simply can’t twitch my mouse as fast as a thirteen-year-old, I tend to gravitate toward games that reward patience, experience, and higher-level strategies. Does this keep bunny-hopping tweeners from teabagging my corpse? No it does not. But it helps.
Despite my coping strategies, however, there remain days when I feel like I’m swimming in a cesspool of pre-teen immaturity. Which is why this webcomic made me laugh so hard:
What It’s Like To Play Online Games As A Grownup
(Click to read the whole thing.)
My favorite line: “And they stink of Mountain Dew and Ritalin, sir.”‘
One must be fair, though. There’s a heavy selection bias at work here. On the internet, nobody knows you’re eleven — unless you act like the stereotype of the obnoxious eleven-year-old gamer. I’ve played many an hour with perfectly civilized, decently-skilled, strategic gamers who were better than me at some stuff, only to be stunned to hear them key up on the in-game voice channels with a beardless voice.
The gamers who are the most frightening opponents, though, are the young ones just back from (or on break from) our real-world wars. They have the youthful speed and reflexes, combined with often-relevant training and experience, all topped off with a serious dose of aggression and passion-to-win. Formidable indeed. I like to say that age and treachery always triumphs over youth and skill, but it’s not true as often as I’d like.
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Thank you sir, that… sums up what I’ve been feeling in the mmo world perfectly.
They have the youthful speed and reflexes, combined with often-relevant training and experience, all topped off with a serious dose of aggression and passion-to-win.
Best bit of cultural news I’ve read in a long time.
mmm, but haven’t they in fact aged and gained experience beyond their years, compared to the rest of us. at a cost though… :(
The “youthful speed and reflexes…aggression and passion to win” bit I can relate to. I see it in my peers, my soldiers and myself. Didn’t know there were enough of us to make that much if an impact. Nice bit of insight.
Justin, we age and experience much, some good, some bad, often at great cost. But that is a sacrifice we choose to make, and many of us are proud to make.
Justin, having seen a bit of the world with the Canadian military and been part of the repatriation of enough flag draped coffins (you could say that one is too many, but the reality of combat is that it is not bloodless) and seen soldiers rotating out of a combat zone I can agree with Sgt Nick – experience is gained and it is gained by choice.
It is the nature of mature democracies that, however imperfect the political process, the military carries out the directives of the civilian authority (whether they agree with it or not). We tend to leave it to the electorate to decide who sets the policies.
Bacchus, my apologies for inserting what may be considered a political discussion into what started as a comment on online gaming.