TV Shows Really Get Gamers

I recently read (and reviewed) Fun, Inc. by Tom Chatfield, in which the author observes that games are depicted in popular culture as "an especially pernicious form of masturbation" and that gamers are depicted as unhealthy, obsessed, arrested adolescents. Probably because the writers have not played a video game in thirty years.

That passage put me in mind of this Law & Order: SVU clip that made the Internet rounds late last year:



There you have it. Gamers are obese, unwashed monstrosities who don't even notice when the police knock down their door. (Well, I suppose it's possible that Cloud Atlas your typical gamer could stand to lose a few pounds.)

And what the hell was that game they were playing? Screaming Child Dangling from a Cliff?

More examples after the jump:

Life

"I'm 30 years old, I live with my mother, and I have a Captain Kirk costume in my closet."

Also, evil gamers have to play through ten "levels" of Prince of Persia to look at their own files. And good gamers are beautiful savants whose thumbs twitch when they watch other people play.



CSI: Miami

"Five thousand points, bitch! Add 'em up!"

Well, that's what what you get for playing a vaguely Grand Theft Auto-ish game: stealing maps for some reason and murdering innocent bystanders.

What was the last game you played that used "points" (other than XPs, which is not what they are describing here). I think these writers still see Pac-Man when you say "video game."



Law & Order: SVU again

No embedding for this one, just this link. Go to 9:27 or so.

Vixy Platinum's Underage Wonderstage? I don't think that would fly, even in Second Life. Plus, everyone knows you go there to have sex with furries.

Perhaps I've said too much.