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Not reporting is bourgeois


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Am I biased and have a strange perception of history, or did games really have a separate subculture and identity around it 15 years ago? Now it's been completely subsumed and merged into the major culture if that time was real. Sure, games were popular then but never to this degree. Same thing with anime. Sometimes I feel this sense of pride and superiority because it's like "I was here first, I've been doing this longer than some other people, so therefore I'm more actual than them when it comes to gaming" or something. Sometimes it's less about a superiority and more like having an in group, an identity, a people I belong to. Everybody wants that, right? I just chose gaming as my group I belong to, and I'm really attached to that. But the thing is if the group has everyone in it, then the concept of the identity disappears. It's hard to explain.

It makes me resentful that one Tumblr post that said that gamer should never have been an identity in the first place, like an outsider who identifies as one personally attacking me.

Everybody's against gamers. Not saying that self identified gamers are oppressed, but serious, we're like the laughing stock of the entire internet.

it feels the same with music related subcultures

Identifying as gamer is very silly at current age though. Back when it was a niche thing, sure, but now it is like calling yourself "reader", or "movie watcher".

Gaming was likely way more popular than anyone realized, but it was in a bunch of redundant copies of the same subculture with mild to minimal overlap that eventually merged as the internet came about, and then further merged as SEO fenced everyone in. We may see a false sense of decline of it as the internet re-decentralizes. Already kinda seeing that as the gaming community polarizes and cuts off allong political lines as centrism dies off.

it used to be like a kinda cool nerd hobby for most people, now it's a lifestyle and career option thanks to streaming and the mainstreaming of nerd shit.

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>>40472
as the sterile bourgeois culture decays, entertainment that was considered infantile and low quality becomes the mainstream. what is happening with games now is what happened with cinema at the start of the 20th century, but at a much higher speed. I haven't found the words to describe it yet, but when you look at modern big-budget videogames you probably get the same feeling you get when you look at modern big-budget movies

your mistake and the source of your confusion was taking consumer identity too seriously, you got too invested in your funko pops, but they are just objects with price tags. your other mistake is assuming there is an innate emotional need for community (there is not): it used to be that society instilled in people a sense of community and a need for community, but for better or worse capitalism has been working relentlessly against that

<The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.


<The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.


<The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.


so here is my advice, if you are bored get a better hobby, ideally one that isn't exclusively about buying products. if you are lonely, get friends, if the things you like are now mainstream it means now you have a vehicle for conversation with most people. as a matter of fact I often find it hard to make conversation with people at work because I don't like videogames and streaming platforms (I like moe anime but I can't talk about that in public). I do like sports and that's mainstream enough I do have "entry points" for interactions

>did games really have a separate subculture and identity around it 15 years ago?
Absolutely not. You and everybody else ITT are delusional. You think playing as James Bond or Vin Diesel wasn't something with mass appeal back then? Pokemon has been around since the 90s for pete's sake. Over twenty years ago, people were playing games with soundtracks by people they could also hear on the radio.

Take your meds, all of you.

>>40499
>if the things you like are now mainstream it means now you have a vehicle for conversation with most people
you seriously said this right before mentioning that you like moe anime?
being into a specific subculture before a bastardized, lowest common denominator form of it goes mainstream is a wretched experience. if I was really into Planescape Torment and STALKER and Pathologic what the fuck does it benefit me if now my coworkers play Angry Birds and Candy Crush? you consider that common ground that will lead to a beautiful lifelong friendship? how many people did you have to listen to tell you they "like anime too" before you realized 100% of them just meant dragon ball z and whatever shonen shit is the most popular one in CURRENT_YEAR

>>40472
>Am I biased and have a strange perception of history, or did games really have a separate subculture and identity around it 15 years ago?
Absolutely, gaming used to be a very nerdy thing until those "cinematic" AAA games came along. Games weren't taken seriously until they became like movies, ironic.
>>40473
>it feels the same with music related subcultures
This. Electronic music used to be a smaller and geekier thing to be interested in, especially techno/D'n'B/gabber. Now you walk into Tomorrowland and it's a giant mass of people dancing to manufactured sugary synths. Electronic music was clearly dumbed down to attract more people.

>>40668
>Electronic music used to be a smaller and geekier thing
During the 90s, Techno music was absolutely mainstream in Germany. But perhaps Germany was a geekier thing back then…

>>40475
>now it is like calling yourself "reader"
There are literally more gamers than readers now.

>>40668
>Absolutely, gaming used to be a very nerdy thing until those "cinematic" AAA games came along. Games weren't taken seriously until they became like movies, ironic.
I wouldnt put it there, think it was the rise of gta 3 and halo and other bro games, and the aging of the audience into college.

>>41249
I think it had mainstream appeal before then. My normie unc who loves playing sports gave me his old PS1 with his games when I was a kid and his game library was mostly composed of racing games (F1, Ridge Racer) and sports games (FIFA, Tony Hawk, some snowboarding game).

>>40665
This is something I realized when I was in school. Nearly all the guys played video games but it was mainly stuff like GTA or CoD when we talked. Same with anime. Trying to talk to people about anything that wasn't airing on toonami or was super popular online was a crapshoot. Nowadays if someone asks me if I play games I just say something like "I usually just play tetris while listening to a podcast" which isn't a lie.

The absolute worst thing about gaming being so mainstream is having the hear random people's video game shit takes in public.

Apply the dialectic.
Smart phones rise in popularity around 2012.
The majority of internet traffic is from smart phones now.
Everyone carries a computer in their pocket.
That computer has access to App Store games.
That computer connects to the consolidating social media platforms and nothing else.
Culture becomes both increasingly isolating and homogenized.
Corporations realize nerd shit is profitable.
Corporations realize nerd shit is identity through consumption.
Corporations normalize liking nerd shit.
Corporations like selling intellectual property that requires no manufacture.
Nerd shit is no longer nerd shit.
Nerd shit now is the culture.
Everyone knows iron man.
Everyone knows Minecraft.
What once got us beaten in hallways is now on everyone’s sweatshirts.
They are all children of Facebook now.


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