Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2012-09-07 07:01 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2012-09-07 07:01 pm
[ SECRET POST #2075 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2075 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
__________________________________________________
02.
__________________________________________________
03.
__________________________________________________
04.
__________________________________________________
05.
[Twilight]
__________________________________________________
06.
[Christian Bale, Scott Disik]
__________________________________________________
07.
__________________________________________________
08.
__________________________________________________
09.
__________________________________________________
[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]
10. [SPOILERS for Misfits]
__________________________________________________
11. [SPOILERS for A Song of Ice and Fire]
__________________________________________________
12. [SPOILERS for the Vampire Diaries]
__________________________________________________
[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]
13. [WARNING for rape]
__________________________________________________
14. [WARNING for suicide]
[Truffaldino from Bergamo (1976)]
__________________________________________________
15. [WARNING for pedophilia, rape]
[DC Comics]
__________________________________________________
16. [WARNING for depression]
[Zac Little/AngryFilmsProduction (YouTube)]
__________________________________________________
17. [WARNING for child abuse]
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #296.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: can we just ban "hardcore" from the gaming lexicon already
As gaming becomes more and more mainstream, defining "gamer" as "anyone who plays or has played any video game at all" is swiftly becoming synonymous with "any living human being from the developed world under the age of 40". Completely meaningless. It's like saying "book reader" or "movie watcher". Just about every single person on the planet has watched a movie or has read something in their lives. It's those that don't that have to identify themselves - they're the exception. Book reader, movie watcher, and gamer are the rule. It's just another piece of consumable media entertainment.
However books and film as hobbies have terms like "avid reader" or "film buff"/"cinophile". Gaming desperately needs such a term. It also needs to reclaim the term "casual", because "casual filmgoer" is just something that describes most people - there's no elitist or misogynist edge to it. Nor would someone who watches a few films a year act like you pissed on their dog if you called them a "casual filmgoer".
I think gamer used to have a certain, specific meaning, with a certain set of expectations, close to what I'd suggest calling "core" now. But as the audience broadened, along with the rise of geek culture as cultural cool, relative newcomers wanted to lay claim to the title, and so what were once "gamers" invented the term "casual" to describe them. Unfortunately it also got wrapped up in geek culture's tendency toward misogyny, even though a man who only plays Football Manager or only owns the yearly CoD is just as much a casual as a woman who plays a couple of hours of WoW a week as her only gaming outlet.
You don't have this problem with other forms of entertainment-as-hobby. No (sane) person who only watches a few films a year is going to call themselves a film buff. Nobody who isn't pretending at the mantle to impress someone is going to call themselves an avid reader if they only read one series, by one author. We need a word like "core", if gamer is going to mean "anybody who picks up a controller, ever", to differentiate those who game as a hobby and those who enjoy the occasional Deathmatch with their buddies. And it needs to sound just as ridiculous for the latter to call themselves "core".
Like this:
Non-film-watcher: may or may not have heard of Citizen Kane
Filmgoer: has heard of Citizen Kane, may have watched it
Film buff: has watched Citizen Kane, could discuss the themes in the film and what impact the film had on the history of filmmaking
Non-gamer: may or may not have heard of Starcraft
Gamer: has heard of Starcraft, may or may not have played it
Core gamer: has played Starcraft, knows what company developed it, knows when it was released, knows what a zerg rush is and could competently perform one
I mean there's a chance a film buff hasn't watched Citizen Kane, but it would be very surprising. You would, rightly, question their knowledge of cinema. Just like it would be surprising if a "core gamer" hadn't played Starcraft and didn't know Blizzard. You would, rightly, question their supposed expertise of video games.
(This epiphany brought to you by being set up on a blind date with a gentleman who had apparently mentioned to my friends that he was a "gamer". Since this was one of my desired traits in a romantic partner, they set him up with me. ...Dude was not a gamer, unless gamer means "beat Diablo a couple of times back in the 1990s and now sometimes fiddles around with Temple Run on his iPhone during breaks". No. "Gamer" is fucking meaningless now. We need core/casual. I mean I want to date a dude for whom gaming is a hobby, not a dude who goes to a retro-gaming LAN party once a year because he hasn't touched a new game since Quake. Asking for an "avid reader" isn't a problem, so why is "core gamer" so unspeakable?)