When I was ten years old I wrote an essay called Why Playstation is Better than N64. It was 1998, both consoles were opening up the world of 3D gaming to households all over the world for a relatively affordable price. While fanboyism has always existed, it was the competition between the giant in the video game space at the time, Nintendo, against the new entrant Sony that began the video game wars in earnest.
Those consoles also just happened to come out in the same era that the internet began to expand into millions of homes in the United States. More internet access for more people equaled more opportunities for interaction – chatrooms, message boards, and fan sites all became popular. In no time tweens and teens were discussing the consoles they wanted, the games they played, the fun they had in interactive communities. But if you’ve ever witnessed a discussion between two adolescents about anything you’ll know it can quickly devolve into an all out war of words over the silliest of disagreements. Oftentimes it’s about the things that are meant to entertain us; pop entertainment like music, movies, and games.
The silly essay I wrote at ten years old consumed my life at the time; arguments about which console was better could be heard on the playground day after day. It was also the first “major” writing assignment I ever received, something like three pages. And it was also just a fanboy essay, written to justify the Christmas list I made – an act of self-assurance.
The Internet
Fanboyism is interesting because of its’ growth – yes, blame the internet – and because of how older gamers are responding to it. The average age of a gamer is 35. This is not all that surprising as video games really became a cultural phenomena right around 1985 with the release of the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in North America. Kids that grew up with the NES, well, they’d be in their 30s now. Many of those working in the video game industry, whether as developers or journalists, are also in their 30s. That context is important to remember when the older gamers among us talk about the rampant fanboy and trolling problem we find throughout video game, and nerd, culture.
It is a problem, especially when it turns into threats, racism, sexism, and homophobia. These things should not, and cannot, be tolerated by those of us who know better. And it is up to us older gamers to create cultures (whether online or not) of inclusion in the hobby we all love. But there is something to keep in mind, older games are not the only gamers out there. While there is no excuse for some of the worst behavior we see online, we must remember that some gamers are, in fact, children. Some gamers act juvenile because they are, quite literally, juveniles.
I started using the internet on a 56k dial-up connection in 1998, I didn’t play my first online game until I was 13 in 2001. In comparison, now there are kids playing online games and joining internet communities at even younger ages than that. And they have the technology available to make it a serious hobby. Again, while not excusing the worst of the behavior we see, we have to be mindful that a large chunk of the gaming community is very young. It’s up to those of us who are older gamers and nerds to set an example. We cannot tolerate bigotry, and we must create welcoming communities where we hold people accountable. But we also can’t lose sight of the fact that we’re a particular age demographic within the gaming community. Our disinterest in console wars doesn’t speak for the less mature gamers out there. Let that 10 year old commenting on the internet write a mini-essay on why they think Xbox One is better than Playstation 4, let them be a fanboy – I was.
