re: filler: you were writing about the times, not your specialty. Though, since you brought you skills built by writing about your specialty you did bring a fresher voice to it.
I don't think there was any colonization of the gaming community from the left or the right. Instead what happened was that a bunch of teenagers grew up, adopted new identities (including political) and started imposing them on their hobbies as a natural progression.
It is kind of strange to think back on how unified the internet/gamers used to be. That is never going to happen again.
1. I'm sure most people have experienced seeing an idiosyncratic hobby or interest of theirs go mainstream, and know the frustration of this (I was into Band X way before they were cool!). That's why I've always had a grudge against Final Fantasy 7. I distinctly remember the most popular boy in my class getting into the game, and how pissed I was. Maybe I was petty, and spiteful. But he got the girls, our whole pop culture industry catered specifically to his tastes, his parents didn't care if he was failing all his classes, middle school basically belonged to him. He has all that, and now Final fucking Fantasy is trying to appeal to him too?
I wouldn't have used the term "gaming community" at the time, but I felt a strong sympathy with other weird kids who loved games, and I absolutely felt that the "turf" my friends and I had carved out for ourselves was being invaded by an aggressive outsider. This guy was, to me, the epitome of everything I hated about mainstream American culture: he went to Puff Daddy concerts, he had a pierced ear and frosted tips, and his boxers always showed because he belted his designer jeans below his ass. And now he wants to stop making fun of me to talk about Final Fantasy? That belongs to me and my nerdy friends, and this fucker is brazenly moving into our tribe's territory as if he belongs here!
By senior year we actually got along quite well, but I never forgave FF7 for making my niche love cool and appealing to the normies.
2. We can also add the Communists to your list of esoteric cults that grew large out of a very tiny seed. The lesson is that a small band of fanatical zealots will usually triumph over a much larger group of wishy-washy moderates.
3. I would partially disagree with your sixth point - Magic is theoretically more complicated, but Chess is practically far more difficult to master. I remember reading a story about a chess pro who decided to take up magic, and IIRC she was already playing competitively in a tournament after one month. No one plays competitive high-level chess after a month of learning from scratch. And then there're old games like Go, even more mentally taxing and skill-testing than anything new out there.
I don't know about that. I don't think the barrier is intelligence, I think chess is compared to games like Magic a more boring game that sets up an arbitrary "memorization quota" as a barrier against people who pick it up. I think it is popular basically because of its long history.
On the flip side, it will take decades for any modern game to have the respectability and deep cultural integration chess has. And image really matters. The reason a 200 year old wine is special because of the image, not because of the taste. But there is no arguing against the image.
Well I'll share this with people interested in ancient Rome and in gaming I guess. But you aren't actually the first I've read on the internet about it... https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/fandom/
re: filler: you were writing about the times, not your specialty. Though, since you brought you skills built by writing about your specialty you did bring a fresher voice to it.
I don't think there was any colonization of the gaming community from the left or the right. Instead what happened was that a bunch of teenagers grew up, adopted new identities (including political) and started imposing them on their hobbies as a natural progression.
It is kind of strange to think back on how unified the internet/gamers used to be. That is never going to happen again.
A few random thoughts:
1. I'm sure most people have experienced seeing an idiosyncratic hobby or interest of theirs go mainstream, and know the frustration of this (I was into Band X way before they were cool!). That's why I've always had a grudge against Final Fantasy 7. I distinctly remember the most popular boy in my class getting into the game, and how pissed I was. Maybe I was petty, and spiteful. But he got the girls, our whole pop culture industry catered specifically to his tastes, his parents didn't care if he was failing all his classes, middle school basically belonged to him. He has all that, and now Final fucking Fantasy is trying to appeal to him too?
I wouldn't have used the term "gaming community" at the time, but I felt a strong sympathy with other weird kids who loved games, and I absolutely felt that the "turf" my friends and I had carved out for ourselves was being invaded by an aggressive outsider. This guy was, to me, the epitome of everything I hated about mainstream American culture: he went to Puff Daddy concerts, he had a pierced ear and frosted tips, and his boxers always showed because he belted his designer jeans below his ass. And now he wants to stop making fun of me to talk about Final Fantasy? That belongs to me and my nerdy friends, and this fucker is brazenly moving into our tribe's territory as if he belongs here!
By senior year we actually got along quite well, but I never forgave FF7 for making my niche love cool and appealing to the normies.
2. We can also add the Communists to your list of esoteric cults that grew large out of a very tiny seed. The lesson is that a small band of fanatical zealots will usually triumph over a much larger group of wishy-washy moderates.
3. I would partially disagree with your sixth point - Magic is theoretically more complicated, but Chess is practically far more difficult to master. I remember reading a story about a chess pro who decided to take up magic, and IIRC she was already playing competitively in a tournament after one month. No one plays competitive high-level chess after a month of learning from scratch. And then there're old games like Go, even more mentally taxing and skill-testing than anything new out there.
I don't know about that. I don't think the barrier is intelligence, I think chess is compared to games like Magic a more boring game that sets up an arbitrary "memorization quota" as a barrier against people who pick it up. I think it is popular basically because of its long history.
On the flip side, it will take decades for any modern game to have the respectability and deep cultural integration chess has. And image really matters. The reason a 200 year old wine is special because of the image, not because of the taste. But there is no arguing against the image.