In my 48 years of experience (and past that time span there isn't enough technology in the entertainment field to comment about), I have noticed people come in two forms.
Fucking boring and people that enjoy life.
If you are the former, chances are you are just a dull example of the pack, a follower of mainstream that has no imagination. You likely smoke, probably think beer and football are all you need on the weekend.
You likely have a dull office job, and drive a car much like everyone else. You have my sympathy.
I build models, and the local hobby store owner loves seeing me enter the store as it probably means another sale.
I play games because I like to have fun.
I am a role gamer, because I thought it was fun in my teens when the genre was invented. Granted I'd have been ok fucking someone's cheerleader daughter after the high school football game, but I also don't mind that I have no STDs or unplanned children running around. I don't have a jacket with some sports letters on it, but I CAN run circles around the average individuals IQ level. Libraries can be useful.
I understand my computer and can fix it myself. Handy considering how much of society is now dependent on using them. No I don't mind NOT losing a day's work wages and a massive service fee all because of some insignificant problem that even a 15 year old nerd can fix. I also don't mind understanding the internet so well that I am NOT held hostage by Microsoft for yet another OS purchase.
I like that I can go online and buy or not buy damn near anything digital. I like that I know how to shop online, at any hour I feel like, on any day that I feel like. There's a certain charm to being able to do what the dull mainstream loser has to do, but in a rush during his small short span of spare time after work, in a much more convenient way. In my case, I can buy anything, from my house, and butt naked if I don't actually feel like getting dressed.
It's ok to like computer games. They are not better than playing actual in person board games, but there's nothing wrong with playing them.
I like that I can do both. And most people that play computer games, like DO enjoy both when they can.
Because not everyone desperately needs to be in a gang. Not everyone enjoys being so bored that 'hanging around' is required to use up the day.
PC games, or console games or online games, they are all the same more or less at the social demographic level.
My sister doesn't find any attraction to sitting in front of a computer for entertainment. But she does it all day for employment. The thing is, after work shes mostly a dull person.
My brother has a nice home, has a wife that helps in the area with a nice job to match his nice job. And after work they too are mostly dull people.
My brother and sister both manage to actually make housework look like the only things they have to do when not working. Yippee, I doubt I would switch.
They both like sports. I would too if had nothing else to choose from I suppose.
They both enjoy nice vacations with their nice incomes. Frankly if you dropped 1000 bucks in my lap and told me I could only use it on fare to a vacation destination, no, I don't want to go to Rio like my sister does.
I'd probably spend it on train fare to BC. Yes, I'd like the slow route to quiet place in my own country. Maybe I am odd for liking something other than yet another tropical beach.
I am not sitting in a mortgaged home though. I like that I have no massive plastic debt. I like that I have a personal library my son can get more use out of than the school library.
I'm amused that I have all the cool high tech perks a high paid worker usually tries to get. But even more so, I like how I can get 3 times the use out of them. I can assure you my non nerd brother and non nerd sister can't watch half the stuff I watch on their TVs. And they might not mind paying per view, but I do. I also don't need to be limited to what the local cable operation says I should be limited to.
I watch what I want when I want, and commercials are someone else's problem.
I am more than a nerd. I am also likely a geek, a non conformist, an individual and I don't follow the pack. I USE technology, not the other way around.
