Video games address a lot of the same needs that sports do for men to fulfill our competitive and aggressive urges. The big difference (which is why I hate sports but love video games) is that in sports you are just sitting on your ass watching other people play*, living vicariously, while in video games you are (still sitting on your ass), but playing as an active participant in the competition.
ETA: *unless, of course, you are an athlete. But most sports fans are just that: fans. Which is pretty lame, IMO.
Actually, there’s a real point here: adult men (and women, for that matter) shouldn’t be buying crappy toys. As a kid, I bought my fair share of crud videogame on impulse. As an adult equipped with a smartphone, I’d be a little embarrassed to drop $60 on a new game that a cursory googling would have revealed as crap.
Adults needn’t have different passions from kids - the only sine qua non of adulthood is that we must pursue them with adult self-control.
Has there been a poll lately on how many on the boards game, and of what gender? It seems such a given that I’m assuming so, but I’m not seeing one.
For the record, I put ‘gaming’ into the same entertainment category as any other kind of computerized entertainment. Whether it’s video games, online poker, trolling boards all day or fantasy football, I put about the same distinction between the types as I do between, say, types of television shows. It’s all television, but there’s all kinds of shows. So in that, it’s ALL a generational thing, and even those not whooping up on blood elves or gnomes are still seeking electronic entertainment, and I don’t think it’s that big of a difference.
It’s actually not a crappy toy at all. On the contrary, it’s a shit-ton of fun to be had for $23 and incredibly well built at that price. Hell, I think I had shitty remote control cars that were more expensive in the 80’s, in 80’s dollars! But, the charge time does suck. It’s a Syma S107, for the record.
I think you’d be surprised. I was born in 1984 and I definitely heard people my own age listening to “Dark Side of the Moon” and such in the school parking lot, wearing Pink Floyd t-shirts, and otherwise not being ashamed of liking decades-old music. It wasn’t all of them, by any stretch, but it was enough of them to be visible.
However, the high school I went to was extremely white. The only really visible visible minority were the Native Americans, and there weren’t a huge number of them, either. It’s also fair to say that I’ve never lived in a region but that it was the ass-end of some conservative locale and definitely not up to speed with modern trends.
If I may pontificate: White peoples’ popular music hasn’t undergone a massive shift totally away from a given style since big band gave way to rock’n’roll on mainstream white radio stations. Guitars, drums, rhythm, usually singing, and very often three minutes: That’s pretty much it, isn’t it? That takes you from the Beatles onwards, anyway, given that the piano dropped out at some point. You can cut rock down into periods, but ever since Chuck Berry there’s been a strain of music on the radio called rock or rock’n’roll with some reasonably constant characteristics such that taking a song from 1975 and one from 2005 isn’t a massive jump. Now, listen to a chart-topping song from 1945. There’s a massive jump.
I’m pretty sure this is it. If you associate Floyd with dope-smoking dropout losers then of course no respectable man is going to listen to longhair music like Pink Floyd or Mahler.
I don’t get it. The other things on your list are all stereotypically un-masculine (other than the ice cream one, maybe) but what’s with the history thing?
He should have been more specific in that the history a MANLY MAN should know would be details of military history, ie: the course of pivotal battles, routes of march, that sort of thing.
Also, like the rest of the OP’s list, total and complete bullshit, but that’s ok.
Watch the History Channel. Ignore the stuff that puts you in mind of a candidate for [del]care in the community[/del] a permanent berth under an overpass. What’s left is Big Stuff and War, with politics being War by other means. That’s the exciting part of history (according to most people) and that’s what Beware of Doug was saying the stereotypical man would be interested in.
Complete BS list? Arbitrary perhaps but full of valid points…I doubt that if John Wayne was 35 today he would be busy updating is Facebook page 5 times a day or play Super Mario on his Nintendo 360.
I think what we are witnessing is the “pussyfication” of the western world in many ways.
No, his publicist would responsible for posting on Facebook. He’d probably have a PS3 in his trailer, although he might not play that much between takes.
This is sarcastic, right? You must know women have been active in both as long as men have in the States. I’ll consider my leg pulled, if only to reassure myself I’m posting on the right board.
Actually, there’s a real point here: adult men (and women, for that matter) shouldn’t be buying crappy toys. As a kid, I bought my fair share of crud videogame on impulse. As an adult equipped with a smartphone, I’d be a little embarrassed to drop $60 on a new game that a cursory googling would have revealed as crap.