CHS ESports Defy Stereotypes

by: Lilly LeGrand

When you hear the word gamer what comes to your mind first? Are violent, fat, greasy, unintelligent, geek, anti-social or asocial, or nerdy some of the words you think of first? If so, these are not correct words that describe them, with the exception, maybe, of the words geek and nerd (a lot of them say to embrace it). Now, how about trying to see gamers as competitive, fast-thinking, supportive, compatible people, gathered around a T.V yelling and trying to help each other out, and after all of that, being up to joke around and poke fun at each other.

Many students at Capital probably are not aware that there is a video game club, ESports, at school, or if they are, they pretend it doesn’t exist. When I asked the gamers of ESports why they thought it wasn’t a well-known club, the gamers answered, “I honestly think that it is not well-known because a lot of freshmen don’t care about it because there is no Fortnight,” a few people standing by threw a relieved “thank God” into the mix.

Some of the biggest stereotypes out there for gamers are that they are violent, that girls cannot be gamers, and that there are no benefits to playing video games; none of these are true.

Let’s take the first myth: gamers are violent. It could be pretty easy to assume that due to the games that are out there. Shooter games such as the Call of Duty series, Battlefield, and Destiny might not exactly help due to the fact that the main focus of these games is to shoot opponents and that some of them feature some type of gore; a few other games, Super Smash Bros. for example, have subtle hints of violence in them making it look like the gamer(s) want to beat someone up really badly.

Yet the CHS gamers don’t come across/ don’t see themselves as violent. I asked the gamers what type of gamers they all thought they were. At this point many of them started talking over each other, but one of their leaders, a short Senior girl with a blue streak for her bangs and thick black glasses summed it up as they were “Like neutral,” The other gamers seemed to agree.

I also inquired about why they play video games. Again they all started talking over each other making it hard to tell who was saying what, but from the overly excited grey graphic tee clothed bunch that were huddled or laid near the large T.V screens with remotes in hand and food in the other, it didn’t seem to be about a love of violence: “It’s fun, and it keeps my mind busy,” “I’ve got nothing else to do at my house,” one gamer did say “I've got a lot of internal rage and it helps get my stress out” but he probably meant that he had a lot of stress from school that made him upset, and “I live in the valley and it’s hard to hang out with my friends so I hang out… so I play video games”; I think I heard an “I don’t like fresh air” from one of the boys in the back of the room, but I’m not too sure for by the end of the conversation their voice levels started to pick up.

Another common myth is that girls cannot be gamers. Being that I am a gamer myself, I find this a little offensive that people think that we can’t play video games. But in fact the club consists of all guys and one girl.

I asked them about this; the Senior girl leader told me that it was probably because “A lot of girls don’t get into video games competitively because girls are somewhat downgraded if they are a gamer.” I agree with her about that because society is not too accepting of girl gamers. The club’s other leader, a tall short-haired blonde guy, added in “When they first came out [with] the consoles [they were] originally placed on the boys’ side of the toys; therefore um… the boys like just were given the role of gamers because it was placed in their section.” This makes sense, but at this point in time it is just kind of ridiculous for girls to still not be accepted as gamers. I’ve talked to other girls during my classes about video games, and interestingly enough, even though they weren’t in the club, they seemed to perk up at the mention of games and started to ramble - in a good way - about the ones they love and played; it didn’t seem like they were super competitive, or if they were, they didn’t show it or mention it.

This final myth has been floating for quite some time now and is a pretty well-known one: there are no benefits from playing video games. Many people just assume that the gamer stares blankly at the screen with nothing going on in their head; that is not even close to being correct. Sure they are in front of the screen, but there is a thinking process that is going in our heads when playing a game while up close to a T.V or computer screen. For example, if it is a fast-paced game where everything is coming at the player at the same time, or if there is a time limit and the character is super fast (Sonic the Hedgehog for example) then players have to think quickly or else they die.

Watching the gamers, I could tell that some type of thinking process was going on at the same time as they were joking about the game and teasing each other. The gamers told me during the interview that some other benefits were hand-eye coordination; stress relief; a faster-thinking process; way to cool down and to pass the time.

ESports gamers and gamers in general are not bad people, they are just viewed that way for reasons that do not have a lot of back up, except maybe that the video games are violent but that is not the point here. They are really nice students that like any other student is very passionate about their hobby, and I cannot see the stereotypes being true about any one of them, but you might have to see for yourself.

The gamers stated that if anyone wanted to join the club, they had to show up for Thursday after school meetings from time to time; they seemed somewhat relieved that there were not that many people in the club, but I am sure they wouldn’t mind if a few more people came. The club is in Mr. Ward’s room, room 122, and it happens during lunch every day and the main meetings are Thursdays after school.