Always struck me as hypocritical that watching movies was always put on a pedestal as if sitting around for 2 hours mindlessly consuming the latest Tom Cruise flick is any more productive than playing a video game. At least there is brain activity involved with gaming.
watching movies was always put on a pedestal
TIL
At least in my experience, parents seem to criticise their children playing video games, whilst watching TV themselves. In fact I’d rather my children play video games than binge Netflix or mindlessly scroll TikTok or watch YT etc.
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Yeah I never heard a parent put movies “on a pedestal” and in fact watching TV/movies was only slightly less criticized in my house growing up
As a kid I’d use that against my parents when I had to get off my SNES. They’d be all like, “quit playing games, you’ll rot your brain”, and if be like, “How is this any different than watching TV?”. It never worked but today I feel a little vindicated.
Sort of ironically, my first real world full time job, when I got hired, the owner had asked if I played video games, and he was then later telling a bunch of people that he thought I’d be smart and good with computers, drawing a correlation to gaming. Idk if his thought process was correct, but I am decently bright and I am pretty good with computers, so that’s something.
drawing a correlation to gaming
A lot of PC gaming at the time required a level of computer literacy that generations on either side would associate with compsci students, or at least dedicated hobbyists. If you didn’t specify a console, that may’ve been his assumption.
There’s brain activity involved in watching movies too*. Just because you’re not changing it doesn’t mean that you’re not emotionally and intellectually engaged.
You’re right that gaming as an art form and pastime doesn’t get the respect that it’s due compared to the ones that were already popular when boomers were kids, though…
*even if it’s one that stars Kevin James, Rob Schneider or Adam Sandler in his signature role “Angry Dumb Guy”
Calling film watching mindless consumption shows you’re missing the point, perhaps the same way your parents are missing the point of video games. Hell even Tom Cruise is working on a level of craft that no one else in the industry is doing as consistently as him.
Each medium has their strengths and weaknesses. I love video games, I was born in 85, the year of the NES so I lived my life with controller in hand. I do however recognize games still struggle to keep up with story telling in other mediums, mostly because gameplay and story telling are frequently at odds with eachother. And yes of course I know there are games with good story but rarely to they ever stick with me the way multiple films and shows do every year. Even a story like Last of Us was simply told better as a show. The best part of that show was the Frank and Bill episode, something that simply won’t translate back to a game at all. The only game to really stick deep in my soul was What Remains of Edith Finch. So often I’ll pour hundreds of hours into a game with nothing lasting on the other side. It’s why I’ve given up on grindy games all together.
Games also have a barrier for most people on the outside. It’s tough to look at an Xbox controller and not get a little daunted by the buttons, sticks and triggers. Credit to Nintendo for historically finding ways to bring the whole family together for a game night. There’s a reason grandma was playing Wii Bowling.
Honestly I would argue that the quality of film and television stories has plummeted in the last 15 years to the point of them being a shallow husk that has been gutted by marketing and greed in the film industry.
Most films nowadays are glorified celebrity commercials with more product placements and wanky pop references than story beats.
Being directly in control of the main character puts you in a position to be more immersed in the world and more invested in the characters and story.
Not that the game industry is perfect but it has more going on than just the grids games. That’s the gaming industry’s greed. Live service games are a plague and the artificial padding is designed to sell you their micropayment currency. It’s a scam.
There are tons and tons of highly diverse games for many different skill levels nowadays that will introduce modern gaming concepts slowly and build up a players skill level. Not like the nes and arcade days of them wanting your quarters and making impossible to beat games.
If you need some recommendations on games with an impactful story or that give you an experience impossible with movies I can highly recommend these:
Journey, Outer Wilds, Spec Ops the line, Toem, Unravel, Kena bridge of Spirits, Night in the woods, Hifi rush, Donut County, Firewatch, The unfinished swan, Jusant, Gone Home, Venba, Dordogne, Hollow Knight, Knights and Bikes, Gorgoa, FAR: lone sails, a short hike, shadow of the colossus, bioshock, Spiritfarer
Great recommendations, I’ve only played about a third of these, I’ll dig in a bit!
Being a huge Movie and TV buff I’ll definitely push back on movies being shallow husks. The year is only half over and we’ve already gotten a bunch of exellent original movies. Love Lies Bleeding, Last Stop in Yuma County (favorite movie of the year), I Saw the TV Glow, Problemista, Challengers, Ricky Stanicky. Even the franchise stuff has been pretty good, Dune 2, Inside Out 2 and Bad Boys Ride or Die was tons of fun. Last year was even better, I think it was one of our best movie years in a long time. Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, Zone of Interest, Society of the Snow, All of Us Strangers, The Killer, Iron Claw, Boy and the Heron, Elemental, American Fiction. All original or adapted from a book. The earlier 2020s were a little softer because we stopped going out in public but even still we got Everything Everywhere, Aftersun, the start of the X/Pearl trilogy, Talk to Me, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Worst Person in the World and my favorite movie of the 2020s Pig.
TV as well. I feel like there’s constantly something well worth my time. In the same year (2022) we got some absolutely top tier television The Bear, Severance, Andor, The English, SAS Rogue Heroes and House of Dragon. Once again the past year has been full of excellent stuff Beef, Ripley, Shogun, Sugar, Bodkin, Baby Reindeer, The Gentlemen, The Curse.
I could go on like this for hours but the point I’m trying to get across is there’s a huge supply of good eating but if you only look to the biggest budget commercial products, you’re going to get big budget commercial products. I guess for me watching everything at the Summer Games show left me feeling a little bit empty. Except for Mixtape, that looks fucking sick.
Maybe that’s for the more artistic movies. Not just the latest marvel installation.
I don’t mind playing but watching sports is boring AF.
I agree that just watching a random sport or 2 random teams can be boring. It becomes interesting when you feel a connection to the team or athlete. If you go and watch live, it also becomes a community thing.
Personally, I used to train football (soccer) in my local team in a small town and everyone basically knew all the players.
Football becomes more interesting when you throw a beer can at a player, who also works at a pizzeria, and he takes a sip and throws it back.
That took a weird turn at the end there.
I’m the opposite. All the focus on the people and the random facts of their lives and trying to constantly manufacture some sort of sob underdog story around various players is boring.
I can appreciate a good game, one that’s close and exciting and played with skill, but the whole sports culture and focus often feels like celebrity gossip, but for men.
Which is also why esports are boring to me too, despite my love of video games (and even watching people play video games, like let’s plays). Esports just brings that whole sports culture and it’s a huge turn off for me.
I’m not a sports guy but I can agree with this. I’m active (rock climbing and part time work on a ranch) but I don’t personally enjoy doing or watching sports. No hate, it’s just not for me.
That being said, I’m totally with you on the community aspect. I will go watch pretty much any sports live and I get way into it. It’s less about the game and more about the people around you. I like going and watching both the Astros and the Texans play occasionally and I know nothing about the players or the standings of either.
I’m really sad we don’t have a hockey team. I don’t care about hockey but my intensity in the stands works really well with hockey.
Same here. I never got the appeal either.
Of course it’s been a major popular interest during a lot of human civilisation (chariot races in the roman world werea huge thing), so we’re visibly not in the majority.
Yea but most of human civilization didn’t have easy access to futa porn, so it’s not like they had anything better to do with their time.
I’m not into sports or futa porn. What can I do with my time? :(
Stare at the wall like usual, I guess
You could participate in the other beloved human pastimes:
- Dig hole
- Pile stones
Chariot racing is basically ye olde Nascar. Of course it was popular. Anyone watching podracing in Star Wars and thinking “holy crap that’s awesome” doesn’t realize it’s basically chariot racing with a slight sci-fi treatment.
I am a sports fan, so take my opinion with the bias it deserves. I find that sports have a decent learning curve, understanding the rules of the game and how players and teams are doing things within those rules is fun and interesting to watch. Sports is also based on a foundation of vested interest. For me, my vested interest is watching teams whom I have grown up supporting, for others, it’s gambling and having a win case to cheer for.
If you don’t know much about the sport and have no reason to cheer for something, I can absolutely see why people would find sports boring.
I played football 🏈 in middle school and high school. Watching it is okay to me but I won’t do it voluntarily.
Even worse, if I’m forced to watch sports too many times I go crazy wanting to play. In my 20s , friends were into World Cup ⚽️, and day off, sunny outside, cool breeze, and we’re in a bar watching a game on TV. I snap and start going to pickup soccer games in the city. Same thing in my late 30s: my sons peewee football games drive me crazy, and I have to start joining local rugby league practices.
Finally, in my early 40s, I had the money to do a dream: motorcycle racing. But it’s so hard to get to do it even with enough money: join club, wait for track day and so on. I was still trying to lose weight to buy one of those back-protector suits when I discover Moto GP. And suddenly, something clicked. I finally understood how some people can watch sports. I never did made it to the track, but I can watch a motorcycle race on TV and really enjoy it. Without going crazy.
My 5 years old can make 100 push ups, if nobody looks.
Even wolves lmao really tried to act like a kid there
Let other people enjoy things.
I’d rather play (the real) football, than watch it, and I don’t even like it.
Watching is also free
Yes your 5 year old nephew is very insightful
“That’s not the same!”
It really isn’t. If you want to play sports, you need people to be at the same location and you need to have a field/court/whatever and your health. So you can see why people watch sports to vicariously enjoy themselves. How is going from watching someone play games on your computer to playing games on your computer the same?
Well, you need to buy the game, you need the hardware to be able to run the game especially if on PC and it’s a demanding game, some games are online only so if they’re a console player instead of PC then they need the annual membership also, also if it’s an online game then you might be able to do fine with random players but you may also need a serious group if you plan on ranking up in level. Watching gameplay at Grand Champion vs playing at Gold isn’t the same thing, and is usually less frustrating. Not to mention that highly ranked players can teach you how to improve and adapt in your own gameplay.
When it comes to single player games, like speed running, I’d rather watch a clip of the one time a speed runner was able to pull off all sorts of tricks with near flawless execution and get the random chances of various things occurring required for a good time than play the same game for 20 hours a day for 3 years straight to maybe accomplish the same thing.
Also, some people are just entertaining whether they’re playing a game or just waiting for a game to load. I may not agree with what others find entertaining, but it’s subjective so whatever. Others may have injuries maybe in their hands or nervous system preventing them from being able to play well, though it’s highly commendable for those that have found workarounds to be able to play (like rigged up controllers for their mouths or to workaround physical deformities preventing them from using a regular controller).
I get why people play and why people watch for both videogames and sports.
My 5yo loves video game videos on YouTube.
Particularly Mario Odyssey hacks. But also getting into the real difficult Mario Maker courses
Kid has completely destroyed up my YouTube algorithm. It’s part of the reason I signed up for nebula.
He loves playing games too, though.
Still I wish I could get him off YouTube. There’s so much crap on there and he doesn’t know what’s what. He knows now he’s not allowed to watch YouTube without an adult in the room, but even when I’m in there, I don’t know what the hell is going to be in the video that he clicks. There’s no TV-Y7 or TV-G ratings on YouTube. And there’s so many lies and fake stuff. Kid was heartbroken when he found out that a Mario Movie 2 trailer was a hoax.
Kid has completely destroyed up my YouTube algorithm. It’s part of the reason I signed up for nebula.
Just FYI you can either use YouTube kids, or just make another account to easily keep separate profiles.
There’s no TV-Y7 or TV-G ratings on YouTube.
YouTube kids is.
You can also just create a new channel in your account and it will create a separate YouTube sub account with its own feed.
Kid has completely destroyed up my YouTube algorithm.
I ended up having to give my kid my Steam account and I created another one. So my kid’s steam account is almost as old as he is.
Youtube is crack for children. My nephew loves watching Minecraft videos. He doesn’t know what Minecraft is. He mainly watches some animal shows. Every now and then when i check what he’s watching, he watches some content farm shit. One time he watched this video where they just filmed a small child in a mall and made stupid sound effects and fart sounds. The video had millions of views and it was just absolute brain rot garbage.
It goes so far that he doesn’t even want to watch a movie when he comes over. Watching a great animated movie in a home theater? Uhm, can i watch some youtube instead. It’s a bit freaky. And it’s not like he’s allowed to even watch a lot. He gets maybe 15 to 30 minutes if he behaves
I’m glad my kid hasn’t stumbled into that side of YouTube. It’s part of the reason I don’t want to install YouTube kids. I know the same content is on the main app, but it’s just there on YTKids
I personally love YouTube and I’d sympathize with your nephew, except I binge on 15-minute-explainers. That shits my lifeblood.
At least the channels he watches are usually well narrated.
It’s a sport now, so watching to learn how to improve your skills makes sense. I must admit, I have recently begun to enjoy watching videos of people playing Rust, but I have only played it a couple times and did horribly. Until I get the time to commit to playing for hours on end to sharpen my skills to achieve the results they do, I am just enjoying watching the journeys. I must note, growing up when my brother and I would rent video games from BlockBuster, he would always choose 1 player games like Metal Gear Solid, so I became accustomed to spectating.
it is not just that. watching someone play a game (be it video games, sports or board games, whatever) is different from watching them watch a movie or read a book. games can be experienced in unique ways, and once you get the experience yourself you may enjoy saying other people experience it in different ways. sharing fun is nothing to be ashamed of.
the only thing to watch out for is not letting the filter of enjoying something through other people’s enjoyment be a replacement for you enjoying things on your own in general. you should be able to do that for your own benefit.
I think there’s a lot of skill in what people do to make a video game and I can appreciate that.
A lot of people watch sports for the same reason that they appreciate skill.
It’s really not that big of a stretch in comparison. I’m actually surprised I’ve had to connect these exact same dots for a lot of sports fans. You can argue physical skill but on the flipside with games There’s the story. There’s the art. There’s the code.
This is why I liked the mythic quest series. It drives home that there’s people (a lot of people) plugging away behind the scenes to make some masterpieces
Same with watching movies. Cinematography, acting, directing, story, effects. Many human made things involving skill, teamwork and effort to appreciate in our life surrounding us.
And we listen to music for these same reasons too. We don’t just go out and have to make music just to be enthralled by it.
I don’t watch or play sports.
This clearly means I win in some manner or other.
I play my games, don’t ever watch Twitch, or sports. What would his rebuttal to me be?
“You like to watch actors act, why don’t you go act.” Or more generally “You like to watch X performer perform Y, why don’t you go perform Y.”
Spectating and performing are two categorically different activities.
Or simply “Don’t yuck my yum, asshole.”
If you’re watching actors act to enjoy their acting, you’re weird
I watch gandalf fight demons because I can’t
Put me in the ring with a balrog, please god it would be way cooler than watching it in CGI
Instead of “you”, he’d say “some people”.
You don’t have to coordinate with 21 other people, and train for fitness all the time to play video games. You don’t even need to leave the couch.
If you’re in Morocco, then you better go to your nearest cafe to watch sports. But it’s almost always exclusively football (aka sakker), so you’re gonna get bored after a while.
