Comments on: As The Rotund says, AAAAAAAA!

By: Aoede

Aoede — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 03:55:23 +0000

And the recent article on philosophy majors did something similar.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:08:16 +0000

Er, your first comment after mine. And no sarcasm at all — I do appreciate it.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 02:07:23 +0000

Thank you, Sweet Machine, for saying what I meant in your first comment.

I’ve heard good things about Cooking Mama, but I have no real desire to play it, and I didn’t necessarily mean to bash everyone who likes it. I like my Super Smash Brothers just fine, but I wish the marketing wasn’t so divisive.

Since my boyfriend had already admitted a tendency to become addicted to games like WoW, I went to extreme measures (a lot of crying) to keep from becoming a WoW widow . . . like, um, most of my friends. Yikes.

By: sweetmachine

sweetmachine — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:50:55 +0000

What if I do naturally like games like Cooking Mama. What, that suddenly makes me some mega conformist?

Jackie, of course not; I should have said women who like cute things APPEAR to be conforming to social expectations. We all conform in some ways and not in others.

By: Mustella

Mustella — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:25:09 +0000

You know, back in the dinosaur age, when the little plastic tamagotchis that you carried around were first out, I sold at least as many to boys as I did to girls. The difference was that the toy / game had not been “gendered” yet as a GIRL’s toy / game. Boys and men have the same instincts to respond to “cuteness” as women and girls. The difference is that males are heavily encouraged to deny it and females heavily encouraged to embrace it. The extreme sucess of Katamari shows that males can and will play a cutsey game, as long as they are not socially penalized for doing so. If the protagonist in Katamari was female, though, it would be in the girl ghetto before you could say Hello Kitty.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:20:12 +0000

You know, I think all forms of addiction are pretty serious. Jackie’s right that WoW isn’t dangerous in the same way that heroine, alcohol or, say, gambling is.

But I can see how a parent and spouse playing a game in an excessive and driven way might have very real and negative effects on family life. I know it seems geeky, but when a person checks out of a relationship in order to indulge some diversionary, something serious is wrong. I doesn’t seem like over-reaction to me to treat is as such, either. If someone is hooked on WoW and you unplug the PC, that someone could easily choose to stay at work and game or spend hours at the internet cafe.

And I agree with the others in the “wish I was surprised” column.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:23:09 +0000

Ok Becky, my bad.

By: Rebelleink

Rebelleink — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:21:25 +0000

No women bloggers? Really? Check out Time.com’s top 25 blogs…4 that I saw right off the bat are written by women. Maybe more that I don’t know. And I assume some are group blogs with a mix.

By: Becky

Becky — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:43:35 +0000

Jackie, there’s nothing wrong with liking cute games or cooking games or otherwise “girly” games. There’s something wrong with saying: “Females like things that are cute. It really is that simple.” because you’re making an untrue and sexist generalisation.

By: shinobi42

shinobi42 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:41:14 +0000

Jackie, we were talking mostly about the wives of WoW addicts, who were apparently victims of their husband’s addiction. Frankly, at some point I think you need to take a little initiative and unplug the internet.