Todays Video Gamer

Cameron Anderson

Professor Silvia Kofler

English 105

1 December 2013

Today's Gamer

For me writing an essay on being part of a language community that is misunderstood was a hard task for me because I am a Caucasian male who has lived in many different states my entire life. What language community am I part of that could be misunderstood? After thinking about for a while I realized I am part of many different language communities, they just aren’t what you might think of as a language community. I am part of the military which is its own community. I go to the gym daily and have a group of friends there. Lastly I play alot of video games and am a part of what some might call a “gamer” community. My essay will be covering what I feel like is the most misunderstood language community that I am a part of which is the gaming community. There are many stereotypes that go along with people who are considered gamers or nerds and most of the time they don't apply or are just flat out incorrect. It seems many people think that all gamers are social outcasts, nerds and anti-social living in our moms basements.

The reason that gamers are looked at as nerds and recluses comes a lot from where gaming originated. A game called Dungeons and Dragons was really the birth of the nerds and gamers. People would set up their game in the basement playing a “living” or ever changing board game for hours on end. These people were usually socially awkward and outcasts at school. This game evolved into what we know as modern day video games and so the stereotypes have come along with it. The words we use and the way we act all comes from these original gamers but since then this language community has grown quite a bit. You no longer have just the nerds and geeks playing video games, you have a much larger group of people and with that you get different kinds of people. So even though we still use the practices and dialects of old, we aren't always what stereotypes picture us...