Hump Day Musings: Don't Like Gamers? We're ALL "Gamers" Here!

Someone — who shall remain unnamed — made some sort of disparaging remark on a Discord server about "gamers really not belonging on a social blogging site," or words pretty much to that effect.

Who's hitting who?

The actual context was not as harsh as the actual words might suggest... it more had to do with the idea that even the Internet didn't become "mass market" until it had become "De-Nerdified" to a certain degree.

I got to thinking about that, for a while... and soon came to a pretty simple conclusion:

We're ALL "Gamers" Here!

Not just speaking for the likes of Hive, Steem, Blurt, Voice and others like them, the gamification of social media is a pretty old idea. People stay interested in something when they feel like they are part of a game.

And we're ALL players in the "Social Game," whether it's for rewards, number of followers, business success, best reputation, cutest cat photos, re-tweets or whatever squeals our wheels.

It's just that we put different "labels" on the games we're playing, to make it sound like something more "sanitized" and less ominous/nerdy than "playing Assassin's Creed."

When our son (aged 31) stays in our basement (as he currently is, during he annual "seasonal lay-off") he's gaming pretty much around the clock, and that very obviously makes him a "gamer..." at least as most people interpret that word.

However, when Mrs. Denmarkguy is online 8-10 hours a day either building her Poshmark Following, or drumming up support for her non-profit organization or fishing for new clients for her counseling practice, what is that but a type of game in which we're trying to be smarter, more insightful, more opportunistic... all in service of an end objective?

And if you don't recognize that Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok are basically set up to create a social game, I don't know what to tell you.

We're all part of the game.

Who isn't?

In Cameron Crowe's 1992 movie "Singles", there's a particular piece of dialogue I have always remembered, as a reference to those who try to deny there's a game, and that they are not part of it (paraphrased):

"EVERYbody has an agenda. Your agenda happens to be to pretend that you don't have an agenda."

Even if you're living as a hermit in a cabin in the woods, or with a bunch of guns and grenades in an underground bunker waiting for the evil gubbermint to attack, you're still in the game.

Maybe this mini-rant isn't really all that insightful, but I think we tend to forget what we're ultimately doing; how we navigate our way through this thing we call "life."

Doesn't mean we have to become mean or nasty or all cutthroat about it... but we are in the game.

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210224 16:58 PST
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