The More I Learn, the Less I Know...

Gamer’ is a socially constructed concept. It is a word that attempts to, like many socially constructed terms, classify, identify, categorise and define a particular identity of someone or something. But like many socially constructed terms, it fails to do just that.

From a macro level, one can assume that the title ‘gamer’ has something to do with games (because I dislike the word assume, I will say someone who speaks fluent English may have a high probability of associating the word gamer to games). In a general sense then, society can easily adopt the term ‘gamer’ as one to describe someone that has some kind of affiliation to games. But, and I’m sure many others would agree, at a micro level there is more to it than just that. And this is where my argument lies.

What it means to be a gamer exactly is becoming increasingly subjective.

What it means to one self-identified gamer only makes up one fifth of what it means to the next self-identified gamer. I myself get surprised when someone gets surprised after they tell me “I’m a gamer for sure”, and I respond in a slow dragged out “oh cool, soo youuuuu plaaaabuuuuyyy, like games?”

On the surface level it appears that there is a single general consensus as to what being a gamer means. That general consensus, that illusion, is used as a tool to fix any misconceptions of ones identity. But the more people I meet that have an opinion (and everyone’s allowed an opinion), the more I learn that beneath the surface, beneath the label, the term gamer harnesses no single and unified definition.

There are clusters of shared opinions yes, but is this a context where there is power in numbers?

Well if the term ‘gamer’ is socially constructed, then possibly yes. Because there seems to be no original, shared and agreed upon or accredited definition of ‘gamer’, than society can easily shift the meaning of gamer through sheer numbers.

 The culture of videogames is shifting incredibly. New games are attracting untargeted demographics. Access to the technology required to play some of the most high-tech games (can I still say that? high tech?) is reaching some of the most remote areas of the globe. The gamers club is not only growing, but its members are becoming increasingly passionate as the wider videogame culture supports them with global scale social acceptance. Parallel to that, self-identified gamers are joining with less than one third of the passion as to what it means to be a gamer, the lifestyle, the mind-set, the commitment.  What it means to be a gamer today may not be the general consensus of what it means to be a gamer tomorrow.

But if we don’t care what the general consensus says, if we know what it really means to be a gamer, then why self-identify ourselves by a word that does little more than generalise and discredit our purist of beliefs.

 Why try justify our own or others actions, lifestyles, beliefs through such ambiguous labels that contradict the fundamental reason for doing so in the first place? What comfort do we seek in categorising ourselves? What relationships are we trying to build or sustain beyond the initial relationship man has with machine…