No one seems to know if they are a gamer.

Surprisingly enough, it seems that one of the points raised in the introductory lecture that gave people pause for thought, was when we were asked if we considered ourselves “gamers”. At the time, I half put my hand up, unsure. There seems to be a disconnect between the straight-up dictionary definition of a gamer, and what different people feel defines a gamer. If being a gamer, as the term is used in practical everyday language, is not defined strictly by the act of playing games, then what does? Other people have suggested various criteria as to what may make someone a gamer. These include time, dedication, habitualness, skill, the types of game played, competitiveness, involvement in a gaming community, even possibly age and gender. In trying to figure out why I was on the fence about my own classification, the lack of some of these perhaps made me feel like I was less of a gamer. But trying to add additional criteria, I concluded, does not feel right to me, because when you start doing that, where do you draw the line? If someone watches movies, or listens to music, we don’t really have a term for them, since the past-time is so ubiquitous. As a newer media form, perhaps gaming has not quite reached this level of ubiquity, or at least, the level of societal acceptance. We do seem to draw a practical distinction semantically, however, between a film buff, and someone who regularly watches movies. Perhaps there is a similar distinction to be made between who we think of as gamers, and who the dictionary would classify as gamers. Richard and others have been bringing up some very good points about the negative stereotypes associated with the term. I think that this has a fair bit to do with why the term is difficult to quantify. Perhaps because of this, many people seem to be inclined to draw their line somewhere where they themselves have not crossed it? Even here, in a class studying video games, people seem much more reluctant to call themselves gamers than to declare that they are not gamers. Myself, I know people (i.e, the ones I would more readily consider gamers) who would not consider me a gamer. But people who do not play games, or play casually or infrequently, probably would think I am a gamer. I would have no problem with either judgement. As to whether I personally would call myself a gamer, if asked, I’m still 50/50. Honestly, it would probably depend on whether I thought the person asking me would then start picturing me like the slob version of Penny that P Yee describes, or whether they think I'm not enough of a gamer to call myself one. Like much of the English language, the term ‘gamer’ and its connotations are evolving. Straight-up dictionary definitions are not as useful as people frequently think, since the meaning of a word often depends upon personal perspective and context.