There’s a very vicious cycle we constantly face in the gaming community. Actually it pretty much permeates through all alternative pop culture (I really don’t want to call it ‘geekery’ because…ugh).

Here’s a classic example:

Person A complains they can’t find anyone interested in X, they meet Person B who shows passing interest in X. But they don’t know everything about it. Person A will be snide about how they really don’t like X or they would know this or that about it. They assume they’re in a position to pass judgement.

I’m guilty of this. I’d say most enthusiasts are. I’ve done this with music, TV shows, games, anime…you name it. I’ve been a repulsive elitist, and it really isn’t that self-satisfying, because you’re terrified of running into someone who might actually know more. You’ll meet your match. It’s tiring to have to constantly be the know-it-all.

The first boyfriend I had out of high school was pretty much into the same stuff I was, but he was more musically inclined. He introduced me to a lot of great musicians I still listen to today, but he also denounced a lot of the music I’d been enjoying. He did it with such vigour that I eventually took on the same attitude. As a result, I felt like I could never voice my opinion of an album or artist around him. He’d never let me choose what we listened to. He said ‘Music is my area. Games is yours.’

I don’t know why I put up with it for so long. But it was a little give and take, since I was able to pass judgement on the games he played. I turned my nose up at his inability to play horror games and his preference for FPS games like Counter Strike and Quake. I thought his tastes were immature. I’d roll my eyes while watching him attempt to play Metal Gear Solid before snatching the controller out of his hand and showing him how it’s done. We were equally judgemental of each other’s capabilities in our areas of expertise.

This kind of attitude we both held bred an ‘us against the world’ elitism towards our friends and new people we’d meet. We’d be quick to criticise, crossing our arms and exchanging sarcastic sideways glances as if to say ‘can you believe this fucking loser still listens to Interpol?’

(DISCLAIMER: I was held hostage by a very nasty jealous monster and had temporarily forgotten the greatness of Turn on the Bright Lights. To be fair, I was dating a guy who was still trying to justify that Billy Corgan’s solo work was of actual merit.)

When we broke up he dumped me via text message after three years, I was suddenly free to listen to whatever I wanted. I had no one to tell me what not to listen to. So I kind of listened to everything. I was free of having music and TV shows rammed down my throat. It was liberating. If there’s anything I hate more than not being able to listen to what I want, it’s being forced to watch Arrested Development against my will. I’m sorry. But I think it’s one of those you-had-to-be-there kind of shows. Watching it for the first time in 2013 just didn’t work for me. I know, I’m a horrible person. Sorry again.

As the haze of a pretty awful relationship lifted, a lot of my friends told me how insufferable I’d been with him. It was a slow, but steady realisation that I had been denying myself from enjoying things I used to love doing. So I tried to work out what those things were again. I went to concerts that I wanted to go to. I only watched films that were interesting to me. I was selfish with my hobbies and safe from judgement.

But soon I was in another relationship where I felt that I was being judged on my taste. Not if something was good or bad, but rather if it was cool enough. I felt out of my depth. I have no social prowess, and after a solid three years of having my confidence whittled down – it felt that I couldn’t really voice my opinion on music and films again. I understand now that it was mainly in my head, but at the time I felt like a pretty huge loser. I became very passive. I also stopped playing a lot of video games, because I was too busy worrying about whether I looked cool enough to hang out with this new crowd.

On the chance that I ran into someone at a party who was also into something like Metal Gear or Evangelion, I’d get into a heated discussion almost immediately out of sheer excitement. Apparently I embarrassed myself on more than one occasion by being too impudent. I had forgotten how to share interests with others in a constructive way. It had merely become a race to blurt out all the possible anecdotes and interpretations I knew.

It was pretty shitty of me in hindsight.

So what does all this have to do with gaming? Plenty.

In high school, I was an outcast because I really liked anime and playing fan translated JRPGS on SNES emulators. I really liked cross-dressing Japanese bands and I dressed like an idiot. But I at least had hobbies. I had a focus. That focus helped me to form a better image for myself outside of high school. I would imagine that many of my fellow pop culture enthusiast friends feel the same way. But that focus can lead to elitism. Take the ‘90s kid’ revival for instance, there’s now a huge surge of nostalgia based content floating around out there. If you can’t remember Rocko’s Modern Life, you’re some kind of subhuman. Oh, you didn’t eat Pokémon cereal? You’re a damn scrub. There’s an entire movement based on dredging up all sorts of inane shit and trying to outdo each other on how 90s you can get. Oh wait, isn’t that the entirety of vaporwave?

(ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: I enjoy vaporwave, I’m scum. So sue me. I’ll just be hanging these pictures of palm trees next to my Roman bust while I listen to Macintosh Plus on my Windows 95 PC.)

It’s all about exclusion. Those things you thought were lame are now cool, and the losers are now the ones who hold all the knowledge. As gaming becomes more and more mainstream, the outcasts who found solace in gaming in their formative years have an advantage over the new breed of casual gamer who probably teased them in high school for their hobbies. It’s an exciting sense of superiority over a group of people who made their lives hell. But it’s just a sense, a feeling. Nothing about this elitism is concrete, and the rush of outdoing some douchebag with a Triforce tattoo in Zelda trivia wears off pretty quickly.

Even now, I find myself reluctant to socialise with people who aren’t into gaming or pop culture. While there’s nothing wrong with being passive in the types of entertainment you consume, I still respect those who make an active effort to be clear about what they do and don’t like.

But who am I to judge?