Ode to College Gamers, Part II

Awesome, you unlocked the 37^th, and final, hidden character costume. Have fun dressing up your character to look like a Thai prostitute.

The “Life-Is-Forfeit” Exile is where most negative stereotypes of gamers arise, and for good reason. A lost cause, the Exile will be playing video games until the Rapture, or death, whichever comes first. He stays locked in his room, tapping relentlessly on his controller, vainly replaying the same level over and over because he keeps dying right before the next save point. Even promises of free booze cannot wrest this poor soul from his self-induced hibernation.

"Noobs are the most annoying of gamers, and unfortunately the largest group out there."

Pale, flaky skin glows faint blue under the television’s rays. His eyes are bugged, bloodshot, vacant orbs over dark bags of insomnia. Exiles are physically repulsive creatures; a trait that erodes their psychological health and reinforces their rationale for solidarity. Hygiene remains a distant discovery, a relic for reference on Wikipedia. If you see an Exile outside, expect sickly sweet scents of cheap microwave dinners to waft in his wake.

He may shop at Hot Topic, and perhaps own a spiked bracelet. Kitschy quotes or icons from old video games jiggle over his man-boobs as he waddles to and fro. He pees in empty Mountain Dew bottles to save himself a trip down the hall to the bathroom. He is definitely single, most assuredly of virgin stock.

Exiles take personal pride in their gaming finesse—it is, sadly, all they have left in this world. They refuse contest to their skills, not out of fear, but out of conservation. Time spent kicking your ass in Mortal Kombat: Apocageddon-Destruction-Mayhem VI is time not spent brushing up on his l33t skills on the Information Super Highway with his equally l33t clan. This arrogance, coupled with bad genes and Fate, builds upon an Exile’s already fragile ego and prohibits any chance of acceptance back into normal society.

These types should be shown empathy, but from a safe distance. It’s not like their parents supported their self-destructive habits by buying them all those games—oh wait, they did. Nevermind. Fuck the pricks. Ridicule of Exiles is promoted by Yours Truly.

During my World of Warcraft tenure, I met a super hot chick online that wanted to fly me out to California for nothing but animalistic sex for three days straight. Swear to God, true story.

With the steady release of enticing, moderately-priced Massive-Multiplayer-Online (MMO) games hitting the markets worldwide, the rise of casual gamers to the world stage has not gone unnoticed. Normal people have been sucked into the MMO phenomenon, and subsequently, many are becoming “mmocoholics.”

Mmocoholics are a weak variant of the L-I-F-Exile family in the classical sense of isolative tendencies. But unlike the Exile, a mmocoholic has a large base of online friends, perhaps even a large base of real-life friends, to socialize and adventure with in the MMOs they play. Also different from Exiles, mmocoholics have no definitive gender, weight, height, race, etc. Anyone, even that spunky brunette that sits next to you in freshmen sociology, could be a potential mmocoholic and foxy elf-chick living among the tall trees of Ashenvale.

I raped your mom up the ass last night. God, you’re such a noob.

Last and certainly least, the Noob.

A “noob,” “N00B,” or any variance of the term using a combination of upper/lowercase letters and numerals, is anyone that actively complains, whines, trash-talks, and/or belittles other players in an attempt to boost their flaccid ego and get the attention of other people to sate their physiological needs. Compounded with their lack of actual gaming skills, they are the most annoying of gamers in general, and unfortunately the largest group out there roaming the Information Super Highway.

Noobs have an affinity to call other players “noobs,” both in-game and in real life; they believe it masks their own noobish tendencies and passes suspicion of poor-skillz onto others.

Anonymity brings out the worst in people, and while trash-talking among friends and family is highly recommended to accrue local bragging rights, calling a 14-year-old boy’s mother a “man-jam junkie,” “sperm donation center,” or “volunteer of the DP Brigade” on Xbox Live won’t change the fact you’re down by 10 and the little prick just tossed a frag onto your respawn point. Again.

There is a point in which trash-talking begins to whither into desperate, hollow insults. If you find yourself in this position, you yourself have become, “the noob.”

It’s a scary thought.