A Lesson on Stereotypes

Yeah, yeah, Raptors blow 17-point lead. Barely win in OT. Bosh is leaving, Hedo sucks, Bargnani is a bust, Jose sucks at defence. It was a pretty boring game, despite it going to OT. Which is why I am too lazy to write a summary about the game. So instead I'm going to write something completely stupid about something completely stupid. From my friends over at Cambridge:

stereotype
noun

/ˈster.i.ə.taɪp/ n [C] disapproving

a fixed idea that people have about what someone or something is like, especially an idea that is wrong

Now, call me an ass if you like, but there is a reason why stereotypes exist. Because there are truths to them. Chinese people do generally suck at driving. Rednecks are typically ridiculously ignorant. And women's basketball sucks so much more than men's basketball. Ok, that last one wasn't really a stereotype, just a truth. Just jokes ladies. Jokes. Just kidding. Sorta. Ahem.

Anyway, back to the lesson at hand. Stereotypes. In the last 5-ish years, video games have become more mainstream and less of a "nerd" activity. And as much as I hate the thing, the Wii has pretty much led the charge for introducing video games to a broad audience beyond the "traditional" 14-30 year old males. Granted, that was a pretty big audience before, but the Wii's sales numbers show the difference between having one group, and selling to the entire population.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. Despite all this junk I just talked about with the expansion of the market base and all that jazz, you know what hasn't changed? The stereotype of the horny young adult/teen male gamer nerd. I don't think I really need to explain beyond that. Stereotypes persist because of the fact that there are still many persons that exist who perpetuate the idea. And so, I bring you to the latest in stereotype perpetuation.

The latest "genius" idea. Gamecrush. I am not joking.

Let me give you the basics of this website. You pay -with real money- to select a random-ass girl that you will never ever meet...to play fucking video games with you. By the way, click on that link. If you're too lazy to do that, I'll tell you what you're treated to.

"The GameCrush Public Beta is temporarily unavailable due to the incredible user response. We are adding new servers to provide players with the best PlayDate experience possible. Games with GameCrush PlayDates start at $6.60 for ten minutes."

Are you serious? This is not a late April Fools joke. Don't get me wrong, it's honestly absolutely genius as a business. I mean they don't even really pay to act as server host on the games since that's already been taken care of by Xbox Live (ok, they would have to pay about $60/year to use XBL, which is less than 20 cents a day. They obviously still have to pay for server costs to facilitate their own website). Seriously fellas, buy a hooker. Hell, you do not even have to have sex with a hooker. Give the hooker $20 and I'm sure she'll be more than happy to waste some time to help you pwn sum nubz on them vidya games. It is embarrassing to think about just how true stereotypes are sometimes.

(By the way, I totally only checked out that site just to do research for this post.)

P.S. Raptors are set to sign some random-ass bum named Joey Dorsey. He's about six foot nine and...that's all I've got. No idea who he is. He's not eligible for the playoffs. Supposedly, the contract is only guaranteed to pay him to basically get him into the summer league and that's it. No financial obligations after that.