Giles Whittell hates Video Games.

So Giles Whittell hates video games. I know this because in his own nuanced way he said so:

"I hate video games, on or offline. I hate the way they suck real people into fake worlds and hold on to them for decades at a time. I hate being made to feel hateful for saying so, and I hate being told to immerse myself in them before passing judgment, because it feels like being told to immerse myself in smack and teenage pregnancy before passing judgment on them."

You see, like smack and teenage pregnancy video games are of such a nature that they require no personal experience upon which to base an opinion. One may hate video games as a result of not experience or knowledge but rather hyperbole. However, this hatred of video games is not based upon their being wrong or bad. Oh, no.

"This is not because of anything wrong or bad about video games or heroin or teenage parents. It's not even because of game-induced homicide or web-grooming of little girls by perverts - serious problems, but statistically low-risk. It's because, compared with everything else on offer in a kid's life, video games and heroin and teenage pregnancy are a colossal waste of time."

First, let me say that I agree with Giles Whittell. Teenage pregnancy is not "wrong or bad". Rather, the only reasonable position to maintain regarding teenage pregnancy is that it is a "colossal waste of time". That being said one need ask what is not a colossal waste of time. And to answer that question I must, sadly, abandon my sardonic guise and rather focus upon discerning what the god damned fuck is wrong with Giles "Get off my lawn" Whittell.

Time can only be "wasted" if it is spent in a manner which does not aid one in achieving a stated goal; it is, like everything else, contextual. If one's task is to play Crisis Core and one plays Crisis Core then one is not wasting time. That is simply what those words mean.

I said before that I think gamers are underachievers given what "underachiever" means. And I still think that. But are there not many other hobbies the participants in which are underachievers? Are there not many other tasks which are just as "wasteful" as video games? How are video games more wasteful than watching movies or television, than sport fucking, than any other hobby one might have? If after work I play World of Warcraft for two hours how is that time more wasted than if I watched reruns of West Wing for two hours? Personally? I tend to think that watching movies or television is more wasteful than video games; at least after playing WoW for two hours I have something to show for it, contextual and meaningless though it may be. I say this not to argue that since other people underachieve gamers are somehow less underachievers but rather to illustrate the point that Giles Whittell is being unfairly selective in his poorly composed ranting.

"But _J_," you may say, "why raise all this hay? Giles Whittell is not saying that video games are uniquely wasteful, that they are somehow more wasteful than watching movies or throwing firecrackers at cats!"

Oh no?

"Compared with everything else on offer in a kid's life, video games and heroin and teenage pregnancy are a colossal waste of time."

According to Giles Whittell video games, heroin, and teenage pregnancy are uniquely wasteful of time "compared with everything else on offer in a kid's life". Everything else! Ever! Shut up! Get off his lawn!

Sure, we could assume that Giles Whittell did not literally mean what he wrote, that he, if his prose is any indication, has only a passing familiarity with the written word. The problem is that Giles Whittell is an author. He writes travel guides and everything! So as someone who writes, using that term loosely, for a living we must assume that Giles Whittell meant what he wrote. Teenage pregnancy and heroin are a waste of time (and that quality is their only problem), videogames are a waste of time, and everything else is not a waste of time.

And just because it makes me laugh I'm going to end with the final sentence from Shitty Whittell's article:

"Meanwhile, I want my kids to overdose on wind, rain, mud, gravy, tents, mountains and overcooked bacon. (Oh, and do their homework.) Why is that suddenly so weird?"

Gee, I dunno. Why is it weird that a parent would want to expose their kids to the elements and overdosed them on bacon and gravy rather than sit with them in one's living room and play Civ 4? That seems like a perfectly reasonable position to maintain.

You fucking dolt.