A long time ago, before the earth had finished cooling and creatures with legs had yet to emerge from the primordial sea, my ex-girlfriend pointed out that the church we belonged to ("Dawn of Time Departurists") had it's own popes, just like Catholics did (Yup, it's a little known fact that Catholics were SO into tradition that they were able to extend their organization BACK through time, until the dawn of Earth. True Story). This was kind of a revelatory idea to me, because there were indeed Departurist Popes that the church looked up to and regarded as nearly infallible.
Don't we tend to do this with everything? Well, of course not everything, but don't we tend to elevate people to a somewhat revered status as icons of everything a movement should be about? We live in a democracy, but we have still somehow developed an aristocracy in Washington, and royal families that dispute the throne (for instance, there was a very good chance of having a 20 year period where the executive branch went Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, which, you would think, would be repulsive to people who like the idea of democracy). Michael Jordan was one of the popes of basketball, Stephen Hawking is the pope of physics, Dr. Ruth was the pope of sex for a while, etc. You see what I'm getting at.
Well, perhaps you are unconvinced that the pope analogy really applies to everything. I admit, gentle reader, that even these eyes that have seen eons (since they grew while I was swimming in that gone, but not forgotten primordial soup, which was so not for eating I might add), admit that my theory may not hold as much water as I would like. However, it is unimportant. What is important that I am stipulating that groups have popes. Let's just believe that for the sake of our friendship.
So all of that was an overly-long lead-in to the topic of what do guys who are gamers and in guyland hold up as popes and why? I have developed a theory which may also be less that sea-worthy (or soup-worthy as we used to say), but I feel compelled to relate. I will save a discussion of guyland in general for a later date, pausing only to say read the book, even if you disagree there are things to think about there.
I'm going to define gamer culture as comprised of guys, mostly between the ages of 14 and 35 (roughly), who devote most of their entertainment hours to games and who still strongly identify with masculine culture. This is a broad generalization of course, I know people personally who are avid gamers but who also don't buy into masculinity too much as a concept and that's fine. They would call themselves gamers, so maybe what I"m really talking about is that large, large, large majority of gamers who fit the description above.
So I realized the other day that basically the popes of gamer culture are people like the Penny-arcade guys, (Tycho and Gabe or Jerry and Mike). Gamers love them partly because they are insanely talented cartoonists, but also, in a big way I think, because they seem to be icons of the gamer dream. Their comic is geared towards gamers, and to continue to be relevant they get to do what they love and and play games all day and make comics about them, and earn what I assume is a pretty healthy living, and have what appears to be happy marriages and children.
I wondered why they were so revered in the industry and my theory is gamers perceive them as living the dream: devoting all their time to gaming but still somehow being men and getting married and raising children. They give the culture a stamp of legitimacy as a lifestyle option that the world at large will not confer. Or seem to. This all stems from a couple of beliefs that most self-identified gamers are not going to agree with at all. That's fine, if you think the descriptions I'm about to write don't fit you, that's fine, I'm sure they don't, I'm not out to hound anyone. But I have spent waaaaay too much time hanging around places like 1up and the world of warcraft forums and every other dank recess of the internet that gamers have burrowed into over the last 12 years or so, so I think I have some ground on which to stand.
I think gamers (as defined by me above) are, by and large, desperate to believe that they can spend most of their days gaming, gaming, gaming and somehow make a fulfilling life out of that. I think they don't know what it means to grow up, they would really love to have the freedom to play as much as a child forever, while having all of the freedom and benefits of being an adult, with none of the actual grappling with life's problems that adults have to deal with. I don't think it's only gaming culture that does this, I think a lot of other sub-cultures are basically away to avoid confronting life as well, but I"m not talking about them right now. And I'm certainly not saying games are not a legitimate entertainment choice. I still like playing games and plan to play more in the future. I just don't think they can be your ONLY choice, and only culture. I think the penny arcade guys represent an ideal for a bunch of gamers who haven't figured out yet that gaming by itself will not make them happy, that will come with having a job they feel good about, relationships they feel good about, and their health, and that getting satisfaction out of all of those things is simply going to require time spent working on those areas, rather than time spent staring at pixels.
Having said that I think Tycho and Gabe would be the first to admit that as much as they game, they also spend a lot of time managing the business outside of gaming, and spending time with their families, and I would guess their health, and they probably don't spend near as much time gaming now as they did when they were young and single. But I think what's useful about them as popes is the possibility to bring their readership up from the muck and out of the soup. I see it kind of happening already. The ways they grow personally, and recognize the wider world beyond gaming translates into their comics, which some of their fans actually pick up on I think. They server as a ladder to the wider world of life experiences and common humanity that most of them avoid far too much. For instance, the children's charity they do every year is wildly successful into the millions of dollars raised territory and wouldn't have happened with the blessings and organization of the pope. I think most of these guys will get it eventually, realize that chasing pixels is a fool's errand and eventually just realize what would make them happy is to tackle the real world, but I think with this type of thing, the sooner the better. And it's always nice to have a pope leading the way.
We had a Pope in the primordial soup you know. No hat, no gown, but he could osmose scripture with a purity that would make your membranes leak. Of course, he was the last to leave the Soup. The Church had decreed legs and walking on land heresy years back and it took quite a while for him to rise imperiously out of the sea, blessing those assembled (a few ducks and mouse) for making "land" ready for him, in what was clearly now God's will. Which is only to say, be grateful to popes who lead the way, because all too often they're doing their damndest to hold you back.
But then, all this only one simple paramecium's opinion, and even he doesn't place too much stock in it. Just likes to think about why we make popes out of people.
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