Is Gamer Culture the New Pop Culture?

It isn’t the first time that counter-culture has made its way into the mainstream—does “flower power” ring any bells?—but to what extent has video game culture been inducted into the houses of pre-pubescent hipsters around the globe? Will the release of long-awaited Diablo 3 really spark an Obama-inauguration-esque celebration? Or will the peak in sales of the oh-so-popular nerd tees turn into an eventual smudge on the fashion radar and dissolve into discussions of “remember what we used to wear back then?!” by aging housewives of the future?

If you ask me, it’s none of the above.

The blaring influence of gamer culture that is displayed on the trendy nerd tees are merely helping to finally put gaming into a positive light. Before, gamers were merely depicted as cheeto-faced, 400+ pound 11-year-olds who only see the light of day to wait in line for the next big game release, or for the next Star Trek convention. Now that gaming has been the most recent counter-culture converted to pop-culture, the masses are learning that it’s okay to game. And though this won’t influence the middle school pep squad to trade in their body glitter for a game controller, it will help those who were always tempted by gaming all along. Now that much of the anti-gamer sentiment has evaporated, new converts will no longer be hindered by the fear of uncool, perma-virgin stigma, and can proudly march into the nearest GameStop for their first purchase. (Or even better, set up a Steam account!)

With the advent of the nerd = cool concept, the fear of catching the NERD DISEASE is now long gone.

For those of you not completely following my counter/pop- culture lingo, let me explain. Since the dawn of mass culture, there has been counter-culture: one simply cannot exist without the other (you know, the whole x cannot exist without y aspect that your high school math teachers force fed you until your eyes bled…). So, when video gaming became big enough to be considered a culture, it was denied by the mainstream and fell into the counter-culture category. As time goes on, however, counter-culture (or aspects of it) will eventually be sucked up by the mainstream. It is a sort of recycling of trends, a never-ending cycle that cultural anthropologists will never stop writing about. (If you’re nerdy about this stuff like I am, you have to check out The Rebel Sell.)

Now that gaming is officially “cool,” of course, marketing campaigns will take advantage of this (Gamer Grub or Mana Energy Potions, for example). But just because your trend-happy little sister is now walking around with slogans like “i pwn n00bs” on her notebooks doesn’t mean that she is actually a part of the culture. Why? Because to become a true member of the gaming continuum, you have to put in your time. Becoming a gamer takes dedication—or more realistically, obsession. Only a certain type of person will be sucked into this lifestyle, whether it’s trendy or not. The actual culture of gaming is just more accessible now, as it is no longer a quarantined NERD ZONE.