While our core mission at LFGdating is to help gamers find love, obliterating what have now become laughable gamer stereotypes is undoubtedly one of our critical secondary purposes. You know what I’m talking about: the myth of the “gamer girl”, or how only guys play video games; how all we all are overweight and forever live in our parent’s basement; or how we’re all introverted, mindless people that don’t contribute anything to society. They’re all garbage, and both Casey and I are proud to say – and we firmly believe this – that LFGdating has played a major role in destroying these gamer stereotypes once and for all. Sure, they still exist, but so long as LFGdating is in existence (and our insane growth rates have pretty much guaranteed we will be around for-freaking-ever!) we will continue to attack these gamer stereotypes head on – that you can count on. So with that being said, let’s take a look at what some of the more popular gamer stereotypes that are still floating around out there, and how LFGdating has contributed to putting these things on the endangered species list.
Gamer Stereotype #1: We Live in our Parent’s Basement
Let’s kick this one off with perhaps my favorite gamer stereotype of all: the fact that we apparently all still live in our parent’s basement, or if you want to extrapolate a bit – we’re all immature worthless people skating in a society that is passing us by. What a joke! I ran through our user data here at LFGdating, and came across with some excellent figures that absolutely proves that joke of a stereotype wrong almost immediately:
More than 5% of our members at LFGdating hold either a Master’s or PHD, and if you include those users who have begun but not yet ocmlpeted a graduate degree that number rises over the 8% mark. How’s that for lazy?
And LFGdating isn’t alone on combating this “gamers are lazy / we live in our parent’s basement / we don’t have jobs” BS: do I need to call in numbers on probably the tens of thousands of entrepreneurial Twitch streamers that have amassed tens of millions of followers and views as part of lucrative careers? Or maybe even more localized, how about the fact that LFGdating’s co-founders both have Master’s degrees? I wouldn’t call any of that lazy – and no, neither Casey or I live in our parent’s basements.
Gamer Stereotype #2: Only Guys Play Video Games
I can probably debunk this laughable gamer stereotype with one sentence, so let’s do it: if this were true then how in the world has LFGdating survived since our beta launch in 2012? Do the math, boss, because gamer girls are not a myth – all you have to do is create a profile at LFGdating, and you’ll see for yourself. Or you could ask one of the thousands, if not tens of thousands of female streamers on Twitch.tv – if that doesn’t change your mind then I think you need to look up the definition of delusional, because that about sums up your rationale.
Gamer Stereotype #3: Gamers Are Out of Shape and Overweight
As a former Marine Corps officer that can still run 3 miles in about 19 minutes, this is another one of my favorite gamer stereotypes that falls in line with our first in that we all live in our parent’s basements. While you could simply browse through the thousands and thousands of profiles here at LFGdating and clearly see from profile pictures that this stereotype is maybe the biggest joke of all, you could also look to Twitch and see even more evidence that this couldn’t be further from the truth.
But speaking of Twitch, and this is proof that the fight agains this stereotype still has a ways to go, I still see advertisements in-between streams from some of the most out-of-touch brand managers out there: apparently companies still think all we eat are pizza rolls, Doritos, and wash it all down with Mountain Dew. While I’m sure plenty of gamers still consumer one or all of those, it’s yet another angle of this stereotype that needs to go away permanently.
Gamer Stereotype #4: Gamers are Introverts
Introverts, socially awkward, quiet – whatever the adjective, this is yet another stereotype that has probably never been valid, and is long past its shelf life. The best piece of evidence that counters this stereotype is the convention: if gamers are socially awkward introverts, then how in the world do you explain the freaking millions of gamers that attend conventions each year? (According to WikiPedia, more than 167,000 geeks and gamers attended the official ComicCon in San Diego last year.) Heck, Casey and I nabbed an LFGdating booth at last summer’s Supercon 16 in Miami, Florida, and talked to an insane amount of gamers who all attended with huge groups of friends. This is yet another gamer stereotype that is on the path to destruction, and it truly can’t come soon enough.
While we could have listed and destroyed the countless other facepalmingly lame gamer stereotypes that are sadly still out there, demonstrating how the big four above are on their way out should more than prove our point. Again, while our primary mission here at LFGdating is helping gamers find love, obliterating every gamer stereotype checks in as a close second.