Lies Adults Told Me About Games

[Robert Rath]

Lies Adults Told Me About Games

Not long ago videogames were, by and large, the realm of children. And like anything kids absorb into their unique culture, they spawned more than one playground rumor.

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[Skeleon]

GAH, don't scare me with a picture like that!

 

[Dinosorcerer]

this is great

 

[Scorpid]

Well that was weird. I grew up with games my whole life and never once had a sit down to talk about the dangers of video games outside of "Homework first then games!". Though, I had a older brother that had his own income and brought the sort of games into the house that I wanted to play. Fallout, Shadowrun, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem and Final Fantasy Tactics. And my dad was himself a obsessed Doom fan and my mom loved the NES Zelda since before I was born. I guess my parents just had a better idea than most parents what a "Modern" video game was back then. I mean I assume most parents had played arcade machines from the 70's and history states that every young person back in the 70s was legally required to play PacMan.

 

[Treeberry]

GAH, don't scare me with a picture like that!

Tsk. Tsk. You mean don't square me with that.

I don't recall my parents ever telling me any 'weird' things about video games but, of course, I heard plenty of tales in the playground. Hidden pokemon, the Lavender Town theme thing and BS stories about owning a Sega Venus/Pluto/Mars/Uranus.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

At least people aren't spreading the rumor that playing video games will turn you into a murderous rampaging monster.

 

[FoolKiller]

The ones I heard were that it would ruin your eyes. I looked into that eventually. Eye strain isn't the healthiest thing but you'll be fine in general as long as you take regular breaks.

 

[Ranorak]

I don't know how old this square eye because of video gaming is, but when I was a kid, they said the very same thing about TV.
Guess just watching TV wasn't causing the squareness, the fact that you had to be holding a controller made the final push to total skull reconstruction.

 

[Xman490]

What about the "melting your brain" myth? That one is interesting, as while media obviously don't do that, they do have some effect on one's brain that causes one to desire working less. That underlying problem is then exaggerated into such motivation being destroyed along with several other brain functions.

 

[Church185]

The only one I've ever heard was the one about bursting bladders from kids too stubborn to go to the bathroom. I wonder how many other gaming related urban legends are out there?

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Wow, I remember all of those games... seems like a lifetime ago. "Shadow Dancer" was so awesome, wasn't it? At least until THAT cave level. (There was always THAT one level in those old games.)

Still, fighting ninjas while going up the side of the Statue of Liberty = win. Plus the soundtrack was flippin' awesome.

Don't think I ever worried that anybody would take "Moonwalker" away from me. Although my eyes did go square for a while.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

My cousin did once poop his pants from refusing to get up to relieve himself during a goldeneye session. SO I was spared that myth in favour of a more vicious reality.

I can still smell it...

Great article as always. Nice to see a break from the super researched topics and see something a little lighter.

 

[Denamic]

Those white lies never worked on me once we got internet access in our school. I was always very interested in computers, but internet basically made me jizz my pants. Literally, once I discovered free porn, but that's beside the point. Everything that sounded doubtful, I researched. Eventually, my parents just stopped lying to me because I kept calling them out on everything, including things they believed to be true that turned out not to be. Though my mom still refuses to accept that tomatoes are fruit.

 

[2clueless]

What about the "melting your brain" myth?

I was told, starting at age 4, that my brains would literally start leaking out of my ears if I played video games for too long. It did not much as scare me as make me resigned to the fact that I might die or worse if I continued my hobby/habit; games were just too much fun to let go. I still get here the odd crack from my parents every few months or so. I am now 27. Worst that has come of my ears is earwax. =P

 

[WouldYouKindly]

At least people aren't spreading the rumor that playing video games will turn you into a murderous rampaging monster.

Oh wait...

My parents were actually quite sensible. They knew that they knew fuckall about modern games and thus didn't tell us any bullshit. The most my mother did was to come around and make sure the games we had weren't about decapitating puppies. They were still plenty violent, but nothing I'd hadn't seen on TV by then.

 

[mjharper]

A thoroughly enjoyable read. Though I heard the 'eyes-turning-square' thing in relation to watching too much TV

 

[Scarecrow1001]

I actually only heard the eyes turning square thing because back when I was in Year 4, I used to catch a bus. And because even then I didn't like Primary School children, I read a lot. One kid told me my eyes would go square by the time I was 30, if I kept reading so much. That.... set me back a little.

 

[immortalfrieza]

I was fortunate enough to have parents that didn't pull this kind of crap on me, and I probably wouldn't have fallen for it if they had anyway and they knew that. I was playing games along the lines of Doom and Duke Nukem sorts since I was 5 or so, with the filters off of course, and the only thing that my parents ever did was explain the difference between video games and real life, that's it.

 

[CruxisCalling]

Wow, I had no idea that these even existed (although I can imagine doctors trying to argue the ruptured bladder myth today). I'm odd in the fact that my mother was the one who introduced me to videogames, despite hating them herself. Apparently I was reading too much and needed to branch out into something more social so I didn't spend all day in my room with a book. So she bought me a bunch of single player games. Logic!

The nice thing was, any time she would start up with these kinds of myths (if you don't put down the controller, your hands will stick that way) I could respond with "you're the one who told me I had to start playing videogames" and that usually got her off my case.