"Frumpy Mom" Responds To Attacks

[ShadowKirby]

Well damn, there goes my theory about the whole thing being a satire. I guess I didn't see it because I'm a dumb gamer...

Probably gonna respond to her blog with a list of university teachers who appears in the Video Game Theory Reader 2.

EDIT: Here's the comment I left on her website. And if anybody wants to have an argument with her, please be civil. Show her we are not all a bunch of 13 years old angry teens.

Well, if video games are making people so stupid, please tell me why so many university teachers are doing research about them and NOT accusing them of being some evil creation? Here?s a quick list from the book Video Game Theory Reader, co-edited by one of my university (University of Montreal) teacher, Bernard Perron (http://www.umontreal.ca/english/news_digest/2006-2007/20061030/horror.html)

Richard E. Ferding; Associate Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Florida?s College of Education.
Sebastien Genvo; Professor in Information and Communication Sciences at the University of Limoges.
Tom Boellstorff; Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Californai, Irvine, and Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist.
Torben Grodal; Professor at the University of Copenhagen.
Carrie Heeter; Professor of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at the Michigan State University.
Henry Jenkins; Co-Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the list of book he wrote goes on for a page.
Jesper Juul; video game researcher at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT game lab in Cambridge.
Micheal McGuffin; Assistant Professor in the Department of Software and IT Engineering at the Ecole de Technologie Superieur within the University of Quebec in Montreal.
Sheila C. Murphy; Assistant Professor in the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan,
Laurie N. Taylor; PhD, researches digital media and creates digital projects at the University of Florida.
Feichin Ted Tschang; Assistant Professor of Management in the Lee Kong China School of Business, Singapore Management University.
and the list goes on?

All men and women from around the world and coming from different academic background. I?ll let you draw your own conclusions but I hope you won?t go on and say that all those people and all those universities are funding some useless researches. Or maybe you think cinema and literature studies are also useless, in which case you insult me both as a gamer and a university student.

I?ve played game since I was about 6-7 years old and they have not rot my brain any bit. I?ve always had goo notes because parents were smart enough to know how to regulate my time in front of video games without totally taking them away. That, is good parenting. Games taught me english, puzzle games are great to develop problem solving skills, strategy games are great to develop organization skills, and the list could go on. Even online games can develop social skills. For some kids, online games are even the only way they can socialize due to some disabilities.

Accusing games of not being able to teach you anything is like saying movies and books cannot teach you anything because some movies and books are insipid. You don?t learn watching 2012 or by reading Twilight (I will stand by that statement till I die) but does it destroy the validity of the whole medium? I don?t think so.

Here is a list of 99 free games made by young independent developers: http://www.critical-distance.com/2009/12/24/99-free-games-from-2009/

Even though you don?t let video games in your house, I think you should give some of them a try and maybe even find something interesting in them.

 

[TheNumber1Zero]

I used to be a complete idiot about things, but I learned things from television and games and computers.

She got it a little backwards

So... raise your hand if you think she's a DICK?

-Raises both hands-

 

[qazcake]

you know theres a saying that goes by you have freedom of speach but you dont have to use it. i say just ignore her theres noting she could do. its not like she could get vedio games baned. this is the way we live with tecnoligy and she will have to deal with it. there have been a few anti video game activtests but all have failed.
another saying is dont feed the trols.

 

[secretshadow90]

I've done it now. I've taken my first post, complete with edit and posted it as a comment on her blog, with a little addendum. And from what I can judge from her other comments, she is extremely dismissive of other people trying to reason with her who are on our side of the argument, even if they are polite and have valid points. I actually await her response to see if she argues with me after I give her my academic credentials/bragging points. (Yeah, I couldn't resist but it would actually make me sound better.) Also, how will she respond to a female gamer that in her world doesn't exist?

 

[Biosophilogical]

I think ... I think I actually hate this woman. I mean sure, her kids socialise and travel over the world, etc, but the fact that she believes herself to be any kind of moral leader in any sense of the word when it comes to raising children is just ... I want to punch her through the internet. I mean, she is saying she is doing what is best for her kids when in actuality she is depriving them of a medium which provides common ground with other children. I mean sure, they socialise more, but if the other kids ever talk about something videogame related then her kids would be at a loss, despite all their experiences. Also, who is to say video-gaming is bad, in actuality it is just another set of experiences, just like trvaelling the world, and it has both beneficial and detrimental effects, just like anything else.

Also, yes videogames can be 'addictive', but so can adrenaline (ever heard of adrenalie junkies?), and if she keeps giving her kids these 'out there' experiences, what are they going to do when they are living alone without a high source of income and no opportunities to go overseas? Where will they get their fill of excitement? By being such an avid traveller she is producing the risk of her children become criminals as they attempt to fulfill their adrenaline desires. And yes I realise it is unlikely, but so is people becoming glass-eyed zombies because their stimulation is produced by electronics. See what I am getting at here? She is assuming the position of 'moral highground', effectively naming herself omnipotent in regards to parenting. That is why I hate her soooooooo very much, not because of her parenting skills, but becaue of her ignorance (which can, admittedly, be a bad influence on her children which in turn brings her parenting into question).

Oh, and as a side-note, I am highly intelligent (going into grade 12 this year, FYI), am currently taking subjects in Physics, Chemistry, English, Mathematics B (which is our 'top maths class'), Drama and Study of Religion and not only that but I am doing incredibly well in all of these subjects. I got all B's and A's, and the B's were only in subjects where nobody got A's. So to her I say "How does that fit into your theory? No seriously, how do my FACTS compare with your ignorant parenting philosophy?"

 

[Space Spoons]

I really, really hope she turns out to be an epic troll. For the sake of my own sanity, I have to believe that people can't really be this ignorant.

 

[HardRockSamurai]

Satan did not invent video games. Lord Voldemort did.

Lady, if you have to go on a rant about video games, could you please NOT act stupid about it?
[small].....gosh, I never thought I'd live to see the day where I'd actually miss Jack Thompson.....[/small]

 

[Rawker]

"Also, I?m not too convinced by people who were such ardent gamers they became video game creators. That?s like saying, 'Gee, I loved crack so much, I went to Colombia and started my own business and now I?m rich."

She is the biggest idiot ever. Yes, in fact, my friend has a plant for that purpose, you troll-mom. I'm pretty sure her "mother" status was for birthing 4chan.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

I hate her... I hate her so much.

Some people you just gotta laugh at.

 

[Baghram]

By the by guys, if you keep telling her to die in a [insert horrible way here], you are actually proving her point and giving her ammunition. So unless you want to prove her point/give her ammunition stop it or you just look stupid.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

I can't believe she actually mentioned us.


Frumpy Mom, I know you're reading this, HI! I R STEWPIT TEINAGGER HOO CUNNOT SPEK EGRISH.

 

[Syntax Error]

One of two things can happen: Anonymous making her life horrible, or Anonymous will decide that she's not worth ht effort.

I just hate it when people pass their own opinion as the one absolute truth.

 

[secretshadow90]

I really, really hope she turns out to be an epic troll. For the sake of my own sanity, I have to believe that people can't really be this ignorant.

I'm sorry. She's not a troll. She's dead serious. Should I just hand you the straight jacket or hit you with a golden baseball bat (obscure reference FTW).

 

[LockeDown]

This woman's an idiot, plain and simple. She's just some nut off in left field, spouting her 3rd-grade diploma-inspired video game hate speech because she can. She's trolling, even if she's not aware of what trolling actually is.

Seriously, folks, let's look at the facts:

She's a random school mom who obviously has moderate to severe self-esteem issues. Granted, she probably refers to herself as "frumpy" and berates her children as an attempt to keep from coming off as pompous and self-righteous, but not only is that effort in vain, it clearly masks a deep-rooted self-image crisis.

Her argumentation, lack of credible sources (lady if you're reading this, anecdotal evidence doesn't support an argument; it weakens it), and overall tone of her posts is juvenile at best, suggesting something of the caliber a middle-school debate team might throw together on their first day.

And, to top it all off, the language she uses in her "blog" (I use air-quotes simply because I refuse to refer to it in the same manner as the intelligent blogs out there) is that of someone who likely barely graduated high school (if she didn't just opt out for the GED instead), and yet she criticizes us, the gaming community, of being ignorant.

Recognize her for what she is, another attention-whore in her late forties trying desperately to find fame before she shrugs off this mortal coil. She's looking for her fifteen minutes, and by arguing with her, you're giving her what she wants. Read the blog if you want (I did, I'd recommend against it unless you enjoy forcibly lowering your IQ), shake your head in disdain and move along. Worst case scenario: she's picked up by Faux News so they can run a little story on her opinion as fuel for gamer-hate, and then she'll drift slowly into obscurity again (at least until she gets on Youtube, where I'm sure the folks over at 4chan will have some choice words for her).

TL;DR: She's trolling, even if accidentally, but who cares? It's not like anyone is going to take the opinion of an over-the-hill, self-proclaimed "frumpy" soccer mom seriously. At least, no one of any actual importance.

 

[dirt_empire]

I can't believe she actually mentioned us.


Frumpy Mom, I know you're reading this, HI! I R STEWPIT TEINAGGER HOO CUNNOT SPEK EGRISH.

I know right! I feel so frickin' special, we are on her FrumpDar.

 

[GoldenRaz]

I'll ignore her ramlings since there are several other who have already deconstructed her arguments and I'll instead go into another matter completely; when did the Escapist become the place for Americans to get their news?

I ask because that one newspost and it's thread apparently garnered "national attention" of that she was "a maniacal crackpot mom".
I never knew that the Escapist was so mainstream...

Also, I'm quite interested in knowing just how she came found her way here (did she Google herself, or is she a member [LE GASP!]?), and how many pages of the aforementioned thread did she read?
I'm just intrigued, that's all.

EDIT:

Also, here is my long, detailed response to the whole thing.
http://zakyou.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/the-intelligent-frumpy-mom-not/

I found your post by clicking the link in your post in her comments, and I must say that it was quite a good read. Kudos!

 

[Lenny Magic]

This woman has a point. What if Thomas Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann just played Halo 3? They would never of invented The Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device.

TIME PARADOX!

 

[Captain Schpack]

I hate her... I hate her so much.

Yes.

OH MY GOD! IT'S JACK THOMPSON IN A WOMAN SUIT!

MORE YES.