The Top 10 Worst Portrayals of Gamers on Television

[Ralancian]

I personally don't understand the problem with TBBT well I do but I'll explain. The early seasons with guys almost quite literally drooling over Penny could be quite offensive over time but the show slowly found it's niche. I find it generally quite funny and a fair reflection of our culture played for laughs. Some jokes I've seen played out over a D&D table or during a board game or general conversations I've had. Most importantly it feel genuine...yes the characters aren't real people but this a comedy not a drama.

Mainly I feel later seasons are laughing with us that at us but early seasons were the opposite.

I think an interesting point came last season when Sheldon couldn't decide between a PS4 or an X-Box One whilst not a conundrum myself has witnessed there was scene that resonated. Sheldon is busy telling his girlfriend about all the interstices of the decision whilst she mocks him for feigning interest. I was initially offended by this scene (still am a little bit) as similar thing have been done before to me and it's really frustrating when your passionate about something and nobody really wants to listen. However my wife found it absolutely hilarious for all the times I've put her through explaining stuff in immense detail when she has no interest in what I'm talking about. So is it a bad portrayal of gamers or sometimes hitting a little close to the mark and touching a nerve occasionally when we aren't portrayed as utterly brilliant in every way?

So yeah I like the show and so does my wife (who's not really much of a gamer but does partake occasionally). I think people are just a little touchy about it.

 

[Vault Citizen]

While I enjoy Big Bang Theory I can't deny that the gamer thing is something that annoys me. Whenever a female character wants to enjoy a hobby that doesn't involve men it's ok, but whenever the guys want to play games, video or RPG suddenly they are losers who could be having sex instead. Add this to Penny's Conan addiction and the guys being shown to be dead to the world when playing video games and the result is a show that can sometimes feel mean.

I don't agree with Cartman being in this list. Cartman is an absolute monster, however the fact that he is a monster and the fact that's he likes video games aren't expreslly linked. I can think of an episode or two where he has been a monster in aid of something video game related but he has acted so horribly for some many reasons in so many areas that the fact he is a gamer isn't shown to be the reason.

 

[Batou667]

Nothing immature about calling a duck a duck. And there's plenty of material in the rest of this article to justify itself. Perhaps you're just sensitive to this particular issue?

It's not calling a duck a duck, it's stereotyping and conflating an entire group with its most unpleasant elements. Feminists don't appreciate being equated to Valerie Solanas, and I don't appreciate being likened to Eric Cartman.

Maybe I am a bit sensitive to the issue - but that's not a tacit admission of my guilt, that's frustration at being demonised for being a male gamer who isn't completely on board with the more out-there social justice rhetoric that has been shoehorned into my hobby. If Moviebob considers insulting a large proportion of his readership justified or funny, that reflects poorly on him.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Bah, you should have gone with the episode about the teenage girl running an online brothel with her friends (who all fantasise about being prostitutes) in Not-Second Life, the male gamer paedophiles who fund the business and the elderly rapist who kidnaps women because their in-game avatars look like his long-lost love for Law and Order: SVU!

 

[Batou667]

I don't know if I'd call common decency "out-there social justice rhetoric", but whatevs. And I don't think it's that large a portion of his readership.

Besides, if you're not the typical gamergator that acts like Eric Cartman, then why are you insulted? He's clearly not talking about you.

It's not *just* common decency, though, is it? If the observations, claims, requests, demands, etc the progressive lobby was making of the gaming industry were all inoffensive, constructive suggestions that were self-evidently well-intentioned, then there'd be no disagreement and no GamerGate. It's disingenuous and over-simplistic to suggest that there's a morally correct stance to take here because it effectively demonises one side of the discussion and dismisses thousands of people's opinions and experiences as irrelevant or fictitious.

Some anti-GGers have engaged in deplorable acts of verbal abuse, doxxing, threatening people's jobs and even their physical safety. We need to acknowledge that there are faults on both sides, or else we're replacing the complicated and nuanced real-life situation with a fictional moral binary with "good guys" and "bad guys".

[edit] And if I take mild umbrage with the Eric Cartman comparison, like I said, that's not a tacit admission that I resemble him. I'm just savvy enough to know an insult when I see one directed at a group I'm loosely associated with. And heck, this goes both ways - when I mentioned I didn't like the more "out-there" fringe elements of social justice, why did you feel that was directed at you? Why didn't you think "Ah, but I'm not a crazy extremist, so Batou667 isn't talking about me. Nothing to see here"?

 

[Gorrath]

While not television, I think the worst I've ever seen was the movie Mazes and Monsters. It was a crapfest polemic that came out around the time that D&D bashing reached its height. It's one of the worst movies Tom Hanks ever did.

 

[SilverUchiha]

While I see your point with Cartman, I feel that might be coming off a bit more personal in recent light of the gamersgate bullshit. Because the problem with this argument is that Cartman is SUPPOSED to be the villain of the series (for the most part). Think of him as Pokey/Porky Minch while the other kids are like Ness and Lucas (actually, that's probably a very fair comparison). Yes, Cartman embodies a lot of the negative aspects of certain gamers, but that's intentional because he's a villain. The fact the good characters of the show reflect the average or more positive gamers and generally manage to beat Cartman in his stupid bullshit is what we're supposed to take away from it more than anything else.

Personally, I would have put Big Bang Theory as #1... but that's also because I view that show is just a steaming pile of shit, so perhaps I'm bias there.

 

[petef201]

Don't really see the need for the unprofessional swipe at The Big Bang Theory. No problem with it being on this list, it's perfectly valid to be here, but some kind of insight would've been nice.

For example: Gaming doesn't define them, it's just one of their many pasttimes. Seems fair enough, however when Penny, the "normal" character tries gaming she gets addicted. Thus implying either you're already weird and therefore like games, or playing games makes you weird.

Two lines, thrown together in 20seconds. Wasn't that hard was it?

 

[Kungfusam]

Is this some kind of joke?

Moviebob has willfully done more to damage the concept of gamers then any TV show, everything he thinks and says about gamers is based on outdated stereotypes, hearsay and basically whatever Sarkeesian tells him say

 

[Loonyyy]

I shouldn't have to explain this one.

You really should, considering you've put the cast of the Big Bang Theory in the banner at the top. I've only seen a random selection of episodes so maybe I missed the one with the terrible portrayal of gamers but from what I've seen, gaming doesn't feature much at-all in BBT. At most there's the odd reference to the guys having a gaming night or a one-liner referencing a popular game franchise, I suppose there was that one episode where Penny became addicted to WoW but that was clearly being played for laughs, it was so silly.

Definitely agreed.

What do you mean by worst Bob? Could you define it? Because you include in your list standard 90s VR cliches(Which are just laughably innacurate), games as a murder simulator type stuff from CSI(Laughably inaccurate, and probably motivated by anti-game sentiment from sections of the media). If the portrayal is simply negative or unflattering, are The Anti-Thinker or the Retro-Thinker from your own series eligible?

Specifically, Cartman and The Big Bang Theory stand out as really poor inclusions.

Cartman's an asshole in videogames? Sure. He's always an asshole. But South Park doesn't represent videogames inaccurately, or "Gamers" whatever that means now. Classics like "Make Love Not Warcraft" (Which you even reference) show that. Videogames are a thing, and different people react to them differently. Cartman's an asshole(And a stupid shallow one at that with regard to his GTA: Chinatown Wars adventure), and the others play them for whatever reason, Kyle for fun, Stan sometimes excessively (The guitar-hero episode and recent Free To Play episode), etc. Hell, in the recent Free To Play episode, every character but Stan's reaction to the game in question was that it was stupid, and they didn't continue playing it. So is it that it's negative, or innacurate, and if it's negative, is it that gamers can't have negative characteristics? What's the point of the list?

Or TBBT. Their console game nights look like any of the many I went to in High School, playing Halo on the x-box. Or their raiding in various MMORPGs, or casual play at Rock Band. They enjoy videogames, as a part of a whole host of media. The show's still not funny, or particularly entertaining, but that's never been because of the reactionary bullshit about how it's making fun of us. How's it negative?

 

[L. Declis]

"Hmmm..." thinks I, "maybe I should read this article, it has Big Bang Theory and looks interesting, and maybe Moviebob has moved beyond Gamergate".

Big Bang Theory:
Despite it being the banner image, I'm not gonna explain this one.

Cartman:
As we all know, Gamergaters are whiny, sexist, psychopathic manchildren who dare believe that, in terms of video games, they may have suffered as their hobby does. Fucking ingrates!

Yep, guess that's what I deserve to daring to read another article by Bob "Ethics are bad because Anita told me" Chipman.

 

[klaynexas3]

Heyyy..I kind of liked Code Monkey. Granted, it came on while I was still in middle school and was one of the last shows on G4 that actually had anything to do with video games, but still, it was entertaining enough. However, yes, it was a show riddled with nothing but stereotypes. There were no characters, just strawmen. And it also introduced me to JoCo. Or maybe it was those WoW music videos that guy did, but anyway, it wasn't a bad show.

 

[Super Cyborg]

I feel that Bob might be looking into these examples a little to much, especially the Lisa Simpson example. The first example can actually be true with anyone and games, especially at that age. You like a game so much that you get into it and not care about anything else. Happened to me plenty of times, and know it's happened to lots of other people. I have problems at times with Lisa being political all the time, but she is still a child, and can have childish tendencies as shown in other episodes (I mean look at her reaction to whenever ponies are involved). The second example is more about a gambling problem, not videogames. If anything, it could be saying online gambling is bad.

I can't get offended at these type of things, because they are just cheesy, and I've just never been called out for being a gamer in a bad way. Worse thing is my dad claims it will melt your brain, but it's usually in a joking manner. Then again, I might just be in a minority that doesn't understand the greater implications of these scenarios, and that just because I haven't been treated badly or heard it, doesn't mean it's not a problem.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I might as well come clean and loud: BLOODY SODDING HELL, WHY ON EARTH CAN'T POPULAR CULTURE PORTRAY US AS JUST NORMAL PEOPLE INSTEAD OF SOCIOPATHS OR PSCYHOPATHS?!?!?!

Because video games is a competing media form to TV and movies, so naturally TV and movies try to make it look bad. It's as simple as that.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Though I dn't know why BBT fits into this "topic" (same for some other examples), the show is just bad. Plain and simple bad even without the "haha they are nerds!" or "haha they like nerd stuff!" thing. For character who are supposed to be very intelligent or geniuses they are too fucking stupid. They act out of character all the time, the jokes are lame if you can even consider that shit as a joke.

Seriously, just find the episodes without the laugh tracks on youtube and you will see just how bad the show is.

EDIT:
Also the jokes aren't "Penny is dumb". They are "Penny isn't a genius to understand all the physics, chemistry and computer science references and jokes that 99% of the human population don't understand" She does act dumb from time to time but it's worse with Sheldon who acts like an complete idiot more often than not and since he's supposed to be super smart, it's even worse.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Oh man I remember that X-Files episode.

Now I think about it, didn't that episode somewhat foreshadow the present day situation (not the girl character killing of guy but the other thing).

 

[balladbird]

The reason there is no Mother, Final Fantasy or even many anime references is because the characters are archetypal western geeks/nerds/choice of word here. These guys grew up with Star trek, Star wars, tabletop and PC gaming, probably while looking down on anime and JRPGS as being restrictive and/or childish, if they were in an interenet debate, it is very easy to see them as being on the anti-anime side. Also there is the odd cosplay where they dress up as super heroes and star trek characters, but it normally falls under the common pool of topics.

I recall there was an episode where Sheldon and Leonard were watching anime, though. I don't think it was a real anime series, though it's hard to tell, since all we heard were sound effects, and I didn't recognize the name Leonard gave it, but it lead into Penny talking about how she knew an "annie may" once, or something or another, so it's safe to assume it was at least SUPPOSED to be an anime. XD

obligatory defense of big bang theory here, it's a fairly typical sitcom to me. I don't see what makes it particularly good or bad, but eh, to each their own.

 

[NaramSuen]

Is this some kind of joke?

Moviebob has willfully done more to damage the concept of gamers then any TV show, everything he thinks and says about gamers is based on outdated stereotypes, hearsay and basically whatever Sarkeesian tells him say

I would love to live in your world. In what possible universe is MovieBob better known than the majority of TV shows on this list? Unless you are trolling, then more power to you.

 

[iller3]

Is this some kind of joke?

Moviebob has willfully done more to damage the concept of gamers then any TV show, everything he thinks and says about gamers is based on outdated stereotypes, hearsay and basically whatever Sarkeesian tells him say

I would love to live in your world. In what possible universe is MovieBob better known than the majority of TV shows on this list? Unless you are trolling, then more power to you.

goes without saying ... But as soon as I read the `Maitreya` part, I was just like .... "nope, not taking the bait here". Someone who pretends to conflate the classic "Artificial Intelligence Frankenstein" trope for some antiFem stab, isn't worth the time it would take to type out why they're just fishing for unwarranted attention.

 

[darthdenim]

Putting Cartman on this list at all is stupid.

Bob's bias is showing again.

You know why people always call you biased about things, Bob? Cause that's how you come across in your fucking videos and blogposts.