J-Cat's blog of 11-06...

...is indeed one with many things to consider when you take the next self-time in a comfy chair with a good smoke and a hot coffee. There are too many hooks and eyes in there to just read it and do it away as a regular musing, the blog perches on the thinnest pilar of personal existance; social interaction and the maybe cultural and regional convictions on how said existance should be colored in.

The Xbox-less kid, for instance, was in my opinion indeed bereft of his social life the way it was perfect for him. When you consider that the friends he had on his buddylist are real people he felt comfortable with and accepted by (thereby giving meaning to his existance), being cut off from those people took away his life-blood aswell. The 360 is more than just a machine that plays games without ever growing tired of it, or even of it's owner. The 360 is also a window that facilitates an intricate social network of people that are bound together by common interest. A common interest makes social interaction rewarding. Moreover, it facilitates people to be something they might not be outside XBL, a kid in a wheelchair becomes the savior of the world, complete with red bandana and the ability to run around freely carrying 15 different weapons while spouting tosterone driven one-liners. A kid who leaves no memory behind in others after a day at school, becomes a leader on XBL showing other kids the ropes in difficullt, high-action games. Those kids are real people and it must be understood that they maintain social networks that are larger than three past generations of your family ever could pool together on christmas eve. They even have to work much harder to maintain that network aswell. One day not logging on can cause irrepairable damage to one's status on-line.

Nothing is as fleething as people one knows online. If I were to suddenly stop posting here, some of you might notice this and wonder for a short moment where I went but in the end it doesn't matter. A week from there and I'm just someone who used to post here in the past and maybe, just maybe, some of you might even realise I'm still in your XBL buddy-list. Should I want to be remembered, or even more valued as a member to 2o2p, I should work much harder than this, or at least develop a taste for twitch-shooters and weasle myself in the ranks of HaloIII players on here. I respectfully decline. Snake-eyes being snake-eyes, I still rather have friends for who I am, than for what fancy title I play on a daily basis.

Never having been a parent myself I can't say if the parents of the kid in J-cat's blog did the right thing or not. I dare to venture down the road of pointing at the ignorance to the importance of XBL to the kid, however. It seems as if the parents failed to see beyond the fact that their kid was only playing games. On XBL, the game is merely facilitating a way to interact socially with real people. The only importance the game has is in the nature of the title of the game, as I hinted at a paragraph above. Low interest titles garner little friends online. Point in case, if I were to prune my buddy-list of people who are there solely on the basis that I added them to play a high-profile game in the past, but afterwards had no dealings with because I went on to play a different game than they did, I would be left only with my nephew, whether I'm 2o2p or not. My buddy-list is only packed with contacts because I'm too lazy to do anything about it, that's all.

The nature of having social contacts has changed, and the change is not going to go away. The notion that one has go outside to meet people in order to have friendships that are meaningful is in my opinion hopelessly old fashioned. The fact that people are not physically present to a person on line, doesn't make the relationship any less tangible. Consider, the fact that I'm posting here broadcasts my musings to an incredibly large audience. Not only do I reach my clannies here, but this post is also read (and hopefully understood), by lurkers not registered here and by people who are lead here by Google's "Gamble"-feature. That means that I'm bound by far stricter rules in what I say and how I choose to say it. Soren Kierkegaard said, "People demand the freedom of speech to compensate for the freedom of thought, which they already possess." In a physical meeting with a friend, I have a lot more privacy than on here, and a lot more room to express myself in a way that just won't do digitally.

In any case, the black side of maintaining a meaningful presence on XBL is a conumdrum. Does one have friends to play games, or does one play a game to have friends? It's by that conumdrum that digital relationships on XBL should be valued. Again, since the only point of reference I have is me, I joined 2o2p because I litterally fit the bill, I'm too old to play games. My mindset has always been that I'm here, I'm playing a game. Come and join me if you want and if not, cool runnings. For me, the ability to interact with you guys on here makes up for the apparent lack of worthy multiplayer titles in my library and my obviously faltering dedication to commit slavishly to the ones I do have. I belong purely on those merits alone, but I'll be damned before I start jumping through hoops to be affirmed so.

Maybe that's the destinction the kid above failed to notice. It could very well be that he enjoyed being affirmed, but overlooked the fact that he was being affirmed for the wrong reasons, namely, he was not getting affirmed for who he was, but for what he was. And being able to make that distinction is something one only learns correctly from being well parented.

Last minute edit: for the sake of asking questions, in relation to the above and being 2o2p. Do you use your buddy-list to justify the fact that you 'still' enjoy videogames for others? Do you feel obligated to the people on your buddy-list as in; playing a game you don't really want to play, but still play because you want remain 'friends'? Do you find yourself limiting your scores on friends-leaderboards to allow  people staying ahead of you to maintain fragile friendships? Do you sometimes or oftenly realise that your opinion on games is based on how your XBL-buddies feel about them, while in fact you feel quite different about those games personally? Do you speak out against your XBL-buddies, or do you rather remain silent out of fear you might be left with no-one to game with?

I don't ask those questions expecting an answer. Just sit back and think about it. If you're like me, the answer should be obvious. But there are those who are subject to one or even all of those questions and don't fool yourself thinking it doesn't apply to 2o2p. The kid in J-cat's blog isn't an anomaly, and his pitfall is equally a clear danger to adults aswell.