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Does Age equal Maturity?
More and more in Ants and in the gaming community in general, age is becoming a "deciding factor" of judging someone's maturity. Is age a true measure of someone's responsibility and self-control? Are all 14 year olds "l33t testosteroine-pumped talk smackers?"
- by ounze519
Content and Age
The first issue that seems to come up with the "younger" players is their content. Yes, there's blood, there's gore, and there's lots of talk about various sexual organs and functions. It seems that many people assume that younger players cannot separate fiction from reality, which is not true. I have been playing this game for awhile and other online multiplayer games and I haven't shot any teachers or fellow classmates yet. I'm not an exception either. I have several friends who are similar in age to me and also play games like ants, CS and Quake, and they're normal in every way (except a small case of computer-geekism). On the other hand, my brother's friend in 4th grade whom, after playing Quake 2, was scared to turn the lights off at night for a week. My point? It all depends on the individual. I'm sure there are 20-somethings out there that have the same problems seeing Ants as a game, and just a game, as the "disturbed" portion of 13-year olds do; most certainly not all, however. It's the same with young players: some, not all.
Smack talking
I have noticed, as of late, that one of the first things that are thrown at abusive smack talkers is the statement "f*cking prepubescent (insert age between 10 and 15 here) year old". Yes, some of us teens, kiddies and per-adults do smack talk. Some 40 year olds talk smack too. Some. However, the majority of 40 year olds don't smack talk, and many can be quite pleasant to talk to. Many experts and respectable players have interesting things to say too, if you give them a chance before you call them a newbie or lagger.The generalization that a large portion of players draw upon us is mind-boggling. Also, I will admit that there's probably a higher percentage of early teenagers smack talking than the 20+ year old group, but there's also a higher percentage of deaths from dogs than from cats. Does that mean we kill all the dogs and praise the cats?
Free Speech... Infringed?
A common misperception of many younger players is that we're nearly 100 percent "impressionable". So, in that view, if someone starts talkin 'bout the nookie and porn that they got, we'll suddenly turn into vulgar-mouthed assholes. Well, if that was true, then this world would be pretty screwed up, because I hear stuff a lot worse at School than I do anywhere in gaming. We all also have to remember that it's not OUR responsibility to act any different than we normally would just to accommodate someone else's age. If they can't handle it, they can leave. We have minds of our own too; if we don't like something, we can turn it off just as easily as you can.
The Young, the... Stupid?
There's absolutely no refuting the fact that those older have more general experience than those younger. Respect your elders, right? Well, not always. We can learn things from those both older than us and younger than us. If I could say there is just one discrimination that's thrown at me because of my age that bothers me the most, it would be the fact that far too many people consider others incapable of doing anything worthwhile due to lack of experience in life. For some reason, this just doesn't seem fair to me, and if you put yourself in their position, then I'm sure that you'll agree that it's just not right. We're capable of doing a lot more than most assume, and, most importantly, we're capable of learning, just like everyone else.
Conclusion
The younger players of online games are not children. We are "little people" (and in some cases, not so little...). We are capable of separating fictional depictions from real life, and we are capable of dealing with those that don't have a saintly vocabulary. If something offends us, we can turn it off. We're not all these horrible smack talkers that are just trying to ruin your day. We can be intellectual, we can be interesting. Most importantly of all, we are individuals.
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