Hello Humans and welcome to Getting Gamers, the guide to understanding the gamers in your life.
I am your host, Juke, my pronouns are They/them and I am fascinated by Gamers.
My fascination is not about video games, it really is about the Gamers.
Now let me explain :P
Growing up, I never had a video game console and I was always a bit of a black sheep. (Ok maybe a lot)
I grew up in shared custody and on my mom’s side she just figured I didn’t seem that interested in video games and she probably assumed they wouldn’t be good for me. As most parents do.
And on my dad’s side, my step brother had a gaming console, but we weren’t very close and I was too anxious to ask to play and have someone watch me be bad at something. Other than that I had some friends that had various consoles, But as a teen, everyone had already grown up with video games and were already all good at them, so I was always too scared to show how bad I was. I played RockBand and Guitar Hero once in a while because I’ve always been a musician, but I never got really good at those and was too shy to play when there were too many people. I would mostly do the vocals, because those were the easiest for me, and even then, I would pump the sound on the television super high so that no one could hear me sing.
And so with my limited knowledge of video games and yet again the feeling of being a black sheep and feeling like a loser. I developed a similar view of gaming as I think most non-gamers have. I figured it was just another way to waste time and distract yourself, a little like me binge watching tv shows and frying my brain.
As the years went on, I dated many gamers, but again no one really tried to explain it to me or show me how to play. So I just kind of viewed it as this thing that kept my partners away from me, it was this part of their world that I wasn’t privy to.
Then around the ages of 17-18, the boyfriend I had at the time, had a younger brother who was really into computers and hacking and programming, so he challenged himself to get Windows to Run on my Macbook pro so that he could install Borderlands 2 on the laptop and have me play with them... and he succeeded.
I was able to play alongside them and loot while they killed bad guys and I would piggy back on the experience point they would get until I could get a good enough weapon to try to shoot, and I started learning to be a sniper. Though I often would somehow end up in the middle of a bunch of enemies and die. They had fun laughing at my reactions and watching me learn to love a game they had been playing for so long. It was a real bonding moment, we would have friends over and do Lan parties and I even got to a point where I would play on my own to try to level up my character so that I could catch up to them. And to this day I still love Borderlands.
After a while that laptop couldn’t handle gaming anymore and I left said boyfriend with the computer genius Brother. And I never really tried to get back into gaming. I just assumed Borderlands was just gonna be the one game I ever liked and left it at that.
Fast forward a few years and some toxic exes, all the way to the end of 2018 where I met the love of my life and we started a relationship that I knew I was meant to last. It didn’t take long to find out that this guy was a capital G Gamer, he even was in various competitions and he was gooood.
By the time he entered my life, I had already learnt that Gaming was more than just frying your brain and wasting time. And I knew just enough to be impressed by his talents and a little turned on by his soccer dad attitude when I would hear him motivate his team and strategies like a pro.
Again, this is the love of my life we are talking about, I wanted to know everything about his world, and that included gaming. I asked questions about the games, the slang, the strategies, and eventually was comfortable enough to show him how bad I was. He welcomed all my questions and he started showing me games like Diablo, Hearthstone, Pummel Party, Heroes of the storm and even Resident Evil. Though, We would have to play when his roommates weren’t home, cz I tend to scream at the TV a lot. I think for him, like for many gamers, he always dreamed of a girlfriend who would try to understand.
I do think they are really misunderstood. Gamers get this reputation for being super toxic and violent and isolated. But most of the gamers I know are pretty soft and calm people, they have team work etiquette and talk to their friends almost every day, sometimes several times a day. They learn how to strategies at a young age and are always open to learning new optimal ways of playing and their reflexes and coordination is impressive to say the least.
I'm not saying that the toxicity isn't there, it is and it does need to be acknowledged. There are bad apples in every bunch but they do not represent the entire community.
Having been a quiet observer for so long, to now being a little bit more implicated and learning and playing, I have developed a Passion for understanding them and their world..
People have this preconceived image of what is a gamer, but when you actually get to know their world, you get to see that there is way more to it.
Which brings me to this podcast. In my fascination and wanting to learn more about this world that I was foreign to for most of my life. I thought I could share what I learn with you guys.
Whenever I talk of gaming to non-gamers, especially parents and partners, I see that there is so much that they don’t understand. And most gamer content is made by gamers for gamers.
So here I am, a noob, who doesn’t know much, but wants to learn. I will be inviting various guests such as, gamers, non-gamers, parents, girlfriends and more. To have casual discussions about different topics that I know nothing about. And together we will learn. What is BM? Why can’t they pause the game when I ask them to? And so many more questions that you will have to subscribe to know more about.
For example, Gamertags, what is a gamertag?
A gamertag is like a username that gamers use in most of the games they play, and is often used as a nickname for one another, especially when they meet through online games. It is not uncommon for them to call themselves by their gamertags even when they are not gaming.
Like for me, Juke is not my real name. It’s the name I use whenever I game and it is also the name of my character in Dungeons and Dragons, a very popular role playing game that most moms only know about because of TV shows such as Stranger Things and Big Bang Theory.
As I mentioned earlier, I am a musician and I have this impulsive habit, that whenever I hear someone say a word that I remember hearing in a song, I immediately start singing. My repertoire of songs is really big, which means that as a young impulsive teenager, I would break out into song A LOT. Which led people to say “Ok Jukebox” as a loving way to tell me to shut up. Even though it was a sign of annoyance whenever I got called Jukebox, I always kinda liked the name, and I figured if ever I had to be renamed, or somehow turned into a boy, I would want my name to be Juke.
And so years later, when I was looking for a gender-neutral gamer tag, to use while playing video games, but also so that I could be included in this little world of nicknames and acceptance. I decided it would be Juke. I had already been using it while playing Dnd which gave me the confirmation that I liked the sound of it, so I went for it.
And so to help you (and I) fully immerse ourselves in the gaming world, on this podcast we use Gamertags instead of our names, because… well, they are our names.
Everytime I have a new guest on the podcast, I will ask them about their gamertag and where it comes from.
If there are terms that I have said in this episode that you don’t understand, don’t worry, we will be covering all of it. But just in case I miss any, why don’t you write to us on Twitter or on Facebook @GettingGamers to let us know what terms you don’t understand and any other questions you may have about that side of the world.
If you yourself are a gamer and you have noticed that I have gotten something wrong. Please do not hesitate to write to us too, so that I can make sure the information I give out is as accurate as can be.
