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Everything
Bad, Isn't
by
Rick Presley
For
all you slackers out there who have put down the PS2
long enough to see what’s happening in ginkworld, I
have good news for you: you haven’t been wasting your
time. Steven Johnson (author of Emergence
and Mind
Wide Open,) has released his latest
pop-commentary on pop-culture, Everything
Bad is Good For You. The premise of the book is
that culture, including games, television and movies, is
far more complex than it used to be and that one has to
be far more sophisticated to “get it” now than in
the past. Johnson begins by showing how games and gaming
are far more complex and interactive than the pundits
have been complaining. His book has generated a lot of
buzz in both the blogosphere and dead tree media.
Even
more important, but less well known, is the parallel
book Got
Game by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade. I
recently attended an education summit where Dr.
Beck was the first guest speaker. He set the tone
for the whole conference with a cultural overview
comparing Boomer culture to the Gamer culture. He
presented an hour-long overview of their research,
which indicated not so much a generation gap but a
cultural shift. While his research focused on the needs
of the business world and helping organizations relate
to the cultural shift, there are a number of lessons
that apply to the church.
One
of the things Beck said in his presentation was that the
generation gap between Boomers (1949-1965) and their
parents is qualitatively different than the gap between
Gamers and their parents. The first thing you will
notice here is that I didn’t say between Gen-Xers and
their parents. He pointed out that the shift was not
related to age, but to whether people were nongamers,
moderate gamers or frequent gamers. He found more
similarities between Boomers who were frequent gamers
and youngsters who were frequent gamers than between
Gamers and their non-gaming contemporaries. There are a
number of Boomers who cut their teeth on Pong and have
played most of “The
Essential 50” games who know what gaming is all
about. Meanwhile, there are plenty of Amish kids out
there who have never played video games; so it isn’t
about when you were born but about your experiences
growing up (for those of you who have done so).
As
an example he said that both the Boomer and Gamer
generations were shaped by technology – the Boomers by
television and the Gamers by video games. The big
difference is that for Boomers, their parents sat next
to them while the culture was shifting. Television was a
shared experience with parents and their children. Sure
Dad was always complaining about the garbage that was on
TV but at least he knew what the garbage was because he
was sitting there right next to you complaining about
it. The parents of Gamers, on the other hand, have no
idea what their kids are doing for all those hours glued
to the Game Cube. Boomer parents may not have approved
of Starsky and Hutch but at least they knew who they
were. Gamer parents wouldn’t recognize Lara Croft or
Tony Hawke if they showed up on a billboard (which they
have). Play the first three bars of the theme from Hill
Street Blues and Boomers will say, “Be careful out
there,” but play the entire range of selections from
DDR Max and they won’t have a clue where the music is
from, let alone recognize any of the manga-like
characters associated with the tunes.
The
point is that Gamers think differently, learn
differently and believe differently than their
non-gaming Boomer counterparts. Gamers tend to be more
sociable, are more likely to take risks for potential
rewards, prefer to be rewarded on their abilities but
also trust that there is a certain amount of luck to the
world. One of the most important differences between
Gamers and Boomers is that Gamers tend to take the
“meta-view” of things. Because gamers can shift
views in the virtual world with a flick of the
controller, they translate this into an ability to see
themselves from an observer/outsider point of view in
their own lives. This leads them to be less attached to
their viewpoints and more subject to revision with
additional information. They are more flexible and less
opinionated.
This
also leads to Gamers having a more global view of life
and their country’s place in the world. When teens are
getting up before the crack of dawn to play a MOG
(multiplayer online game) because that is when the team
from Germany is online, we have truly opened the lines
of cross-cultural communication in an unprecedented way.
The closest Boomers came to routine cross-cultural
contact was watching a few Japanese-made cartoons like Speed
Racer, Kimba
the White Lion and Astro
Boy or the occasional Godzilla movie. Gamers can
say “All your base are belong to us” and explain why
it’s funny. Real gamers can tell you why it’s not
funny any more.
What
this says for the church today is that there is an
opportunity in the cultural shift we would be wise to
notice. Most youth workers are unaware of the
Boomer-Gamer gap because they’re gamers themselves.
They find a number of mystifying things in their
relationships with non-gamers in the church but chalk it
up to them being old farts who don’t handle change
well, not realizing that these same old farts
participated in the last great cultural shift.
Non-gaming Boomers are likewise mystified by the Gamers
in their midst. It isn’t just the slang (since they
were the ones who coined more slang in their day than
any previous generation) but the attitude in the
conversation. Nor is it a generation gap because there
are plenty of Boomers who are or were once Gamers
themselves. It is a nearly invisible shift in worldview,
outlook, attitude and approach to life that sets Gamers
apart from non-gamers.
Churches
would be wise to tap into the collaborative spirit of
Gamers and enlist their aid in church ministry. They
should appreciate their ability to multi-task and
concentrate on five things at once. They should tap into
their use of technology and put their networking skills
to work as internet evangelists. They should let the
Gamers design the church web sites, making them more
interactive, creative and imaginative. Let them present
the Bible in new and engaging ways. Give them the
freedom to express themselves in a Flash presentation
with animated graphics on the church projection screens.
Give them every opportunity to harness their unique
talents to blog, to IM, to e-mail, to animate, to game
in a context where they can reach an audience that some
of us don’t even know exists.
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