Competition of Nostalgia
I've always been a 90's kid. When I was growing up, I never had the luxury of playing the original Atari or the Odyssey. The only reason I was able to ever play the Super Nintendo was due to the generosity of my aunt who got it for my oldest sister. I used to love to watch the Saturday morning line-up lying stomach down on the floor, four inches away from the huge CRT Television in the living room (funny thing is we still have and use that TV today). I watched Sonic the Hedgehog, Batman: The Animated Series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Biker Mice From Mars, Power Ranger, and whole mess of other shows.
I recently recovered my past when I found my first system I ever had the privilege of calling my own: My Game Boy Color. I never had ownership of our NES or Super Nintendo systems since they belonged to my older siblings. I was looking for it because the Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages came out on the virtual console for the Nintendo 3DS. I remember playing Oracle of Ages back in middle school and thought it would be cool to finally see how the two games connected. So I bought Oracle of Seasons on the 3DS and went to find my Purple Game Boy Color I put away for so many years ago. I remember it being funny that I had a Purple Game Boy, but I chose it because it was the closest thing to blue they had at the KB Toys Store.
Anyways, I took it to work to play during the lunch hours. I thought I could probably make a few dents into it every break that I got. I ended up sitting outside near the food truck playing the first dungeon when I overheard a group people probably a few years older than me talking about the old systems they had when they were a kid despite them not engaging me in the conversation. Everyone went around the table naming their system: A girl said she had a Sega Game Gear (which I actually have somewhere), another guy said he had the original Game Boy, and another was talking about the Odyssey and lastly some dude kept trying to direct the attention to him by yelling "does anyone remember the TurboGrafx? I had one!"
I guess in my own gaming elitist mentality, I felt like each and every one of those people were arrogant pricks who just thought they knew more about gaming than anyone else in the group. Yet I doubt many of them actually play video games anymore. I was nerd back then and I still am now. Instead of growing out of it, I embraced it. And I guess all the nerds that loved comic books and video games grew up and made them cool, because that's all there is these days. Marvel and DC dominate the movie theaters and the rise of the casual gamer market has made video games accessible to the masses without it feeling "nerdy." But technology is still misunderstood by the masses. A lot casual gamers buy systems for one game or for apps consoles now have (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc). But they still remember the systems they owned when they were a kid. And nostalgia seems to always come with a competition. People try to top each other in the oldest system that they had as a kid. But they probably never kept it. They didn't really think of it as a part of their life like someone would feel with their first car. It was simply just a toy they played with.
There is nothing tragic with this phenomenon. Most people grow out of a lot of stuff and leave it behind. It's okay to talk about the past, but I guess I hate the competition. I hate it when people compete in life experiences and memories. We all have different circumstances and sometimes to think that your past was worse or better than someone else's just makes conversation difficult.
So I ended up getting my lunch from the food truck (beat the first dungeon boss) and ended up leaving with saying anything. Maybe it was a stupid and whiny thing to do: to post my complaint in a blog rather than engaging my problem head on. But I just didn't feel like bothering them and I knew that I would come off as a prick no matter what. At the end of the day, I still got my fun and they were just try to win a competition that really had no meaning.
Peace.
P.S. E3 2013 just happened this week. I suggest everyone go check out all the cool stuff being released.
I recently recovered my past when I found my first system I ever had the privilege of calling my own: My Game Boy Color. I never had ownership of our NES or Super Nintendo systems since they belonged to my older siblings. I was looking for it because the Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons/Ages came out on the virtual console for the Nintendo 3DS. I remember playing Oracle of Ages back in middle school and thought it would be cool to finally see how the two games connected. So I bought Oracle of Seasons on the 3DS and went to find my Purple Game Boy Color I put away for so many years ago. I remember it being funny that I had a Purple Game Boy, but I chose it because it was the closest thing to blue they had at the KB Toys Store.
Anyways, I took it to work to play during the lunch hours. I thought I could probably make a few dents into it every break that I got. I ended up sitting outside near the food truck playing the first dungeon when I overheard a group people probably a few years older than me talking about the old systems they had when they were a kid despite them not engaging me in the conversation. Everyone went around the table naming their system: A girl said she had a Sega Game Gear (which I actually have somewhere), another guy said he had the original Game Boy, and another was talking about the Odyssey and lastly some dude kept trying to direct the attention to him by yelling "does anyone remember the TurboGrafx? I had one!"
I guess in my own gaming elitist mentality, I felt like each and every one of those people were arrogant pricks who just thought they knew more about gaming than anyone else in the group. Yet I doubt many of them actually play video games anymore. I was nerd back then and I still am now. Instead of growing out of it, I embraced it. And I guess all the nerds that loved comic books and video games grew up and made them cool, because that's all there is these days. Marvel and DC dominate the movie theaters and the rise of the casual gamer market has made video games accessible to the masses without it feeling "nerdy." But technology is still misunderstood by the masses. A lot casual gamers buy systems for one game or for apps consoles now have (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc). But they still remember the systems they owned when they were a kid. And nostalgia seems to always come with a competition. People try to top each other in the oldest system that they had as a kid. But they probably never kept it. They didn't really think of it as a part of their life like someone would feel with their first car. It was simply just a toy they played with.
There is nothing tragic with this phenomenon. Most people grow out of a lot of stuff and leave it behind. It's okay to talk about the past, but I guess I hate the competition. I hate it when people compete in life experiences and memories. We all have different circumstances and sometimes to think that your past was worse or better than someone else's just makes conversation difficult.
So I ended up getting my lunch from the food truck (beat the first dungeon boss) and ended up leaving with saying anything. Maybe it was a stupid and whiny thing to do: to post my complaint in a blog rather than engaging my problem head on. But I just didn't feel like bothering them and I knew that I would come off as a prick no matter what. At the end of the day, I still got my fun and they were just try to win a competition that really had no meaning.
Peace.
P.S. E3 2013 just happened this week. I suggest everyone go check out all the cool stuff being released.
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