video games and empathy

first off, all my life i keep hearing that i'm 'not the type' to like video games. i guess because i'm such a hippie...oh wait. so here's the thing about me and the media:

i'm not that into video entertainment (movies, tv shoes, video games). lately it seems i'm not that into much of anything (...ok so i make an exception for jason mraz) . i realize that the enjoyment they give is fleeting. tho of course, this turns out to be the case for all things (remember that whole food tasting like meaningless existence thing?)...i guess i'm just more accutely aware of it in the case of something designed to shut off your brain and entertain you. and i can't stand being bombarded with advertisements that promote the over-consumption of this culture while doing so, and so i am really opposed to broadcast television (hence, no tv).

in my utopian world where everyone's awesome and responsible and living communally off the land and having the best time, there is no mass media, and all of art in the world is made as personal expression and becomes part of the public domain. soooooooo, no, i'm not behind the mass media machine. and yes i know that video games are a part of this machine. you'd be right if you used that as your basis for why i'm not that type. because in my mind art should be free, i don't much like the idea of having to pay for that shit, and that means i don't often (ever, lately) end up giving my money to that machine (paying to see movies, for example). turns out in the end my life isn't emptier because i abstain from the majority of video media.

of course, none of this means i categorically refuse to partake ("it's best not to be too moral. you cheat yourself out of too much life. aim above morality." thanks, maude). just that, when i'm the one making my own decisions about what i do with my time (which is, generally, always), video media doesn't figure in too much.

but i do enjoy playing video games. they're quite fun, actually, and i'm pretty good at them (ok, so not the fighting ones, i never was into them). back in the day when i was less bothered by the consumptive nature of our society, and owned a tv and used it regularly to fill the void, i prided myself on having owned all of the nintendo systems. the thing is, people used to say back then that i wasn't the 'type' to play video games, too. maybe it's just because i'm a girl. does a uterus mean you can't like video games? maybe it's because i like nature. surely you can't like nature AND video games. i never really understood it myself, because i have always been the kind of person who IS into video games. how can i not be the person i am? stop trying to stereotype me, world!!

and as for empathy, i guess i'll write about it another time.