[-empyre-] Punk and Games, messages by Julian and Gabriel

[Mathias Fuchs]

Videogames and Punk Music

There seem to be different opinions how "punk" early videogames were. 
Julian suggests that "Gaming culture was never positioned against 
anything else..." which I doubt. I can detect "against" on the level of 
user-generations, jargon, embeddedness in a mediatic set-up, aesthetics, 
and lifestyle.
Resemblances to Punk could be found in a preference of media that are 
definitely not high-culture (Commodores and Ataris versus tv broadcast), 
jargon (fragged, high-score, bots), geekyness as a lifestyle element. 
When gamers refused to watch TV is was provocative agains a cherished 
media environment that the parent generation identified with. Now it 
worries the BBC, that gamers don't switch on Coronation Street.

There are even unpleasant similarities of gamers' opposition to the 
establishment and punk opposition against the establishment. The Sex 
Pistols' use of the swastika was a  naive teen-age revolt against 
moderate high-culture that reappeared in a lot of Nazi emblematic in 
early videogames up to Wolfenstein.
"Strong language" is another thing that made videogame attractive and 
opposed to the censored correct speech of the traditional media.
But also the generation divide and gender divide between 14 to 18 year 
old boys and non-gamers could be interpreted as an enforced rebellious 
act via cultural techniques (of jargon, lifestyle, fashion) and thereby 
be acoounted for as "against".

Mathias