why I HATE sterotypical view of gamers

I just had a talk of my mother on what her view of the gamer is and to my surprise, her view of gamer is someone like this " 

When I told her not all gamers are fat, she replied " of cause they are not fat, they are thin because they often forget to eat." You see we live in a sad age where worldly view of gamers tend to be shown by those who are OBSESSED with videogames and tend to think all video gamers are in otaku level. That is really dangerous thought to be have around. Why? well if that is the case of many non-gamers have on gamers then no one will take us seriously or even view us in negative light. They might  even think us as a people in need of psychological problems.  I want to say that that is far from the truth and infact I believe that there are some people who are obsessed in EVERY media. I think it is bit unfair to say that gamers are people with no life outside of games just cause their are some people who act in this way.


another thing I will talk about is what others have talked about in previous posts. Society tend to think video gamers as a person who has been brainwashed into thinking nothing but a violence in game. I remember watching a news in Korea talking about " dangers of videogames" as it can be seen through Starcraft. They said that it shows " too much violence" to kids as units that gets killed ( especially Zerg and Terrans) have blood splitting all over the place. It was ages ago ( when I was in grad school) and I remember news announcer  calling that game as " mindless violence." I think this shows how the society sees videogames and gamers in general. To most non-gamers  violent videogames could be seen as violent activity just existing for enjoyment of violent obsessed people ( kinda like Roman gladiators in ancient Rome.) of cause like it was talked about during the lecture and tutorial these people often ignore the difference between fictional violence and the actual violence.  It seems that people just assume that all video-gamers are just some sort of violence loving puppy-kicking people who just enjoy violence for the sake of violence.

Also like it was said on Tuesday lecture the fact that games are " for kids" damages views on gamers as well. I know a lot of games seems to be immature plaything but there are some complex games as well. Like many fantastic real time strategy games like Age of Empires series or starcraft needs user to use their brain in order to win. what about games with deep storys like Mass Effect series. All of these games I believe can be seen as mature games for the adults. If non-gamers have the views that games are for the kids and only kids and manchild will play it, then I fear that their would be little hope for gamers to advance as a medium.

overall these are some common misconceptions that many non-gamers have on gamers and while some may be justified to some gamers- I feel that it would be bit of a stretch to place it to all gamers as gamer society are wider then this.  Like any other media gamer society has a people who are obsessed and people who can control it. Like people have said before, I think it may be just a people not understanding this new medium.