/ Xeni Jardin / 4:55 pm Tue Sep 27, 2011

Introducing Gamewave, video games delivered right to your door (parody video)

Video Link. "Video games delivered to your door! What more could you ask for!?" (NSFW for repeated use of the word "vagina." Thanks, Jesse Thorn!)

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      1. I couldn’t remember who did it. I thought I heard it on Twitter from @Pat_Healy or @PeterByrnes but I checked their archives and didn’t find it. I decided to just post it and let the yuks roll rather than hat-tip the Internet. Thanks for linking back to The Oatmeal though, his stuff is great. 

  2. First I have to say that on some level the video is hilarious, if not predictable and a bit of an overdone theme.   Second, I’m an anthropology student, and like all social-scientist types it’s our job to spoil everyone’s fun. 
    Some points to consider:
    1. What message does this video send to young men who might not be sexually active, e.g., a hypothetical but quite possibly real BoingBoing reader who is 16, happens to be a gamer, and gets picked on for not getting laid?
    2. What message does this video send to GBTQ young men?
    3.  What does it say in general about the fact that “getting vagina “is equated with some kind of level of normalcy or health? IMHO, the two do not necessarily go together.  In fact, the quest for it has made myself and many other men do some of the most reprehensible, stupid, and most demoralizing things imaginable. Not to mention STD’s, unwanted babies, domestic violence, rape, etc, all in the quest for vagina or to keep getting it.
    4. What effect would this video have if it depicted a bunch of women being interviewed about something and asked if they know what penis feels like?  would that fly? 
    5. At what point do we as an online culture that likes to pride ourselves on our political correctness and keen sense of social justice start to really look at how some of the things we view as humor might be harmful?
    6. If men (white in particular) are viewed as the worst offenders and least sensitive to social justice issues, how does it help to not afford them the same respect we afford marginalized groups.
    7. Do we remain stupid domesticated primates because on some level we really like to be stupid domesticated primates?

    Please don’t frag me, I am merely asking questions.  To show I have a sense of humor, while I am not a gamer any longer, I am a white male and it has been far too long since I have felt a vagina. :)

  3. Seriously? Jokes about gamers not having sex? How original. I expect better from both Boing Boing and Jordan Morris.

  6. Why would BB even have this on their site??! Way to alienate your fans. This is supposed to be a geek haven. But, oh haha, look at this, here is a video that makes fun of all of you losers who play video games. ON A GEEK SITE??!!

    I’ve never been Angry Chiefier than I am right now.

    1. Queer has nothing to do with anything. It’s the fact that there is a promoted video on this site that pegs geeks as sexless social outcasts even though geeks make up a good portion of people on BB. Poor conduct.

  8. Dang, guys.  Lighten up a bit.  So it’s a recycled joke.  So it pegs “geeks”, the subculture to which this site generally caters.  Is it so difficult to take it in the spirit it was posted and either chuckle and move on or don’t chuckle and still just move on?

    Sheesh.

    1. No, because it isn’t funny, either. It doesn’t offer anything new or surprising. The spirit it is offered is: “Here’s a funny joke.” I didn’t laugh, so what’s left? Social commentary. And it’s terrible social commentary.

      1. I guess I’m just having trouble getting up in arms about the “social commentary” presented.  The image of the geek-as-virgin at this point is so overplayed and cliche that a video like this can hardly be said to even be making a point, just riffing on a point that has been around for ages and ground to a pulp.  The fact that you didn’t laugh doesn’t mean there’s social commentary left, it just means you didn’t laugh.

    3. That’s what I tell everyone when they overreact to other jokes about stereotypes, like women being bad at math, or black people liking fried chicken. Lighten up and take it in the spirit in which was intended! Sheesh!

      As a geek who was occasionally pummeled in school for just being a geek, I can say that this kind of stereotyping is not all that funny. I’m out of that now, with a wife, daughter, etc. But I can imagine there are still plenty of geeky boys out there who will see this and think “What’s wrong with me?”

      So, yeah…screw the spirit in which it was posted.

      1. Have to agree with you on that, none of them struck me as being gay, just shut-in gamers.

        A perhaps more poignant video would show how these guys aren’t seeing anyone (for sad and/or hilarious reasons), and so are only left with gaming.

        And as Leonard so succinctly puts it, too many of us game for a false sense of achievement (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6W1hWdmKZo) which we may not be getting, or be able to accept in our real lives.

  11. Tired old joke?
    Retreaded with high production values?
    Terrible job casting a bunch of handsome guys as stereotypical virginal geeks?

    Why is BoingBoing putting this in front of us?  Actively offensive on several vectors, without the saving grace of being at least funny.

  12. Kind of funny society still picks on geeks when all the cool people are addicted to the internet. Everybody is always online, Twittering, Facebooking, What’sApp-ing their way through life. And if it’s not social networks, it’s playing Angry Birds or Farmville or Wii Fitt. The iPhone turned the computer into a fashion accesoiry. Everybody is never more then an arms lenght away from their cutting edge touch screen enabled super phone.
    Everybody is a nerd.

  15. It’s a weak gag, but the execution is odd.  I realize the gag is that gamers are white, middle-class 40 year-old virgins with no social skills.  I’ve heard that one before, shockingly.  What would have made it funny for me is of one the geeks turned over his shoulder and asked his wife/gf “Honey, how would you describe it?”  I can’t help but notice they’ve stacked the deck here with relatively normal looking dudes.

    It’s not that it’s an old joke…it’s that it’s been done better.  I assume next week they’ll be knocking on D&D players as overly brainy and socially inept?

  16. Yeah… this just doesn’t have the feel of “we’re cool enough to take a joke about ourselves”. It’s a very tired joke and there’s something vindictive to it.

    The fact that through the whole thing they talk about ‘vagina’ as if that’s a synonym for ‘woman’ is pretty shitty too. Like WizardDru implies, what if all these guys are in healthy relationships with breathing, three-dimensional women and are just utterly freaked out by the interviewer being a creep?

  18. Wow, I’ve got to say I’m disappointed in Jesse and Jordan (and everyone else who participated) for this little piece of cheap shot obviousness.  There’s something especially lame about seeing comedy nerds, a group well known for their social skills and romantic successes, taking this kind of cliche-ridden shot at gamers.  We expect better from Maximum Fun.

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