Well, the article does blame men only, although there is one woman mentioned in the article, but someone in the comments says that “women have it worse”, which is pretty ironic to me.
The article does portray the chicken or the egg paradox (does gaming create joblessness or does joblessness create gamers?) pretty fairly, though.
Yeah Emily is mentioned by name. And I don’t see how complaining about one steroetype with another fixes anything. Housing and cooking shows… seriously? Consumerist TV… did all the guys out there stop watching GoT and the Walking Dead and I missed it?
I think, perhaps, Woodlance was pointing out the stupidity of one vast generalization by using another one.
Or maybe he’s a rampaging sexist, now finally revealed in his true form!
One or the other, I’m sure.
I can’t speak for @Woodlance, but I think he has a point by noting that despite naming a female subject in the body, the article’s author does overwhelmingly slant the text towards this being a male problem. It’s just another log of poo on the “this article sucks” pile.
[quote]
…with young men often thought the most at-risk demographic.[/quote]
[quote]
…stopping young people (particularly men) from starting real, adult lives.[/quote]
[quote]
…the employment rate for men in their 20s…[/quote]
[quote]
As the hours young men spent in work dropped in the 2000s…[/quote]
Etc…
I never said that the word choice of “young men” instead of saying say young people was a good choice by the author especially when the author actually provides a woman as an example but the answer to that is not to throw fire on crappy stereotypes about women, whether it was serious or for shits and giggles.
The author focused on young men for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean a similar trend isn’t also happening with young women or that men are being blamed for something women aren’t either.
Well, like I wrote when I first posted the link, this isn’t a new concept for an article. Video games are the reason why young men can’t hold steady jobs, get less degrees, and commit crimes apparently.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/04/opinion/bennett-men-in-trouble/
If you dig around, there are numerous articles in this vein. Most of the more recent ones (including the current one we’re discussing) start from Erik Hurst’s survey results published at the University of Chicago noting that young men spend “seventy-five percent of their leisure time” playing videogames. Presumably, instead of curing cancer or solving the Middle East issue.
Yeah. I’ve seen what you are saying, but why is there this assumption that or idea that if young men are being looked at that just means they’re not blaming women for the same thing. Are women doing the same thing. Is the trend even the same? I look for women, and I don’t see the articles, but the article you posted has 3 examples and one of them is a woman.
You’re really going out of your way to miss the point of an (admittedly crude) joke.
Maybe this is hard to understand from the perspective of a man, but it’s not fucking funny.
I think it’s part of the stereotype that men must get jobs, good degrees, be productive members of society, and do worthwhile things, while women can be homemakers etc. Millennials are layabout good-for-nothings. It also feeds into the “videogames are for kids” line of thought.
Basically, it hits a whole bunch of dumb prejudices all at once.
I don’t recall saying it was.
You seem to be searching for much more meaning that was attempted at being conveyed. The original article made a kind of dumb point. Someone else made an equally dumb point to illustrate that. There’s really not much more to it than that.
edit: Well, I mean, assuming that Woodlance does’t just think women do nothing but knit all day long or whatever. I don’t wanna speak for the guy or anything. But I was kinda giving him the benefit of the doubt!
This made me laugh out loud, thank you.
Wow the Economist has gone downhill. What a worthless article.
In fairness, it’s their offshoot lifestyle mag, and not the paper proper.
Ah I see, its like their version of “Hello” magazine, but for culturally obsolete pseudo intellectuals :)
I think NEETs in Japan tend to be characterized as videogame-playing layabouts. Maybe it’s coming to America. Or maybe automation and the economy means we need a UBI and let people spend it on whatever cheap life and entertainment they want?
Too bad we don’t have sigs on this board . . .
I think its worry about the future tax base. Can’t get a piece of what was never earned in the first place.
I don’t know where you (not you you when I say you) get this though. Unless you’re being raised as someone’s daughter and know otherwise why would you think women are not also pressured to get good jobs, degrees, be productive members? AND get married, be homemakers and raise kids. We’re often expected to be both in many cases. And if you don’t do one, there is an auto assumption there is something wrong with you since no man wants you, if you don’t do the other then there is this ever persistent struggle among women and men on whether that is okay or not.
I certainly won’t say that means women have it worse, but that’s probably where the POV comes from.
I think anyone who graduated from ~ 2008 to now really has had a lot of cards stacked against them, regardless of sex, or gender or race. Video games are easily accessible now, but escaping to TV wouldn’t be different. If I changed all the times they say video game with some other pass time, what would really change in that article, nothing unless it was physical activity or maybe generated income in some way.
Not bothering to read it, but does the Economist thing name check Zimbardo? Feels like ground he was staking out a few years ago: