GeekRising

Who am I? Why am I here? How, exactly, did I lose one metric ton of albino African rhinoceros feces? These are all questions that we regularly ask ourselves, but have yet to find definitive answers to. Until now, that is. To answer the first question, I am a gamer. But what does that say about me? After collecting massive amounts of data and research over a period spanning the greater part an hour, I feel I am finally prepared to answer this question. You can see the results in graphic form at the top of the page.

But how did I arrive at these conclusive results? In fact, it is a tale of untold sacrifice and perseverance. At least, it was before I told you about it. You see, in order to gain the necessary data, I forced my self to undertake the morally questionable task of watching G4 TV for an entire hour. Now, as we all know, there is only one reason for watching G4 TV, and her name is Olivia Munn. I, however, was watching for the ads (which, incidentally, turned out to be much easier than watching the actual content). I figured that, by watching the ads on a network targeted at gamers, I would be able to create a detailed and unequivocally accurate profile of the average gamer.

So who were the major players? The answers might surprise you. Or, they might not. Either way, one of the most frequent advertisers on the network turned out to be Bosley, the hair restoration experts. Obviously, this would indicate that the average gamer is probably balding, and is thus around the age of 40. So far so good, no real surprises there. Another group of advertisers can be lumped into a category I’m going to call “smelly-good stuff”, and included advertisers such as Tag body spray and Old Spice. From this we can conclude that the average gamer has at least a medium-high level of stink, with the majority possessing enough stink to produce visible stink lines. Once again, no real surprises.

It does get a little more interesting, though. For example, easily the most ubiquitous advertisement was one for the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. Really, the only possible conclusion here is that gamers love sharks and are therefore eXtreme. Yes, that was a capital X, and, yes, I went there. Probably the most common group of advertisements were those for loans. While these ads were probably targeted more towards PS3 owners (zing!), it’s probably pretty safe to assume that most gamers are pretty strapped for cash. This theory was even further reinforced by ads for Cash4Gold.com. Assuming they didn’t mean Warcraft gold, I feel I can safely conclude that the average gamer is short on cash but probably has a fairly large stockpile of gold somewhere.

Food was another category that garnered a large amount of ad time.  Common themes among the various foods and beverages that were advertised included a lack of nutritional content, and lack of preparation necessary for consumption. This can only mean that gamers are extremely busy and always on the go. Also, they’re fat.

Finally, one of the more lasting impressions was made by the enormous amount of commercials for the US Army. The reasons for this apparent propensity of gamers for being military fodder are most likely twofold. First, it’s likely that years of playing first-person shooters have trained us and honed our skills to a point where we make natural soldiers. It’s also just as likely that we’ve wasted our lives playing video games and thus have no marketable skills and/or future.

Well, I hope that gives you a better idea of who you are. I’m off to go find some rhino poo.