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Cringeworthy things you've seen gamers in person do?

fernoca

Member
Though this thread would be about actual cringeworthy stuff, not "my coworker has a figurine on his desk...NERD ALERT!!"


*****

A few years ago, a friend of mine came to visit and we went to Gamestop to pick a few games for him to play when he returned back to Mexico were he was studiyng medicine.

There was a small group of some really loud guys in their 20s in there, but no biggie. As I was showing some PS4 games to him on the PS aisle, one of the guys comes running to us screaming "HADOKEN!!", doing the gesture ...while grabbing and throwing the game cases to the floor...I guess to show the impact of said hadoken.

One of the obvious disgruntled employees comes over, calling him out for that...and one of the other guys stands in front of him, "does a shoryuken" (while sreaming it too for maximum impact), then him and the other guys start laughing and leave the store.


*****

And yet, according to some in here...been an adult playing 3DS in public is cringey enough to warrant shame. No wonder I was bullied all my way through school...for wearing glasses (glasses = NERD!!). ;p
 

LotusHD

Banned
My roommate's old roommate literally would say "xD" repeatedly when he finds something funny while playing online with his friends. Like "Lol" wasn't bad enough to hear being said aloud...

He's also the type of dude that thinks that insulting people is somehow the way to becoming friends with them, and has said a bunch of other embarrassing shit, but that's not necessarily game-related, so meh.
 
I camped out in front of Target (not the one I worked at) for three days. For a PS3.

Whenever I want to cringe myself with shame, I just remember that it was a thing I did.
 

Rupe

Neo Member
Someone, in real life, saying Anita Sarkeesian didn't deserved the air she breathed.
It went from a normal gaming conversation to an uncomfortable diatribe in 3 seconds.
 

Phreak47

Member
Though this thread would be about actual cringeworthy stuff, not "my coworker has a figurine on his desk...NERD ALERT!!"


*****

A few years ago, a friend of mine came to visit and we went to Gamestop to pick a few games for him to play when he returned back to Mexico were he was studiyng medicine.

There was a small group of some really loud guys in their 20s in there, but no biggie. As I was showing some PS4 games to him on the PS aisle, one of the guys comes running to us screaming "HADOKEN!!", doing the gesture ...while grabbing and throwing the game cases to the floor...I guess to show the impact of said hadoken.

One of the obvious disgruntled employees comes over, calling him out for that...and one of the other guys stands in front of him, "does a shoryuken" (while sreaming it too for maximum impact), then him and the other guys start laughing and leave the store.


*****

And yet, according to some in here...been an adult playing 3DS in public is cringey enough to warrant shame. No wonder I was bullied all my way through school...for wearing glasses (glasses = NERD!!). ;p

Dude if I was there, i would have pushed back with an extremely, irritatingly well timed Ken FB/DP trap.
 
A guy I knew said this a few years before Final Fantasy XIII release:

"You know this might make me sound lame but I'm not really all that excited for Final Fantasy XIII. I mean I get that people want to look at a nice, but I just can't empathize with a female main character"
 

AtlAntA

Member
I got beaten by an old lady on my back with an umbrella at the midnight release of Gta5. Was my first and ever last midnight release attendance.

Tl;dr midnight releases.
 
Had an assignment where we had to write up a short adventure story or something. A dude went up and read off what seemed like a wikia summary of dark souls 3's plot. It was funny when I realized what was going on but it lasted too long and went straight into wtf territory.

It was all in google translator level spanish
 

AgeEighty

Member
Another one:

Around 15 years ago I had too many consoles to connect at one time to any TV or A/V receiver I could find, and every A/V selector switch I could find only had four inputs. So I went to Cambridge SoundWorks at the mall to ask if they had one that had five or more.

The kid behind the counter squinted at me and asked why I would ever need such a thing. I explained to him that I had an NES, an SNES, an N64, a GameCube, and a PS2 that I wanted to have all hooked up at once. He told me, "Well, you could just unhook the GameCube, since it sucks so much." This from a paid sales associate, and I had encountered a shit-eating attitude like this from other associates on many of the other occasions when I went in, even at different stores.

I walked out and never went in to one of their stores again, and I celebrated when they went the fuck out of business.
 

Pengew

Member
Back in 2008-ish I went to buy an 80 gig PS3 on my lunch break. A coworker walked by, saw the PS3 and called me a traitor since he and everyone else had a 360. The clerk looked baffled and all I could do was shake my head.
 

BHK3

Banned
I once made the mistake of playing my 3ds in public between classes at my college. Before I knew it three neck beards swarmed me. Warm stanky breath on my face. As they uttered "oh is that zelda" i said yes then about five minutes went by of them stairing at me and crowding me before I said i have to go to class now. It was the last time I played a hand held in public. Also gdq is a great event that I love watching, but when people shout hype, its a little hard to watch
giphy.gif


Thought it was just me
 
Calling yourself a gamer when it's just a hobby.

So is collecting stamps or birdwatching and I don't see anyone cringing at the term "stamp collector" or "bird watcher". There is no fundamental difference between gaming or any other hobby that makes the term "gamer" inherently wrong; it's just insecurity talking.
 

StereoVsn

Member
My jaw was on the floor for that entire video.

WOW skews to older demographics, but COD is clearly targeted at teenagers.
I have loads of people at work who play COD for campaign. Talking about people in their 30s to 50s. A lot of Ex-military folks too. So nothing wrong in liking COD either.

Now, firing a guy for playing WoW and COD is terrible and not something that should be bragged about.
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
I love metal gear.

But I winced when I heard someone use the CODEC sound as a ringtone.

Lol why? I was out shopping for clothes a couple years ago and I heard a dude's phone go off playing the damn Wizards & Warriors theme and I was like "that's cool as shit, I love that song"

Bullshit. You realize the whole reason people were calling out the homophobia was because there was pretty overt homophobia and sexism with those posts what with people saying she was a lesbian stereotype and had a manly jaw and hands. Saying the artist designed Ellie as a "lesbian stereotype" reeks of homophobia. There's nothing that screams lesbian stereotype about this design
the-last-of-us-part-2-naughty-dog-concept-art-ellie-character.jpg

She legit looks like a young man in his 20s in literally every respect apart from the fairly androgynous face though :/, like her hands have more definition than mine and I'm nearing my 30s. I guess the bigger picture here is that it shouldn't matter because there are surely plenty of women with more masculine builds out there and that shouldn't really be an issue in the first place

Edit: Oh and I'm not saying that lesbians look like young men in their 20s, just wanted to make that super clear, it's not like lesbians have a "look" in the first place
 

Twiforce

Member
So is collecting stamps or birdwatching and I don't see anyone cringing at the term "stamp collector" or "bird watcher". There is no fundamental difference between gaming or any other hobby that makes the term "gamer" inherently wrong; it's just insecurity talking.

"Gamer" is inherently a fine word, the problem is how it's become attached to an elitist subculture and used to rally around bizarre identity pseudo-politics. e.g. GamerGate, "real gamers," etc. I can see why some would be uncomfortable using a label that's accumulated so much juvenile baggage.
 

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Good grief Crossing Eden. You should know better than to poke fun at other people's interests. Most of us leave you be when you when you write very, very, very, very, very passionate posts about video game character design....
 
I also found that people who use hundreds of posts to discuss something truly unimportant in the grand scheme of things as cringey. Like for example, slight frame-rate dips or how one video game company is better than the other, etc etc.
 
I'm fairly certain my friend is textbook crazy. This is his text message tone. Not ringtone! Every. Single. Text.

Link
I think we may be friends with the same person lol. I once forced him to put his phone on silent because he was getting a text every 1.5 minutes whilst I was trying to have a conversation.

On cringeworthy:

I worked in a video game/anime store for years, so I've seen just about every possible gaming related cringe, but since it was also an anime store, this happened...

For some reason a large group of bronies (remember them?) consisting of guys and girls decided to use our store as a meet up and hang out place. I'm talking like 20+ people. I had heard of bronies in passing but never seen one in real life. They dressed up and carried pony toys.

Watching them interact was a confusing, bewildering and eye opening experience. I didn't really know what a brony was at the time. My coworkers had to explain that they were fans of a cartoon.

Eventually, after they came in everyday for about a fortnight, I had to politely ask them to please congregate outside the store unless they were shopping because our store was tiny and the sheer number of people in their group was literally preventing actual customers from going about there business.

It was interesting.
 
I think we may be friends with the same person lol. I once forced him to put his phone on silent because he was getting a text every 1.5 minutes whilst I was trying to have a conversation.

On cringeworthy:

I worked in a video game/anime store for years, so I've seen just about every possible gaming related cringe, but since it was also an anime store, this happened...

For some reason a large group of bronies (remember them?) consisting of guys and girls decided to use our store as a meet up and hang out place. I'm talking like 20+ people. I had heard of bronies in passing but never seen one in real life. They dressed up and carried pony toys.

Watching them interact was a confusing, bewildering and eye opening experience. I didn't really know what a brony was at the time. My coworkers had to explain that they were fans of a cartoon.

Eventually, after they came in everyday for about a fortnight, I had to politely ask them to please congregate outside the store unless they were shopping because our store was tiny and the sheer number of people in their group was literally preventing actual customers from going about there business.

It was interesting.

Cont...
 

antibolo

Banned
Several years ago, (this was probably 2008 or 2009) I was taking an evening writing class at the local community college. One night as the class was getting started, one of the students asked the teacher if he could make an announcement. I could tell that the teacher was surprised by the request, but he allowed it.

The student stood up and gave an impassioned speech about how unfair it was that the Final Mix* version of Kingdom Hearts 2 had only been released in Japan, and how he had organized a petition to send to Square to convince them that there was an audience in the US for the "true" version of this amazing game.

Most of the class had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and the few people in the class who did (myself included,) were cringing at how incredibly awkward the whole thing was.

*I think that was the version. I'm not sure.

I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING
 

Maximus P

Member
Ah, midnight releases.


I took my friend to the midnight release of modern Warfare 2 and the queue was massive. I decided to go grab a drink and when I came back I sat on a bench across from the shop.

What I saw then was cringworthy but at the time I couldn't stop laughing. Grown men we're walking out of the store entrence holding the game box over their heads and kissing it like a trophy. I saw one guy almost break down in tears as I spoke to another guy about how he'd waited months in anticipation of this moment.

My friend and I went home that night and never ended up playing the game. We ordered chinese food and watched a movie . We spent the rest of the night laughing about what we just witnessed. It was my first ever midnight release and I'll never forget that day.
 
Ok.

One of them was standing at the counter once looking at the merchandise on display behind it and exclaiming "ooh" and "giiii" every few seconds in a childlike tone. She was dressed strangely and had a pony toy sticking out of her chest pocket and hugging a pony plushie (for context).

At one point a workmate had to squeeze past me behind the counter (there wasn't much space) and as he did so, he placed an arm on either side of me on the counter for balance purposes.

When pony girl saw this she said "Oooooooh, do that again, but slower this time" in what I can only describe as an attempted sultry tone.

It was equally creepy and awkward.

I have tons of these stories. My therapist likes them.
 

Ichabod

Banned
One of my best mates was at a midnight release for CoD and witnessed a grown ass man clutching and swaddling his RC-XD prestige edition package while openly weeping as if the gamestop clerk had just handed him his firstborn to hold.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Not being cool enough to play games with me

i could not care less what other people think of me. That's a thing for insecure teens
 

poodaddy

Member
Ok.

One of them was standing at the counter once looking at the merchandise on display behind it and exclaiming "ooh" and "giiii" every few seconds in a childlike tone. She was dressed strangely and had a pony toy sticking out of her chest pocket and hugging a pony plushie (for context).

At one point a workmate had to squeeze past me behind the counter (there wasn't much space) and as he did so, he placed an arm on either side of me on the counter for balance purposes.

When pony girl saw this she said "Oooooooh, do that again, but slower this time" in what I can only describe as an attempted sultry tone.

It was equally creepy and awkward.

I have tons of these stories. My therapist likes them.
Please write memoirs. I would buy and read with glee seriously. I just burst out laughing in the middle of a children's clothing store while my daughter was shopping.
 

JobenNC

Member
When people who are waaaaay too into Q*bert go to the supermarket and make pyramids to hop around on out of the beer cases.

We all like games, but have some self-respect.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
But it does. You can tell yourself every time someone attacked another person in this context was justified but you'd be wrong.
Nope, the only people getting called homophobic were those who referred to Ellie's sexuality. Anyway, this has derailed enough, this isn't even something that was done in person so you were off-topic to begin with
 

PtM

Banned
Dude, come on. Don't do this.

Juat to counter this I wanna say I appreciate Eden's posts in threads like that. They speak up for what's right.
I second the motion. Someone has to do it, I'm just too unstable for that. CE hits the sweet spot most of the time.
Not really cringe, more baffling than anything.
I went to a Smash tournament for the first time and ton of these asian guys there kept referring to each other using the n-word. Seriously?
It's part of the culture, mang.
 
I went to the midnight release of Wrath of the Lich King a girl was there and everyone was fawning over her until she said she played Alliance. They ditched her like she was radioactive.
 
Please write memoirs. I would buy and read with glee seriously. I just burst out laughing in the middle of a children's clothing store while my daughter was shopping.
Hmm, interesting idea. Reminiscing might bring back the nightmares though.

Does not showering count? Seriously guys, water isn't that expensive.
I literally kept a can of room deodorant on the shelf above the cash register with "nerd buster 3000" scrawled across tape on the side for this very reason.

It might seem cruel to some, but motherfucker, if you are going to come into my store and ask for service whilst smelling like one month old unwashed underpants stuffed inside a dead cats bum and inducing my gag reflex, then I'm damn well going to grab that spray and do a couple of laps around you.

Other customers pissed themselves when i did it too and whispered "thank you".
 

Mik317

Member
Yeah but...this is a question posed specifically to this forum of mostly-like-minded people who might tend to have similar opinions of things that make them cringe.

It doesn't matter if people outside this forum would cringe at the fact that this forum exists.

This is like going to off-topic side and telling people they should be ashamed of themselves for talking about what they don't like about conservatives because there are so many people out there outside of this forum who would be offended by that.

again its a lack of awareness and sad IMO.

again at the end of the day we are all nerds so this weird elitism that is often allowed around here as if there is these large gaps in what is not "cringy" is funny. I am certain you wouldn't like someone to call you a loser because you play games...or spend time talking about them on the internet...so why is it ok to shittalk people for their "enthusiastic" approach to their hobbies? Again I'm not talking about people being obnoxious or outright bad people but stuff like wearing gaming shirts? Or having figures? Naw fuck outta where with that lame shit. I cannot stand for that at all because that is no different from the form of bullying one would receive for just liking games back in the day...and that is the lamest.
 

RedToad64

Member
Some guy was yelling about how much money Nintendo had in the bank and that the price of the Switch was ridiculous.

This was in line for the preorders at GameStop. It was like seeing an GameFAQs thread in live action.
 

PtM

Banned
My roommate's old roommate literally would say "xD" repeatedly when he finds something funny while playing online with his friends. Like "Lol" wasn't bad enough to hear being said aloud...
I actually got a friend of mine to stop saying LOL by answering XD. At least I think I have.
 
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