You’re Too Old to Game, and Other Things Killjoys Want You to Believe

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For as long as I can remember, probably at least since I turned 23, there's always been this march of people younger and older who have framed themselves as the deciders of what is or isn't cool for you to do or participate in depending on your age. Some things I can understand, you know, like, okay, you probably shouldn't be chilling outside the high school at 42. Why are you doing that? Put the cigarette out, it's 2024, and go to the mall or something (that is, if you're fortunate enough to still have malls where you live).

But I'm not really talking about predatory behavior. That's pretty much bad at any age. You can be 16 and a predator. You can be 53 and a predator.

What I'm talking about, though, is normal stuff. Watching anime, playing videogames, or saying, "Bruh."

You're 25, you're too old to game, why don't you own a house? You're 32, you're still gaming? Where's the wife and kids? You're 45, and you're clappin' people in Call of Duty? Shouldn't you be thinking about stock options?

The examples could go on and on forever, I feel.

It is for sure almost one hundred percent of the time a projection of what this type of person thinks they'll be doing around that point in their own lives. Or, at least, what they're afraid their life will be like: Boring, drab, minimal. Lacking in joy. Not saying that getting married and having kids is boring and mind-numbing, but it for sure will completely reconstruct you as a person to the point you may not recognize yourself in the mirror.

Me, I have enough trouble recognizing who I am. Adding kids to the mix would be like ... You know what, I don't think I want to consider that right now.

But what I want to get at here is, basically, these things that some or a lot of people have decided are only for certain ages, or age groups: Gaming, cartoons, having fun, it's almost always in relation to things that gen-x and millennials grew up with. Things that our generations were the first to have.

Baby boomers didn't have Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, and Evangelion, and Ghost in the Shell. Therefore, there really is no metric, or no basis to conclude that at some point in time, someone might be too old to enjoy these things. We're actually gauging that, right now! In the present! And a lot of people have decided, you know what? I'm gonna watch Demon Slayer at the age of 54, and you can't fuckin' stop me!

I'm going to play Skyrim and talk about it on a Youtube channel, as a grandmother, and that's just fine!

https://youtu.be/kWBiBBuKotY?si=Uy2T0T5CYMhtDZ9J

Shirley Curry, the internet's Skyrim grandmother.

One of my favorite Twitch streamers was a 69 year old Runescape streamer, named rsgloryandgold. Or, to his family, Tony Winchester. He was just a dude who logged the heck on, and did some dungeoneering. He, unfortunately, succumbed to cancer on October 12th, 2022.

The fact of the matter is, if even the generation before me, and even gen-x can sit down and just go buck wild streaming gaming content on Youtube and Twitch, there's no such thing as "too old" to have fun with things that you have enjoyed all your life, and probably still do.

Recently, on Threads, I saw a woman ask something along the lines of, "I've just turned 31 years old, am I too old to stream on Twitch?" (I tried searching for this thread, but there are actually many, many people on Threads posting about how they feel like they're too old to do this or that.)

No!

Whoever is out there convinced that you've got to hang up the hat once you're really considered an adult, don't! Don't let the expectations of imaginary, or actual, just boring people, dictate what you do in your life, for fun, or even money!

We grow up, we get jobs, we pay bills, and then we die. I'm sure most people have asked themselves, "Is this it?"

Anything that can take away from that cycle of madness, even if it's for a couple of hours, or fifteen minutes, is worth it. No matter how old you are. So whether it's a voice in your head that's been drilled into you through years of criticism, or just 17-year-olds on Twitter (why the hell are you on Twitter?) trolling you: Keep doing what you wanna do.

You know.

As long as it's not illegal, or harming someone.

Don't do that.