Wiis & Whoppers

For the last six weeks, my determined and perservering boyfriend has been on a relentless hunt for a Nintendo Wii. He’s searched far and wide, called every Best Best, Circuit City and Game Stop in the Rocky Mountain area, and spoken to numerous fellow-gamers about best strategies on obtaining this gaming system. This is not some casual errand-running…his efforts have touched 35 stores in the Denver metropolitan area. We’re talking major leagues here.

Today, I was feeling lucky so I accompanied him in his search. We hit up the Best Buy on Colorado Blvd as well as the Game Stop. If we had actually gotten the Wii today, you probably would’ve heard about it by now. Needless to say, we came back empty-handed, but not beaten.

At this point you’re probably thinking, “why is she so supportive of this game-playing thing? Aren’t girlfriends supposed to loathe Xboxes, Playstations, and the like?” Good question, but I’m completely behind my boyfriend’s passion for video games. Why? Because it’s making him smarter. Or at least that’s what Steven Johnson argues in his book, “Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.”

Johnson asserts:

“For decades, we’ve worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the ‘masses” want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies try to give the masses what they want. .. To make sense of an episode of ’24,’ you have to integrate far more information than you would have a few decades ago watching a comparable show. Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears: to keep up with entertainment like ’24,’ you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships. This is what I call the Sleeper Curve: the most debased forms of mass diversion — video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms — turn out to be nutritional after all.”

I like your arguement, Steven. I expect to hear a similar study coming from you regarding the health benefits of Whoppers, macaroni and cheese, and guacamole in the new year. I envision the book titled, “Don’t Feel Guilty for Cleaning Your Plate and Asking for Seconds: How The Highest Caloric Foods in Our Society Are Shrinking Your Thighs.”

(Smart man….)