How to deftly show you're out-of-touch with half of an opinion piece

'Silly players; games are for kids!'

Oh, what a treat! My favourite RPG of all time gets a remaster announced (More on that next week) and hardly twenty four hours later I am graced with the glory of a town jester, come to make all our weeks better by making a fool of herself. I'm not even joking right now, I am giddy to see Camilla Tominey's article from a week back where she downs a shot of red and spits fire about her utter disdain towards the gaming industry, for her own special little reasons. It puts butterflies in my stomach! I just can't remember the last time we have someone truly silly come to entertain us like this, well actually I do but that was a bit more baffling for who it was tripping themselves up, this is just the ramblings of a clueless reporter who really wants a scapegoat to let off her steam at. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, allow me introduce you to the hero of our story; Camilla. (It's her, I already said her name but I'm just confirming that, yes, she is the one we're talking about)

Camilla is the Associate Editor for The Telegraph, which is one of the big newspapers over here in England, so we ain't looking at some misguided intern who somehow managed to stumble into the writing room; we have a career reporter here. Such a career reporter, that in her own blurb she lists her premier journalist moments as having covered 9/11, general elections and Brexit! (One of those is certainly a lot more serious than the others, but wow.) But then, and remember that this is from her own blurb, she holds proud the fact that the only award she's ever been nominated for was scoop of the year in 2016. (She lost to a deep dive into the Archbishop of Canterbury's family heritage. I think I fell to sleep just writing that. Stiff competition at these award shows, huh.) And what was this article which was nominated, you ask? What did she feel the need to slap onto her list of accomplishments on the official Telegraph website? Well, it was the 'exclusive story breaking the news of Prince Harry's relationship with Megan Markle'. (She's the one that said Megan made Kate cry over a row about dresses) So all that talk about the 'worthy' topics she's helmed and 'hard hitting journalism'- slightly undercut by the fact the only thing she's been recognised for is tabloid crap. Let's you know that underneath the shiny job title and twenty years at the job, we're talking about a gutter journalist at heart. (It helps to know that going in, so you really have a sense of where our author is coming from.)

But why did I dive head first into the muck of this Camilla woman? Why, because I was just so eager to learn what sort of life experiences one would have to go through in order to be this wound-tight. You would have to be somewhat wound in order to pen an opinion piece entitled "Grown men shouldn't be wasting their lives playing video games". Woah saddle up, gamers, Camilla is going to tell us how to live our lives so that we can be proper manly men. (She would be the authority on this afterall. She covered Harry and Megan!) She also seems to have borrowed from my style of filling her subheader with purposefully esoteric stingers. "The only adults who still use the word "Playtime" aren't the types to be found on the tube. They're busy riding around on E-scooters". Wow. There's a lot of unspoken hostility to be unpacked there. 

First of all, our heroine appears to be under the assumption that people who ride around E-scooters do it for fun? Perhaps she thinks it's some sort of ritual through which these man-children celebrate their unwillingness to join the 'adult' world that she occupies. (You know, the world which has her digging in garbage bins to find out which celebrity is dating the royal family today.) Secondly, she appears to, perhaps unintentionally, place the tube as a superior form of transport for the sensible. Which, and I mean no offense, is the sort of opinion that can only be held by actual sadomasochists. Who, on this wide multi-coloured earth, would choose to ride in the subway, smothered by unwashed bodies, packed like a sardine and cut off from sunlight, if they even have the choice for alternative transport. Also, although this shouldn't need to be said, E-scooter users are probably heading for their jobs, Camilla, same as you. (I can't tell is this is evidence of an entitled upbringing or just the late stage blossoming of general acute misanthropy)

But back on track. During one of her pleasant trips to the bowels of London in order to take the tube, Camilla spied an advertisement (presumably whilst trying her hardest to imagine she was anywhere beside in the underground system. Because it's horrible.) showing grown adults and a child playing a Nintendo Switch together. A Switch, just like the one favoured by her child daughter at home! (Egads, I think I just threw up in my mouth!) "It appears" she comments on the advert "To make the false assumption that most commuters like to while away their spare hours playing Mario Kart, Minecraft or Pokemon." Err... is anyone going to tell Camilla that she literally just listed three of the biggest gaming brands on the market? Three that are definitely played by millions of adults? Nah, she wouldn't believe that. It would have taken her less than three minutes of basic internet research to look up, and our Lady doesn't have time for that nonsense! She's too busy suiting up in the evenings to take up her rounds as the actual fun police. 

This whole tirade is born from her perception that the world's advertisers are making a concerted effort to 'infantilise' commuters, with such efforts like advertising video games with the hashtag SetPlaytimeFree, (That is a horrible hashtag, I'll give Camilla that) and mind the gap signs alongside Covid restriction reminders and- wait a second, those last two aren't advertisements. Does- does Camilla not know what advertisements are? Does she think that if it's on the wall than that means some company is paying for it? No, now I am being facetious; I know that she's just venting and letting her equivalences slip away from her a little. No judging here, I'm a blogger, I do that all the time. (Admittedly, I'm not paid to write articles...) I just find it funny how, when she lets the mask slip, our Associate Editor turns out to be quite the authoritarian gatekeeping grump. 'You can't be an adult and play video games, because I said so. Just like I said Megan made Kate cry, despite that very fact being disputed by Megan Markle herself.' (You see how easy it is to do research on topics, Camilla? That took twenty seconds!)

Needless to say, this article got a tiny bit eviscerated when it was tweeted out- seems people aren't just being sensible and listening to Camilla tell them exactly about how men aren't allowed to have fun. No, it is the man's job to go out and hunt the boar with his spear so that he may feed the wife and children back home, that is the only acceptable way to spend free time! Oh, and when she was called out on Twitter, Camilla did the one thing you never do, she tried to slap back when one user pointed and laughed at her embarrassing career highs covering the royal family- Uh, I mean, super respectable work providing gutter journalism to the masses. (Don't worry Camilla, in about 10 years Prince George will be dating and you can jumpstart your career once again! Scoop of the year is yours this time, for certain!) Superhero Camilla shot back with a biting comment pointing out that she covered "POLITICS" too, which would have been obvious  if were weren't "too busy playing Mario Kart" (Oh, call an Ambulance; the world's population of gamers need immediate treatment for that burn.)

So I'm going to stop here, because honestly I think I might have gone a little too deep in deconstructing this poor woman's entire career. I'm sure she's lovely in pers- actually, she really doesn't sound it. I'm sure she at least has people in her life who love her, which is more than can be said for a lot of people out here so that's... something I guess. Ignorance gets a bad wrap in our society, but without it we wouldn't have gotten a tirade as beautiful as that one, and I think we need more public self shaming in this vein in our lives now and then. Let yesterday's tabloid hero be tomorrow's punching bag, don't let her educate herself on the topics she writing about and provide meaningful discourse. Bleurgh- who wants 'meaningful discourse' anyway? And to Camilla, I would advise her not to take the criticism she's invited too personally, as this is just the natural revolution of the wheel of life leaving with its bounties and arriving with its scorn. In the words of a man-but-attorney; "You either die as gutter-press or you live long enough to see yourself become the Internet's latest cringe dispensary" I think that's how the quote goes, I need to watch 'The Dark Knight' again...