The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

Column: Guns, cars and video games

I have three main hobbies. Of the three, two I almost never talk about because I’m afraid of an outright negative reaction. The other one makes me look (and occasionally feel) like a lazy, shallow, child.

We’ll start with the last one first. Video games. I can hear your eyes rolling from here, but let me explain.

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It’s not all that abnormal for a male in his (late) twenties to be into video games. I expect that most males my age have some game system or other tucked in next to their TV, firing it up at random intervals to play some “Black Ops” or “Halo,” but I take it a little further. I believe in the video game as an art form, as a valid medium of expression, as a storytelling vehicle every bit as potent as film. I take games seriously.

I own all three of the current console systems, and regularly play online with a group of friends every bit as close and valued as my “real-life” friends who aren’t quite as into games as I am. I easily spend seven or eight hundred dollars on new and used games every year.

My second hobby is every bit as nerdy. I’m a huge car nut.

If you’re a male, then you probably think you like cars. Not like me. I live my life soaked in car culture, walking around up to my neck in obscure models and enthusiasms for brands that other people either write off or simply don’t remember. I have most of the mechanical knowledge of a technician and I can spout all of the appropriate fanboy nerdisms necessary to ingratiate myself with almost any individual group of car enthusiasts.

My head is an alphabet soup of designations, nomenclature, and unnecessary information. (Oh, you have an RX7? FC or FD? 13Bt? 20B? What EMS? Do you have toe eliminators?) I go to autocrosses to spectate. I know what an autocross is.

The depths of my nerdness know no bounds, and respect no K-rail.

My last hobby is guns.

Do I need to explain why it’s hard to talk about this one with people? Even the term “shooter” has been subverted, and it now finds itself host to a rogue’s gallery of implications. Everything from a cabin-living nut job, to something involving oysters, to the other kind of “shooter”, the kind found in a police report. People who like shooting are now forced to use the term “gun enthusiast”, which just sounds gross.

It’s hard to talk to people about this stuff. I live with a constant cognitive dissonance, with the knowledge that most of the people that I meet simply won’t like, won’t understand or straight up won’t care about the things that I love. From harsh past experience, I know that nerding out on someone about something they don’t care about can have nasty social consequences.

The constant fear of being labeled as either a nerd, a macho idiot, or a Republican keeps me from revealing too much about myself to new people. Sure, eventually I open up, but only after my own personal spy game of hints and signals intended to draw out someone else’s enthusiasm without revealing mine.

Why the hell would I keep participating in activities that make me look so ridiculous? If I’m ashamed of these things, why do I love them? In all honesty, I don’t have an answer for those questions. These are the things I’ve been drawn to my entire life. Despite their social stigmas and associations I’d be heartbroken if I was forced to give up one or all of them.

I wish people wouldn’t let the stigmas of my hobbies define how they see me. I am not my hobbies, and I’m definitely not the stereotypes they evoke. I love plenty of things that are the complete opposite of those three main hobbies, like classic literature, sailing, and my pet rabbit, Marcus.

Now where did I put that overly violent video game? Oh right, I left it in my over-polluting, dangerously modified car next to my illegal handgun and hollow-point bullets.

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