The Worst Depictions of "Gamers" in Television and Movies

agramuglia Published 02/28/2021 in facepalm

Gamers don't exactly have a good rep in the media. Typically, if a gamer appears in a film or show, they're shown as a social outcast who sort of barely functions socially. While there is some truth in television in that some nerds lack social prowess, the prevalence of this stereotype is toxic and damaging. Here are the worst examples of this.

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1. While Mazes & Monsters is not about video games, Mazes and Monsters does focus on the worst stereotype of gamers: that they are secretly crazy and will stab you. Tom Hanks in one of his earliest roles plays a kid who is driven into delusions after playing Dungeons & Dragons -- no, wait, sorry, Mazes & Monsters -- and LARPing in a cave. What follows is Hanks going into the city and stabbing people to death while being convinced he's fighting off goblins and dragons. What makes Mazes & Monsters even more pathetic is that people actually believed this could happen if you played DnD.
2. I don't need a reason to make fun of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, but Toby, played by Zachary Levi, is a pretty cringy loser stereotype. He lives with his grandma while playing video games and being obsessed with the Chipmunks. It's pretty cringy and weird, made all the worse by the fact it wastes Zachary Levi in this thankless, generic role. It's probably a good thing he'd go off to play Shazam, which is far more sympathetic to nerdy dorks.
3. Newsflash: Adam Sandler's Pixels is a terrible movie. All of its central characters are nerdy stereotypes, but Josh Gad's Ludlow is arguably the creepiest of them all. This emotionally stunted weirdo peaked at the age of ten. He ends up entering into a relationship with Q*Bert -- yes, the arcade character -- in this weird, fetishized situation that feels more than a little problematic. It's clear Gad is having fun playing the most annoying nerd ever, but that doesn't mean it's fun to watch.
4. Key and Peele is a hilarious comedy sketch series that showcased the incredible talents of its titular comedians. Jordan Peele's character Wendall is a terrible nerd stereotype by design. The humor comes from how pathetic this creepy weirdo is. He pretends to have this expansive social life in order to basically get stuff, be it food, bed replacements or just straight-up sex. It's hilarious because it feels uncomfortably true. It's also every terrible nerd stereotype rolled into one. So it's the best bad nerd stereotype.
5. Law & Order: Criminal Intent had an episode about a crazy video game developer. The episode F.P.S. features a game dev who murders one of his co-developers after the guy changes following the success of their game Blood Match. So how does he change? Well...he gets a social life. Takes showers. Dresses nice. Gets a girlfriend. This implies that real gamers need to smell like rancid skunks and never have sex ever. It's...pretty cringy.
6. Kevin Smith is an icon of nerd culture. When he showed up as a nerd in Live Free and Die Hard, it seemed like a no-brainer. However, while Smith is ultimately a memorable character in the film, he's still every nerd stereotype rolled into one. If this character was played by anyone other than Kevin Smith, he'd be mocked for being every bad nerd stereotype ever. Lives in his mom's basement? Is an elite-hacker with no social skills? However, the worst sin? Working with Bruce Willis here probably led to Smith's film Cop Out? The positive? It led to all of Kevin Smith's talks about Bruce Willis.
7. Kirito from Sword Art Online is awful. He's every annoying gamer power fantasy rolled into one bland package without anything of substance beneath it. He's terrible because he feels like a character tailor-suited for nerds. His elite skills lead to him solving every problem with minimal effort. He feels like pandering to lonely nerds who want a harem of women to fawn over him -- including their sister. The isekai genre has some genuinely compelling protagonists, but Kirito led to countless characters who are just Kirito by a different name, who all feel like shallow nerd power-fantasies. Watching Kirito is like being force-fed sugar until you regurgitate onto the floor: you're given too much of a sweet thing until it makes you sick.
8. Cartman is pretty much one of the worst human beings ever created for television. It's easy to just look at the World of Warcraft episode as the ultimate take-that-nerds episode of South Park, but Cartman carries that toxic nerd mentality throughout the entire run. He's every angry twelve-year-old playing Call of Duty. He's every edgelord who throws a petty tantrum in front of you. He's just the worst of every toxic nerd stereotype rolled into one being.
9. Ready Player One is an odd example here, in part because the film version did its best job to make its main character Wade likable. However, if you've read the book upon which it's based and its sequel, Ready Player Two, Wade is one of the worst protagonists you'll ever have the misfortune of reading. And, even worse, a lot of that isn't changed in the film. Wade's a character who would rather live in fantasy than deal with the pain of his real-world life. Video games have become his reality. The film tacks on a moral about living in reality at the end, but, in the books, we see Wade grow from this toxic nerd who reads like a bad Redditor into this corporate monster who ends up ruining the world. He also ends up making his fanfiction a reality through virtual reality, which is just cringy and bad.
10. Big Bang Theory is just an ugly show filled with terrible characters. Its prolonged popularity remains a mystery. It uses its nerdy cast as a punchline, as though the fact that they love playing games or DnD is a joke. It's impossible to watch this show without feeling the writers punching down at its nerdy main characters. This is a shame, as many of the actors are incredibly talented and seem to be bringing as much warmth to their characters as they can muster. It's just a shame, then, that the writers seem to think nerds having fun is worth mocking endlessly.

1. While Mazes & Monsters is not about video games, Mazes and Monsters does focus on the worst stereotype of gamers: that they are secretly crazy and will stab you. Tom Hanks in one of his earliest roles plays a kid who is driven into delusions after playing Dungeons & Dragons -- no, wait, sorry, Mazes & Monsters -- and LARPing in a cave. What follows is Hanks going into the city and stabbing people to death while being convinced he's fighting off goblins and dragons. What makes Mazes & Monsters even more pathetic is that people actually believed this could happen if you played DnD.
2. I don't need a reason to make fun of the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies, but Toby, played by Zachary Levi, is a pretty cringy loser stereotype. He lives with his grandma while playing video games and being obsessed with the Chipmunks. It's pretty cringy and weird, made all the worse by the fact it wastes Zachary Levi in this thankless, generic role. It's probably a good thing he'd go off to play Shazam, which is far more sympathetic to nerdy dorks.
3. Newsflash: Adam Sandler's Pixels is a terrible movie. All of its central characters are nerdy stereotypes, but Josh Gad's Ludlow is arguably the creepiest of them all. This emotionally stunted weirdo peaked at the age of ten. He ends up entering into a relationship with Q*Bert -- yes, the arcade character -- in this weird, fetishized situation that feels more than a little problematic. It's clear Gad is having fun playing the most annoying nerd ever, but that doesn't mean it's fun to watch.
4. Key and Peele is a hilarious comedy sketch series that showcased the incredible talents of its titular comedians. Jordan Peele's character Wendall is a terrible nerd stereotype by design. The humor comes from how pathetic this creepy weirdo is. He pretends to have this expansive social life in order to basically get stuff, be it food, bed replacements or just straight-up sex. It's hilarious because it feels uncomfortably true. It's also every terrible nerd stereotype rolled into one. So it's the best bad nerd stereotype.
5. Law & Order: Criminal Intent had an episode about a crazy video game developer. The episode F.P.S. features a game dev who murders one of his co-developers after the guy changes following the success of their game Blood Match. So how does he change? Well...he gets a social life. Takes showers. Dresses nice. Gets a girlfriend. This implies that real gamers need to smell like rancid skunks and never have sex ever. It's...pretty cringy.
6. Kevin Smith is an icon of nerd culture. When he showed up as a nerd in Live Free and Die Hard, it seemed like a no-brainer. However, while Smith is ultimately a memorable character in the film, he's still every nerd stereotype rolled into one. If this character was played by anyone other than Kevin Smith, he'd be mocked for being every bad nerd stereotype ever. Lives in his mom's basement? Is an elite-hacker with no social skills? However, the worst sin? Working with Bruce Willis here probably led to Smith's film Cop Out? The positive? It led to all of Kevin Smith's talks about Bruce Willis.
7. Kirito from Sword Art Online is awful. He's every annoying gamer power fantasy rolled into one bland package without anything of substance beneath it. He's terrible because he feels like a character tailor-suited for nerds. His elite skills lead to him solving every problem with minimal effort. He feels like pandering to lonely nerds who want a harem of women to fawn over him -- including their sister. The isekai genre has some genuinely compelling protagonists, but Kirito led to countless characters who are just Kirito by a different name, who all feel like shallow nerd power-fantasies. Watching Kirito is like being force-fed sugar until you regurgitate onto the floor: you're given too much of a sweet thing until it makes you sick.
8. Cartman is pretty much one of the worst human beings ever created for television. It's easy to just look at the World of Warcraft episode as the ultimate take-that-nerds episode of South Park, but Cartman carries that toxic nerd mentality throughout the entire run. He's every angry twelve-year-old playing Call of Duty. He's every edgelord who throws a petty tantrum in front of you. He's just the worst of every toxic nerd stereotype rolled into one being.
9. Ready Player One is an odd example here, in part because the film version did its best job to make its main character Wade likable. However, if you've read the book upon which it's based and its sequel, Ready Player Two, Wade is one of the worst protagonists you'll ever have the misfortune of reading. And, even worse, a lot of that isn't changed in the film. Wade's a character who would rather live in fantasy than deal with the pain of his real-world life. Video games have become his reality. The film tacks on a moral about living in reality at the end, but, in the books, we see Wade grow from this toxic nerd who reads like a bad Redditor into this corporate monster who ends up ruining the world. He also ends up making his fanfiction a reality through virtual reality, which is just cringy and bad.
10. Big Bang Theory is just an ugly show filled with terrible characters. Its prolonged popularity remains a mystery. It uses its nerdy cast as a punchline, as though the fact that they love playing games or DnD is a joke. It's impossible to watch this show without feeling the writers punching down at its nerdy main characters. This is a shame, as many of the actors are incredibly talented and seem to be bringing as much warmth to their characters as they can muster. It's just a shame, then, that the writers seem to think nerds having fun is worth mocking endlessly.

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While Mazes & Monsters is not about video games, Mazes and Monsters does focus on the worst stereotype of gamers: that they are secretly crazy and will stab you. Tom Hanks in one of his earliest roles plays a kid who is driven into delusions after playing Dungeons & Dragons -- no, wait, sorry, Mazes & Monsters -- and LARPing in a cave. What follows is Hanks going into the city and stabbing people to death while being convinced he's fighting off goblins and dragons. What makes Mazes & Monsters even more pathetic is that people actually believed this could happen if you played DnD.

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