Gamer Girls

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjNLZHIlhJc

Interesting title for the unofficial return of James & Mike Mondays.  Doesn’t even mention Jimmy.  The thumbnail doesn’t have Jimmy in it either.  It’s just text.

Anyway, the video is boring but at 16:49, there’s an interesting conversation.

Mike: So it’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  Your favourite movie, right?

James: Mmm.

Mike: Still, right?

James: Yeah, still.  Yeah.

Mike: And that movie came out in nineteen-sixty…what?

James: Three.

Mike: 1963.  So that movie obviously came out before you were born.  

James: Mm hmm.

Mike: I find that some people have a problem and don’t understand how you can like things from before you were born or don’t believe you — that you.  So I’ll give you an example.  The other day, I was talking about how I grew up watching Saturday Supercade, on Saturday mornings, which had like the Donkey Kong cartoon and the Pac-Man cartoon and all of those kind of cartoons.

James: Oh, okay.

Riveting stuff, as usual, from James.  But note how James has never heard of Saturday Supercade.  I haven’t either.  But Mike is all about this show that was cancelled when he was no older than four years old.  I wrote an entire article about Mike’s bullshit *nostalgia* for this show.  As below:

https://gamergrrlsofficial.blogspot.com/2022/01/playing-some-game-and-watch-gallery-1-2.html

I suspect that Mike is referring to this article in this little conversation with Jimmy “Mm Hmm” Rolfe.  Mike definitely reads the blog.  He’s referenced it a few times.

But before we move on with the conversation, let me state my problem with Mike’s fake *nostalgia*.  It’s NOT about liking things from before he was born.  First of all, he was alive when these shows like Saturday Supercade or the Mr T cartoon were on, but that’s not the issue.  

OF COURSE you can like things from before you were born.  Most of the movies I like are from before I was born.  You can like music from before you were born, tv shows, whatever.  That’s not a problem.

My problem is that somebody was asking Mike about Saturday morning cartoons that he liked and he gave totally ridiculous answers like Saturday Supercade and the Mr T cartoon.  He claimed that these cartoons were from his era.  

It’s total bullshit.

Moving on.

Mike: And that show was like 1983/1984.  

James: Is that the first video game cartoon?

Mike: Yeah, pretty much, yeah.  So I was born in 1980 so I would have been like three or four years old.  

James: Mmm.

Again, James has never heard of this cartoon.  It’s totally new to him, as it should be, because this is from before his time.  He was four years old, at best, when the show was cancelled.

I’m two years older than Mike and James and I have never seen these cartoons.  Or if I have, I have no memories of them.  I was too young to form memories.  But Mike wants us to believe that he was sitting on the floor, in his diapers, watching Saturday Supercade, and can vividly remember this.  This is his favourite Saturday morning cartoon.  This is his era.  

It isn’t.  Do people remember what shows they watched when they were three and four years old?  Jimmy doesn’t remember it but he’s perhaps not a good example to use for cognitive issues.    

Mike: Now, you have kids, right?

James: Yeah.

I think that we all know that James has kids.

Mike: So, like, when your kid is like three and four years old, don’t they watch shows?  

James: Yeah.

Mike: Right.

Nobody is disputing that three and four year olds watch tv.  The issue is that you CAN’T REMEMBER what happened when you were three or four.  I don’t even remember and I was five or six years old when these shows were on.  Maybe I’m the weird one but I don’t think so.

Mike: So don’t you think that maybe it’s possible that they might remember some of those shows when they’re older?

No.  You’re talking complete bullshit.  

James: (unsure) Uhh…yeah?

Mike: Maybe not well, but, you know.

My earliest memories are of kindergarten.  I think that I went to pre-school but if I did, I don’t remember it.  So how old was I in kindergarten?  Let me figure this out…I would have been five years old.

I have a few hazy memories of kindergarten.  That’s it.  That’s all that I remember from that age.  

But Mike wants us to believe that he remembers something as mundane as watching cartoons as a three and four year old.  And when asked about his favourite Saturday morning cartoons, he gives this ridiculous answer about cartoons that he saw as a three or four year old, which he can’t possibly remember, and even on his own account, doesn’t remember them well.

The question that I had, as outlined in the article I linked to, is why didn’t he just mention cartoons from when he was about 8 years old?  You know…from when you’re old enough to be able to form memories of something like watching cartoons?  Why did he go back to when he was a three year old?  It’s ridiculous.  That’s not his era.  

Then James says something barely intelligible.  I’ll omit that.

Mike: I’ll get shit about that and they’ll be like, “Well, you definitely couldn’t have been into that because you were only a little kid.”

Yeah.  This is how human development works.  Let me look this up.  “Earliest age to form memories.”

Two and a half?  Bullshit.  Fuck you, Science Daily.

Psychological Science dot org says three to three and a half.  I don’t know about that either.

I remember kindergarten because it’s a traumatic thing to go to school.  It’s a big change in your life.

But watching cartoons?  Nobody is going to remember that.  As a three or four year old?  No chance.

James: Well, if they’re trying to say, like, that it wasn’t on, that’s actually not true because there’s a thing called “reruns”.

Mike: Yeah, exactly.

We all know about reruns, you patronising, autistic fuck.  But there were no reruns of Saturday Supercade or the Mr T cartoon.  

And Mike isn’t even making the case for that.  He’s saying that he remembers watching these shows, on their first (and only) run, as a three or four year old.  

James: I was watching Batman ’66, and Gilligan’s Island… 

Mike: Thank you.

James: …Get Smart.

James listed actual tv shows that were shown in reruns in the 1980s.  I even mentioned Gilligan’s Island in the article.  

But again, Saturday Supercade, the Mr T cartoon, once these shows ended, they were never seen on American television again.

Somebody asks me about what Saturday morning cartoons I enjoyed, I’m saying Smurfs, Gummi Bears, Muppet Babies, Garfield, shit like this.  I was at least 8 years old when these shows were on.  And all of these shows were long-running and I watched them for many years.  This is what I remember watching.  These are the Saturday morning cartoons of my era. 

But somehow Mike, who’s two years younger than me, cites cartoons from years earlier, that were only on for one or two seasons, as his favourite Saturday morning cartoons and the cartoons of his era.  It’s just complete bullshit.  Fucking Dungeons & Dragons was another cartoon that he mentioned.  That’s another one that I never even heard of.  It was before my time and only lasted two seasons.  But somehow, this was a favourite of Mike’s.

Let me look up 1988 Saturday morning cartoons.  

Yeah.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  This is what prompted this whole conversation.  Somebody asked him about this cartoon and Mike said that it wasn’t of his era.  But it totally was.  He was eight years old when the show was on.  And it lasted for years.  It was very popular.  This was his era.

Ghostbusters would be another one.  Alf.  Shit like this.  Why is he so opposed to these cartoons?  Give Alf a little love.  You know that you watched it.  I watched it too.  What’s the big deal?  There’s no shame in it.