A while back, I made a silly little comic called Gamer Boyfriends, where I make fun of the internet webcomic stereotype of guy gamers. Namely, the stereotype that gamer boys will ignore boobs and booty calls for the sake of popping a cap in a digital character's ass. Or, in Justin's case, killing just one more dragon in Skyrim. Contrary to the stereotype, Justin will in fact leave a video game for the chance to get a little Sarah time, as this comic demonstrates.
What happened afterwards, no one could have anticipated. I posted this on my deviantArt page, and after a few weeks, someone posted it to reddit. Oh my god. On a good day, I MIGHT get about a thousand hits on a really popular picture. This picture got about 75,000 hits in TWO DAYS. Because it was posted on reddit.
And let me tell you, the people on reddit did not take this lightly. It seemed like every guy posting on there was trying to defend the stereotype. I was reading lines like, "I completely ignored my girlfriend for like two weeks after Skyrim came out," and, "REALISTICALLY, he SHOULD have told his online friends he was going away for a minute, and then GENTLY set down his peripherals," and even guys who swore up and down that they would never ever stop in the middle of a video game to go have sex with their girlfriends. And there were girls who were saying, "My boyfriend is totally the internet stereotype. It's like I don't even exist when he's playing video games."
Honestly, it was a little depressing to read. I'm not saying every guy should throw down his controller when his lady wants a little nookie. But the fact that so many guys would ignore a real-life lady with real-life boobs for the sake of a pretend game with imaginary characters and digital boobs makes me sad for them.
But I digress. Really, the important part here is that, in addition to all these crazy and depressing comments from lonely single gamer boys, there were also posted a lot of "fixed" versions of my comic. People would take my comic into Photoshop (or more likely MS Paint) and alter it a little bit to make it "more accurate." Some of these are actually pretty darn funny, even if they usually portray Justin in a "FOREVER ALONE" kind of light. So I'm going to share them with you.
You can see the full-sized comics after the pagebreak at the end of the post!
In addition to the whole stereotype drama, the internet community was also upset that I "drew the characters wrong." Apparently there's no way that a chubby gamer guy like Justin could land a hot redheaded girlfriend. Any of the comments that weren't going on about how gamer guys can't be expected to put down their controller every time their lady wants a little company in the bedroom, were saying that I needed to be fat and ugly to make any of this comic even remotely accurate.
And if THAT wasn't enough, they even started a several-page-long debate over the terminology of "According to the Internet." They claimed that, because I posted my comic on the internet, then both sides of the comic were according to the internet. They even made a Philosoraptor about it.
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| Redditors obviously have too much time on their hands. |
So, in the end, I made a funny comic, offended a lot of sad lonely people, and got mad amounts of pageviews on my deviantArt page because of it. Win? I think so.
P.S. Thank you, Justin, for being the kind of guy who will put down his controller to spend some time with his girlfriend. I guess I really lucked out with you. <3
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