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Before I started playing, I was just another girl who thought that World of Warcraft was just a silly game that took over boys’ lives and left them living in a fantasy world of elves and magic where they sit on their couches in dark rooms with only their computers to keep them company.
I heard a story about two boys in China that died because they got so involved in the game that they forgot to eat. In fact, there are even internet rehab camps there for more serious cases. I had even been ignored by boys on numerous occasions because they wanted to run a quest or mission or whatever they called it before we went out.
On those occasions, they’d say to me, “Just give me 10 more minutes,” and of course, when 10 minutes was up, “just five more minutes.” I’d spend entire nights waiting for them to finish what they were doing in this fantasy world, and sometimes I’d end up going home and leaving them with their game.
I couldn’t help but wonder what had them so captivated. So one night, sitting in a dark room with only my computer, I tried it.
I tried it. That’s a little embarrassing for me to admit. I have a hard enough time trying to project myself as a normal college student as it is, and I don’t want to be counted as another video game-obsessed, weird, geeky girl.
That’s the stigma surrounding World of Warcraft. One of my best friends at home told me that she knows nerds who make fun of people who play WOW, and it’d be wise for me to stay away from it. Yet, my curiosity got the best of me, and I started to create my first character.
Surprisingly, when I first began playing, I found the game to be relatively normal. I was able to design my own character (which my girlish side was pleased to do, considering the process closely resembled a game of dress-up) and began playing on level one of a seemingly ever-expanding game.
Before I knew it, three and a half hours had passed and there I was, sitting in a dark room with only my computer as company. The game is like a drug — addicting. It’s so simple, so easy to play and so thoroughly entertaining that it’s easy to forget where you are.
I had to put the game away when school came around because it is such an effective distraction. Yet, the small WOW icon on my desktop screen tempts me still. I seek to hide it as best I can to avoid the glances and stereotyping that the game attracts, but what can I say?
In the end, perhaps I am a weird, geeky girl just trying to be a normal college student after all.
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