Emily Watkins is… something.
git gud
The hill I will die on: Emily Watkins shouldn’t be allowed to write. Not even a fucking post it note, let alone for a self-proclaimed news portal.
Tens, hundreds of thousands of people would have their lives immediately improved if she never held a pen, or graced a keyboard with her presence ever again.
Engagement bait slop.
I don’t think we need to amplify one of the worst opinion columns written in a hot minute. This reminds me of that guy who wanted to shame every adult who uses a backpack, as some kind of fashion faux pas. Both of these people can get bent. Games are fun. Backpacks are practical.
There used to be a convention of having authors who would, at least occasionally, write deliberately-enraging opinion articles in magazines. In my experience, they were typically at the end of magazines. Maybe not outright wrong articles, but they’d make statements that many readers of the magazine would object to.
The idea, as I understand it, was to — and this was before social media, in the Internet-based sense of the word, developed a focus on this — drive engagement. People would write letters to the editor complaining and arguing against it, and then the magazine could print some of these in the next issue in the letters section.
John C. Dvorak was the most-prominent example of this that I recall — he put articles in a few computer magazines — and was notable in that I recall him publicly-admitting on one occasion that he did this, that it wasn’t just that he happened to have controversial opinions.
Huh. Looking at his WP article, it looks like he just died last week.
Anyway, my point is that I could believe that publications might still have authors who do this sort of thing.
Yeah, exactly why it feels gross to signal boost it.
Oh, I’m SOOOOO sorry that our fun is interrupting your alcoholism. Feel free to down another bottle of wine alone in the corner while muttering about how you’re so much more sophisticated than the rest of us.
That was the first thing I took away from it, too. I like alcohol. It’s also objectively a worse activity for a healthy adult than playing ping pong.
Alcohol is the opposite of fun, and I’d ban them for anyone over 25
My supernatural farming sim has done nothing wrong it’s while life!
She’s entitled to her opinion, even if it is stupid and wrong.
We are also entitled to ridicule her for her shitty opinion.
Arguing against her strawman is not a productive use of anybody’s time or attention, and it even further wastes the time of readers. It’s not solving any problem because it’s not a genuinely held opinion. It is just meaningless slop, seeking profit, filling space, devoid of any intellectual value and no different than AI slop, whether a human wrote it or not.
Bait used to be believable.
This Watkins person sounds like the kind of person who’s just so bad at every game she now wants to ruin everyone else’s fun. It’s a known fact games of all kinds can be good for you in different ways, and having a playful side is often seen as a green flag in most adults too.
“I’m bad at games, so they should be illegal. Instead, let’s drink wine!”
Wild take, but it takes all sorts. Incidentally, I do totally agree with her about Two Truths and a Lie, although I wouldn’t really call these forced ice breakers ‘games’
I find it interesting that she finds games to be so isolating and distracting from socializing, when the board game industry relies almost entirely on people getting together to play games and… socialize.
I wonder if she knows co-operative games exist
This person sounds like she’d be fun at parties…
(I mean I guess she is no longer invited to any and has fuck all clue why that might be >.>)
There are three mentions to alcohol, one for each potential social interaction in that article. So I guess I know how the author parties typically.
I’d rather have the games, thank you.
What an eminently unfun-sounding person. People that carve out such a broad category to gatekeep always confuse me. You don’t like competitive games? There’s cooperative ones. Annoyed by people who take it too seriously? Try a more casual one. Etc…
There’s nothing wrong with being stuck in your ways or preferring more simple social activities. But refusing to try whatever the consensus of a group is, or judging others for participating is some peak boomer shit. And condescending things others enjoy as only being for children is the chef’s kiss. Again, she’s allowed her opinions and preferences, but I certainly don’t want her joyless ass playing a game with me either…
It’s not even just games apparently. Any activity with friends that doesn’t involve the consumption of mind altering legal substances (yes, coffee IS a mild altering substance), is apparently off the menu.
And it’s not even her refusal to do these activities that’s mind boggling, but the fact that she thinks it’s okay to enforce it. Honey… you’re free to ruin your social connections with your stubbornness, but wanting to legislate fun out of existence just makes you a cunt.
lol what is it with educated white British women and their obsession with wine? Are people in the UK so boring that you need to stay inebriated to have a conversation?
I semi-agree only in that those are some of the worst party games.
Usually when someone says they don’t like boardgames, its because they’ve only ever played Monopoly , Scrabble, or Sorry which are kind of terrible to play. It seems like she falls into this category.
She’s starting this complaining about a casual game of table tennis so it’s not exclusively board games, it’s like… the concept of playing a game? And apparently, not only as a party activity, but in general.
Very weird take.
lol. 100% death on that hill.
It’s a weird hill to die on, but at least she’s dead 🤷♂️
