Ben: [0:10] I thought we'd start out by having you talk a little bit about your biography, go into where you're from, how old you are, what do you do for a living, what do you do now. Robert Johnson: [0:21] The unimportant things? Ben: [0:22] Yes, yes. Robert: [0:23] Got you. I am 25 years old and I'm originally from North Carolina. Ben: [0:33] Whereabouts? Robert: [0:34] Rockingham County. It is like right on the edge of Virginia. It is like really north and everyone that I say like I am from North Carolina, they don't know where that place is. Ben: [0:45] I don't either. Robert: [0:46] See. Ben: [0:47] Is it rural? Robert: [0:48] It is in the piedmont and people are like what's the piedmont? I can't explain it. It is what it is. Next question? Ben: [0:58] So, you say you grew up in Rockingham. You eventually make your way up here. I'm going to close this door because of the air conditioning. You made your way here when? Robert: [1:13] About five years ago. Ben: [1:15] You lived actually in Marion? Robert: [1:17] In Marion, yes. Ben: [1:19] In Marion, five years ago. You worked at? Robert: [1:21] I worked at Whirlpool in Marion, 3rd shift. Ben: [1:25] 3rd shift. Robert: [1:26] And it's nothing... Let's skip it there now, it is not enjoyable. Ben: [1:32] What's the time frame for third shift? Robert: [1:35] 10:30 to 6:30. Ben: [1:37] 10:30 to 6:30. Robert: [1:40] 10:30 at night, 6:30 in the morning. Ben: [1:41] Get home at 6:30 in the morning when you are not taking classes, you tend to sleep until? Robert: [1:48] I sleep at random intervals. Ben: [1:52] OK. Robert: [1:52] I honestly... I can't give you a set schedule because it changes depending on what my school was like. Ben: [1:57] Right. Robert: [1:58] So, I might be able to come home and go straight to sleep for seven or eight hours and then get up or I might stay up, go to class. Ben: [2:07] And then crashed? Robert: [2:08] Yeah, and then crashed here for a few hours and then get back. Ben: [2:10] So, it's a grind? Robert: [2:12] Yeah. Ben: [2:12] And so, you have a son? Robert: [2:13] Yes. Ben: [2:13] OK. Robert: [2:16] He was also trained to be a great gamer. Ben: [laughs] [2:17] Robert: [2:19] Because the guys are starting to gather. Ben: [2:21] How old is he? Robert: [2:22] He is four. Ben: [2:24] He is four so he's gotten manual dexterity... Robert: [2:26] He is getting there like his thing is DS because me and my girl, we both got ideas because we rent the play and eventually he kind of just confiscated them both. And he just really isn't great teaching tool for him because he figures it out on his own. Right now, he is playing Mario and Party. He really loves that. And he'll play... [2:50] He just discovered multi player. So, this big phase like he wants us to play with him and its amazing how fast he picks it up. Ben: [3:02] Cool. So, yeah he is learning a whole area skills. Not just the technical skills of learning how to operate the device but also figuring out the interface, figuring out how to interact with other people and that sort of thing. Robert: [3:18] I mean from form and more complicated machine like say the play station, I had to set it up for him and then he can go but he already knows like what to do, how to set up wirelessly which I don't even know. He says just go type this and do that and I'm like what? I feel like what my parents felt like when I was trying to explain something simple to them. It's passing down but it's really cool. Ben: [3:43] He is going to surpass you one day. Robert: [3:44] I'm hoping. He is getting good. He wants to play guitar. And he is not that dexterity, is that a word with the whole idea of like playing different keys and in strumming. But I expect to come home one day and he is just going to be on X which is going... I'm like way to go. Ben: [4:04] That would be due to your parentage, no doubt. Robert: [4:09] Exactly. Ben: [4:09] All right. So, let me move on a little bit and get into your contradictional literacy background. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you remember to read and write. Not just in terms of formal schooling but in terms of kind of reading and writing he might have done outside the class as well. Robert: [4:34] My reading and writing experience was not the best I had to say. I never really discovered reading for fun until four, five years ago when I met my girl who she turned me on to this wonderful place called library. Ben: [laughs] [4:53] Robert: [4:54] Before that, my reading was mostly a thing with pictures in the comic books among stuff like that. Ben: [5:00] OK. Robert: [5:02] I read... I used to read like stories on line when I discovered the Internet, fan fiction and stuff like that. But I was always in the mindset that in school they force me to read stuff. Stuff that I didn't care about but they felt that I needed to know and in all... I don't know I just never felt that it was important. And thus, I put reading in a place of like this torturous aspect. And I kind of just put it in the bad. [5:40] But I discovered that I actually do like reading. I realized I was taught basic writing skills in school like the 131 type of writing. I hated writing like until now. Again, coach and like getting older, you get to reinvent yourself and you've maybe discovered... You find these things that you hated so much, you actually like because you are free to actually explore them at your own leisure. [6:06] And you maybe have instructors or any other kind of person teaching you, giving you the freedom to be yourself. Ben: [6:13] Sure. Robert: [6:15] My earliest writing experience that I was never as good was I wrote a story. It was about a duck and it was illustrated too. I think I was five or six. It was part of the project and I remember I was just toiling over this thing because it was the most epic thing ever for a six year old. And it won a contest. I did not know that I like... I just turned it in and my teachers were like we submit this and it won a contest. [6:45] And I was like what? Really? And I got to go to this... I can't remember the place but I remember I got a T- shirt and there were some other kids that won and it got talked about. I got to read it and that was like my first good experience in writing and I never really went back to it to expand on. Hey, maybe this is something I like to do for fun. But I think that was a very commemorative moment in my writing career. Ben: [7:20] Cool. Let me ask you a follow up question there. One thing I noticed that you talked about is that when it came to the kind reading you want to do on your own before you had your real awakening in your adult life. It had a lot to do with mixing visual and textual or alphabetic modes of communication. So, comedy books and your own kind of illustrated booty. [7:46] So, that was kind of a typical... That was... Those were your stamping grounds I guess. Robert: [7:49] Yeah, I mean as being a boy and as more of a male century type of activity. I'm automatically drawn into that. I love to see you... I love how the story plays out and like the visual aspect of it. I mean that is the feature of like how we absorb information. I feel. Ben: [8:15] OK. Robert: [8:15] And it is just really pretty. Ben: [laughs] [8:16] Robert: [8:17] Very pretty. Ben: [8:18] Super hero comics, is this... Robert: [8:19] At first, yes, just the classic super hero comics. My brother, he had a big collection stuff and he let me read them and there were of course the ones that you don't touch. You can read this, don't touch this. Ben: [8:34] Not the plastic sleeves. Robert: [8:36] Being in the plastic sleeves, don't touch or I'll hurt you. I'm like... OK. Whatever you need. Ben: [8:44] And you're Marvel guy, I'm guessing? Robert: [8:46] Yeah, I'm definitely Marvel guy. I can... I like some DC. I dig Green Lantern. I've mostly Green Lantern but I don't understand any of the villains and all these stuff. Even still like some of Marvel's stuff unless it is the main characters. A lot of stuff I don't really get like. I like. I dig 'Iron Man', but when the movies come out and they talk about certain villains, I'm like, "Who's that? Who's 'Whiplash'? I don't get that guy." Ben: [9:20] Right. Robert: [9:21] But I think that those are my main routes. Gaming wise, I like the visual and the reading aspect of that, the whole story aspect of that, and I think that's what kind of pulled me into games more than the traditional analog media. Ben: [9:43] I was drawn to something you said earlier about how you railed against the grade school instruction you got in terms of reading. Would you say it's more about the authority figure that's trying to push the book on you, or generally you didn't like reading and didn't appreciate it? Robert: [10:08] I think that it had to be the authority figure. It was something that was never in my mind to actively do on my own. I think that was just from being trained that reading was bad, and also other aspects like pressure from friends that if you read you're uncool. And there are other things that I had to spend my time on like watching television or going outside to play. Just sitting at home, trying to picture things in my head and create these fantastical worlds, it was just something that I wasn't interested in. And mostly, anything that was story based that had a novel feel, it was nothing that I really liked. The one book that I really liked that I read twice as a kid was "Night". It was like a Holocaust book. Ben: [11:09] Right, Elie Wiesel. Robert: [11:11] Yes. I read that and I really got into that book. It's not a long book, but it had a story behind it. And I think I remember reading "Daylight" after that when it came out. And that was one moment where I remembered that I really enjoyed reading. Ben: [11:30] Excellent. All right, so I want to move on now and get you to talk about your work and hobby background. Like aside from gaming in terms of hobbies, but also in terms of work, talk a little bit more about what it is you do at Whirlpool, the kind of craft skills and practices you've acquired there, and also what you do aside from gaming to blow off steam. Robert: [11:55] OK. At work, I work in an area called the press room. The basic job is that they fabricate their own parts that go into the main units of the dryers. I work in the lint chutes. I take two pieces of metal...also I got injured. I cut myself. Ben: [12:16] How many stitches? Robert: [12:16] I got four stitches. Ben: [12:18] Four stitches. Robert: [12:19] It's pretty awesome; I mean I was bleeding. The worst part was actually getting the numbing shot because that just burns like a mother, but then the whole stitching. And I had to get a tetanus shot and I had a reaction to that. Anyway, I put these two parts together, press them in a machine and press. And then I either put them in a rack or I put them on the line; this rolling conveyor belt that keeps going all around 24 hours a day. Ben: [12:50] So it's literally assembly line work. Robert: [12:52] Yeah. Ben: [12:52] You're doing the same thing... Robert: [12:53] Over and over. It's the repetition that teaches you how to do it. A lot of people can't get it. It's not a difficult job. It's just very time-consuming to get it down. And if you don't have enough time into it, people get frustrated and angry. I try to tell people speed will come; you have to get coordination first. You have to know the job and fine tune it to your own skill level. What I do may not work for you, but I will give you different options on how you can do this said job, and then you go from there. You may put a part into the machine and it may catch on something. It's like, "OK, readjust and try it again." That's just the aspect of learning. Ben: [13:50] It's body memory, very much. I mean, there's some thought process behind it. Robert: [13:55] When you get to a certain level, you've done it for a year or two, your body's able to autopilot. And then like before, when you've just started, this is the only thing that you can focus on. You can't talk to anyone. You're just trying to worry about what my foot needs to do, what my arms need to do with this and that. You're running through the steps. [14:19] Once you get to a certain cognitive level of understanding, you can just kind of click with it. It makes sense. Now, you're doing this job and you're holding a conversation with the guy behind you about his weekend and you're not missing a step. Ben: [14:38] Wow. It's kind of like learning to throw a fireball in Street Fighter or something. Robert: [14:42] Right. Once you figure that out, it's a cakewalk. That's... [14:48] I'm glad you mentioned Street Fighter, because one of my earlier games that that I remember... For Christmas, my mom, she asked me, "What kind of games do you want?" I had a Super NES at the time. She was like, "Would you like a game called 'Legend of Zelda?'" "Link to the Past " is what it was. [15:12] I was like, "Yeah, sure, I guess." I'd never... I'd heard of Zelda, but I'd never got into it until that moment. [15:20] It was like, "What about a game called "Super Street Fighter?" Would you be interested in that?" [15:24] I was like, "OK. Sure." In my childlike mind, I forgot about it, and I got these games, and that was my life. That was the epitome right there, learning how to play these characters. I will never call myself a pro at any of the characters, but I knew the certain move patterns that you had to do to win a battle. It was educational in and of itself, especially with "Legend of Zelda." Ben: [15:55] Excellent. And, aside from the games themselves, what else do you do in your downtime? Robert: [16:04] Sleep. Ben: [16:05] Sleep? Robert: [16:06] Outside of just... I'm still rediscovering things that I thought I couldn't do, again like reading and writing. I never thought that I could like those for fun. I have ideas in my head that I never... That mostly I thought, "Oh, that's a cool idea." I have no tech skill to apply that to anything. [16:33] If I had a K or two of money that I wanted to draw... I could never draw that, because it's the negative of our society. It's like if you didn't start when you were three... This is my money, say. If I didn't start when I was a kid, I would never be good enough to do any of this stuff, because all of the greats, you see their biographies, so-and-so started writing when they were four writing little poems and stuff like that, and then, as they grew up and they were encouraged to pursue that... I never had that kind of encouragement as a kid. [17:06] I like to do gaming, of course. I draw. I play guitar, and I like how you do, like I didn't know what playing guitar was. Ben: [17:23] I'm off camera miming guitar playing, for the record. Robert: [17:26] It's like, "What is this movement?" Ben: [17:28] I play bass, so this is more... Robert: [17:29] OK. I've got you now. What kind... You do play bass? Ben: [17:32] Yeah, a little bit. Robert: [17:35] What kind of base do you have? Ben: [17:37] This isn't about me, but for the record, I have an Ibenez Roadstar two electric, and I also have an upright bass. Robert: [17:45] Really? Ben: [17:46] Yes. Robert: [17:46] Nice. You actually win in life. I respect him a little bit now. Ben: [17:54] Just a little. All right. So now, I want to transition into the gaming aspect of this interview. I've already heard about your interaction with "A Link to the Past, " the Legend of Zelda game and "Super Street Fighter, " but beyond that, give me a sense of your history as a gamer? Robert: [18:15] My history, my first system, well, actually my very first experience with games was the classic arcade. We had an arcade in our mall. The mall is set up kind of like the one here in Marion. It's just a hallway. Ben: [18:34] It's pretty sad. Robert: [18:35] Yes, the sad malls where it's like old people just walk around to get their exercise. But it was tucked away in this little corner. I remember just like, when I first got there, I was like, what is this dark shiny place with all these kids just standing at these consoles, just putting money into them. It was like, I want some of that. [19:00] I remember going in, and one of the first games I ever played was the X-Men game, the one where it had Night Crawler and Colossus, Wolverine, all of those guys. You put a quarter in and you just go through this level, and they had super attacks. Ben: [19:18] The side scroller, man. Robert: [19:19] Yeah, the side scroller. It was my first experience with the side scrolling game like that. I remember that the most fun I ever had. I'd go there every week, almost every day. I just wanted to play these games. I never got around to the entire place because I remember they had the basketball thing. Ben: [19:39] Right, right, analog games. Robert: [19:40] Right. I never played that because as a geeky kid I had no coordination. I really didn't want to embarrass myself. I never challenged anybody, but I do remember the arcade gurus. You'd go there and there would just be a crowd of these people playing Street Fighter, of course. And it was just like the magic of how they weaved the control to play. I want to do that stuff. [20:07] Looking at arcades now is not as fun as yesteryear at the arcade. Everything now is either a shooting game. Ben: [20:17] Or House of Dead. Robert: [20:19] Yeah. I did House of Dead. Those games are very fun. It's fun stuff, but I feel there is a magic that was lost. I don't want to go to the arcades any more mostly because I'm a family man now and need to save my money. If I could, I'd like to go to - what's the place in the east, I can't think - Game Works. Ben: [20:46] Game Works. Robert: [20:47] I like Game Works. I like Dave & Buster's and stuff like that. It's good nostalgia to go back. I did Dance Dance Revolution. I'm not ashamed if I see one. If I see one, I'm going to play this. And you guys can either walk away embarrassed or you can watch me. [21:07] It's very cool because the whole aspect of the arcade is showmanship. You go there to play in public, and then you've got someone to pull up. It's like, hey, I'll challenge you. And it's like, OK, you're going to fight this guy and then you're 20 games in and you've got people surrounding you. It's like, come check this out. They're having this great battle royale. It was such an amazing experience to be a part of. Ben: [21:33] It was social. It was immediate. Robert: [21:35] Exactly. There was something there that just really drew me in that I had to be a part of this. But after that, I remember my first system was a NES. I had, of course, classics like Mario where you were jumping from the different pillars and jumping on turtles and dodging goon bugs hitting the POWs and stuff like that. I just remember that game having a million levels. [22:07] It taught me so many things. It was this hand-eye coordination. It was pressure sensitivity on the controller. You want to go so far to hit a turtle. You want to avoid this guy. You hit the crab. The crab is like angry and he's still alive. You've got to hit him a third time, and he's still alive and he starts moving faster. And you've got to avoid him and time it just right so you can get him. Ben: [22:37] And each game has different physics so to really learn it... Robert: [22:38] Right. The beautiful thing about Mario is Mario is a good teaching tool in that it's the exact same game, no matter how you played it, no matter what age that you played it. [22:52] Even now, if you sat me in front of a Super Mario but classic side scrolling Mario where in the first world you jump off the pipe, you run, run, jump, you hit the block, you get the mushroom. I remember all of that. You jump up to the three tiered block. You hit the star man, and then that's game over. You're just running through everybody. That's my history right there. Ben: [23:21] Your recall is amazing on this. Robert: [23:23] I'm telling you. It's serious like that, dude. I can sit down with any of the classic games, and I remember this. I can be 50 now, and you sit me in front of Mario. I may be completely incoherent, but you put me in front of there I will remember how to do that. It's just ingrained in my mind so well, the whole layout of the map. Ben: [23:49] Right. Robert: [23:50] And the beautiful thing about Mario is you couldn't mess up because you couldn't go back. That's the big thing. It's a philosophy for life. The mistakes that you make, those are the ones that you have. You have to keep with those, and you have to keep pushing on because you may be able to get big and then get the fire power. And then get that mistake and hit the turtle and you've lost your fire power. Ben: [24:17] Right. Robert: [24:17] And you can't get any more. You can't go back and get that. So, you learn from that mistake, and you keep your fire power. Ben: [24:23] So, those are the early days. What do you do now in terms of gaming? Robert: [24:28] As of now, I play World of Warcraft. Ben: [24:32] OK. Robert: [24:32] I upgraded to the MMOs. That is a lifesaver in and of itself because I still have my consoles, and I still have a few games that I play, like mostly party games, social games. I play Catamar, Damase, Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, stuff that I can do with my family. [24:52] Before that, before the MMOs, I was a bad compulsive buyer of games, like if something new or shiny came out, I was like, I'm going to pay $50 and do that and buy it and play it and basically forget about it. I have my stacks and stacks of games. This is my collection, but a lot of them I never finished. [25:18] It was just something that I felt like, what was the point? Eventually, I discovered computer games, and that was something else I could put my time to but not sink all my money into wastefully. [25:37] I was never a person to read reviews on the games. Oh, this is something new, I would buy it, and if the game sucks, I wasted all my money on a game that sucks now. I had to educate myself in the gaming world. Now that I play strictly World of Warcraft, I don't have really no interest in console games, looking at them from a different point of view, like trying to say, for lack of a better term, PC. [26:10] It's like there are different entities, and they do the exact same thing in different ways. Maybe, one does it better than the other one, depending on your opinion. But I still enjoy console games. [26:22] I have a mindset of being cheap and frugal now because why do I want to wait to how they season to buy this game when all it is is you've got to make money building off of Christmas and what not, when I could just wait two or three years, and it'll come down in price. Then, I can still play it for cheap. I'm trying to be more smart like that. [26:45] That aspect has actually helped me because I always wanted to play GT4. I've been wanting to play that forever, and I don't have a Playstation 3, so I'm waiting for it to come out on PC. When that happened, I'm waiting for it to come down in price and now it's 20 bucks. Ben: [27:03] It's like, when? Robert: [27:04] I get to play this great game. Just because I didn't play it day of draw doesn't diminish the fact that it's a great game. Ben: [27:11] Right. So, World of Warcraft, what draws you into that game? Robert: [27:17] I'm a social animal by nature. And when I moved up here, like I have no friends or family outside of my immediate family, my girl and my son, her grandma, hr mom, sorry. And I, even as a kid I never had a lot of friends that I went to their house to hang out and stuff, so video games, that was my outlet. I'd come home and I spent hours just playing games. [sighs] You're going to have to ask the question again because I went on a tangent for a second. Ben: [laughs] [28:00] The thing that draws you to World of Warcraft ... Robert: [28:02] OK! What draws me to World of Warcraft, OK. At first it was just, it's this expansive universe that's in a box pretty much. You have, there's so many levels to it that brings me in, that keeps me there. One aspect is the story in and of itself, I dig more. When I study a game or a comic book or a book, I like if the author or the creator can have a really in depth background of the world that you create. [28:45] And if you go, and I have done enough searching just for my own leisure, looking at stuff like, World of Warcraft has such deep roots in so many aspects and you can look at different races and they have a certain history that dates back this and these two groups clashed here. And I just find it very amazing how much thought was put into it. Ben: [29:13] Sure. Robert: [29:14] Right. The other aspect that I enjoy is the social aspect, more so now than I did when I first started. When I first started, I liked it when my character, I like talking to a few people and then once you reach top level, the level cap, the only things you can really do is trying to raid. Which is, you go into a dungeon and have a group of 10 to 25 people and you go and try to take down their boss. And there's a different kind of aspect to that because not every raid is the same, there are different groups of people who raid differently. [29:59] There are super-uber serious peoples, like you can't talk, there's no kind of friendly banter. You go in, this is business, this is a job, we get this done and then we go home and do whatever. And then there are those who can have really raunchy, sex joke-filled runs where it's just fun! And you're not thinking so much of we're here to get gear and build up, it's not so serious, you know what I'm saying? Ben: [30:36] Right, right. Robert: [30:37] My biggest thing is I've changed as a person when it came to the game because I'm more focused on people now. I don't have a schedule that allows me to be a raider where you can ... Most raiders, they do it like four or five days a week at this set time every day and you go in, you do it and then you leave. And I don't have that kind of schedule nor do I have that kind of patience to be with a bunch of ass-hats ... Ben: [laughs] [31:10] Robert: [31:11] ... for like three or four hours wiping on trash. Do I need to explain terminology? Ben: [laughs] [31:17] No, no! I think that will come through. Robert: [31:21] Right. Ben: [31:21] But this does lead into my next question, which is how you define yourself as a gamer. Like, you're not the uber hardcore, I'm guessing but you're not a newb. You're somewhere in the middle but how would you characterize yourself as a gamer? Robert: [31:38] I think of myself as ... honestly, the first word that came up was like guru. But no! I wouldn't say, you can't just ask me all of this, like boiler plate like, technical questions like, "What is your gear score?" And like, "How much threat do you get when you attack someone?" I'm not all about that. [32:01] As it comes to World of Warcraft, I try to be as laid back and social as I possibly can and that's my biggest problem right now because we're in the midst of a new expansion coming out and whenever that happens, two things mainly happen. [32:19] Either the people who are really tight in their guilds, they continue to run stuff, they continue to get better gear and they stay together. The other aspect, which I am experiencing, is that people kind of fall off. There is definite burnouts with the game. And so, there's so much stuff going on that you can burn out very easily and a lot of people stop playing for a while or they give it up. [32:48] And I've lost a lot of good friends, people that I liked. My thing is now that I like to come online and talk to people and I see no point in being in a group situation in the game with people that I don't like. Ben: [33:03] Right. Do you talk to people in character or do you ...? Robert: [33:06] I talk to them in-game, I also use Ventrilo, that's a voice chat program. But there are a lot of people who, they talk to each other through text outside of the game. I mean, there are of course friends that meet each other and the big feature that I've seen is guilds that are so tight, from all over the world. They have meet ups and it's this big event and they'll square off, I guess a building, where you can go. [33:44] And all these people who've never seen each other's faces, they're showing up and they're hanging out, having barbeques, doing events. And I'd love to have that, I really would but it's hard to do with the kind of gamer that I am because I'm more social and low-key about it. Ben: [34:07] Right. So let me ask you this, this goes back to something you were talking about earlier with respect to college and it being a space and an opportunity to reinvent yourself. Do you also see gaming a way of reinventing your identity or kind of tweaking your identity in ways that you can do things in-game that you wouldn't normally do out of game? Robert: [34:26] I'm trying to grasp that question. [laughs] You might have to emphasize a little more! Ben: [34:32] Like, if you're playing in-game and you're being robbed the Elf King or whatever your character is. [laughs] Are you defying, that you feel free to be more aggressive and talk trash ... Robert: [34:49] Oh, OK. Ben: [34:50] ... and whereas in real life you maybe wouldn't do that as much? Robert: [34:53] I think that that's just the Internet in and of itself, just that anonymousness. I mean, it gives people who in normal life would be quiet and meek or would not cause problems for anyone, it gives them an outlet to get that frustration out, to people who can't retaliate in any way. I can see how that is an aspect. For me it's just kind of escapism. I can be more friendly, I can be more joking, I can [sighs] tackle things I wouldn't do in normal. I can talk to people more than I would talk here. [35:42] Because I don't have a lot of things in common with the people I work with at Whirlpool, I kind of just go to work and then come home. But in WOW, it's like millions of people who kind of have the same thing I'm going through and I can talk to them and have a great conversation. That's what I'm missing mostly. I miss having conversations with people. Ben: [36:08] So this is a good lead-in to the last question. Robert: [36:11] OK. Ben: [36:14] You mentioned this kind of distant connect that you experience between real world in Whirlpool for instance, and in World of Warcraft. But I'm wondering if you see connections between what you do in your gaming life and what you do outside of that? [36:33] So these other things we've talked about today, you know, your workplace literacy, if you will. Or your traditional literacy. The other hobbies and attendance skills and practices that you've acquired wit them, do you see the connection between what you do in your gaming life and what you do in those other spaces? Robert: [sighs] [36:50] Not particularly. Not off the top of my head. I don't really see that much of a connection. It's kind of - I know that I'm two different people. It's a different dynamic. Because I have to be this certain person in this certain area, like at work. [37:08] But I'm a lot freer to be who I am online in a game. Gaming is a way of expressing yourself more than anything else. You can judge a person by their gaming style. You really can. [37:24] It's not so much, many years ago, oh, it's just kids playing games. No, if you look at it from a PC standpoint, an MMOer is much different than FPSer, first person shooter. Like you can tell that person's attitude, their views on life. [37:48] That's the biggest thing I can think from gaming. Depending on who the gamer is, you can tell a lot about the person from the type of games they play. Ben: [37:57] It helps you quickly size them up. Robert: [37:59] Right. Ben: [38:00] You get a kind of rough sense of what they might be, either their energy level or their belief system, even. Robert: [38:06] Right, if I find someone who knows about WOW, I can already go into my WOW banks of information and say "OK, what server are you on?" And they're like, "Did you run this and that?" [38:19] And it's like anything gaming has its own language. If you're able to pick out who knows your language and you separate off to these different groups, it just makes it a lot simpler. Ben: [38:32] Well, here's an example. I'm trying to push the connection thing. But I do find it interesting that you see these as separate worlds. [38:40] But for instance, with jargon, you find that in your workplace you had to over time pick up some jargon. You guys have shorthand for how you talk about things. Like if the line breaks down, you're like "Oh no, it's..." [cross talk] Robert: [38:55] Yes, at my... at Whirlpool, a lot of our jargon is through a sign language really. Because it's a very loud place. And we like, for example, to rotate. Which means we do a certain job for like maybe 30 minutes, some jobs 15 minutes, depending. You switch positions so that you're not sitting at one job for eight hours a day completely bored and numb. [39:24] This move right here means to rotate. And when you do that to someone, the person who is supposed to start the rotation, because there's always like a job that's easy enough that it can be left alone so that the rotation can start. If someone doesn't know about the time, you get their attention, you do like that, they understand. [39:43] Break, when it's time to take a break. This method right here. That means everybody stops. We go to our lunch or whatever, and come back. Mostly it's stuff like that. Ben: [39:54] OK. Robert: [39:55] Jargon-wise, in gaming, it depends on the game. Ben: [40:01] Like? Robert: [40:02] Again, First Person Shooter, I don't understand jargon for that, you know. I mean, I know basic stuff like head shot, running riot, stuff like that. [40:12] I use a lot of my WOW jargon like regular conversation with people. Even not just that, but like Internet speak, I use that. Like if something was funny, I'll say LOL. Ben: [40:26] Right. Robert: [40:27] That was really funny. Ben: [40:28] In the class, I notice you do that periodically. Robert: [40:31] Right, if I hear something really funny, like hysterically funny, I won't laugh, I'll say like LMAO. And like, some people get that and some people don't. [40:40] And I think it's really important to have. I don't think people should say like it's not a language, it's not something that you can use. It's very pertinent and important. Ben: [40:54] I find it interesting that you'll bring that language into the classroom but you won't do your signs for rotate or. Robert: [41:02] Right. I won't do that, I can't do that here because Whirlpool in and of itself is its own universe, you know, and it has its own set of rules. And just like anything else, when I'm here, depending on if I'm talking to different professors I can be cool and low key and fun with Ben, because you're like me, in a sense. We can get along together. [41:30] But other more, what's a nice way to put it, collegiate professors, is the nicest way I can think of, I have to be more professional. Now that I say that now, now it's like I say that and I feel kind of bad that I can't be - I'm not like as professional with you, but it depends on what I'm trying to achieve, I guess... Ben: [41:57] You size up the situation, you apply the code accordingly. Robert: [42:00] Right. Ben: [42:01] Seems like there was something else I was going to ask about. Oh, yes, yes, yes, in terms of reading and writing and stuff, like for instance, there's a vibrant community involved in producing Warcraft fan fiction, for instance. Do you follow any of that? Robert: [42:19] Yes, I do. Yes, I really - because again, I love war. So I love to read about a certain character; they're explaining his past. The most recent one I ever read was about Arthis Menamil. He is the Liche King, and he is like the big bad guy. [42:35] And he starts of as just this Prince of Lordoron which is the kingdom. And it explains basically what happens to him that he falls from grace and embraces the undead lifestyle and kills his own people and becomes this great ultimate evil. [42:58] And I just really dig that because it's more than just a game then. It's not just like Super Mario where you're running through to try and get to the Princess. There's ups and downs, like these people have flaws. [43:15] Kind of like why like why I like Marvel, you know. All the heroes, they have these superpowers, but they have, also, lives. They have things that we as normal people come up, that come up in life. And they have to deal with it like everybody else. You may be the strongest man in the universe, but your mother is dying of cancer and you can't stop that. That's something you can't fix. [43:44] And I like the reality of that. The Liche King is just a normal prince. He is trying to help his people because this whole undead thing is turning all his people into zombies. And one of the biggest aspects of him is an event called the Coming of Stratham, was a kingdom. and the best way that he felt to fix it was to kill all the citizens in the town before the plague took them over. [44:15] That will be seen as mass murder, that insanity. But in his mind it's like this cleansing. This is the only thing that he can do to help his people. And it's like that's real life, you know? Where you feel the only way to fix a problem is with evil. And this one evil act is supposed to help everyone. That's just true life. Ben: [44:42] Morals and ethics in real life, there's a lot of gray area. Robert: [44:45] I think that's where it's leading to with gaming. It's emulating life in that not everything is there a clear-cut hero and a clear-cut villain. And you have to make choices on what is good and bad. That's coming out of a lot of stuff with gaming, the more open-ended, free world games. I think it kind of started off with Grand Theft Auto, you know. You can play it cool and do all the quests. Or you can go and just steal a car. Ben: [45:22] Right. Robert: [45:22] And then go and pick up a hooker and then run her over and get your money back. And then go on this gigantic rampage if you want to, giving you free choice to be the kind of person that you are or you think you would like to be. Ben: [45:39] Well, on that upbeat note, [laughs] I thank you for this. I think we got a lot of good stuff here. So, you know, and you've talked for a good 45 minutes. Robert: [45:49] Really? Ben: [45:50] Yes, I don't know if you knew that or not. But I think we'll call this one done. Robert: [45:56] OK. Ben: [45:57] All right. Thank you. Robert: [45:58] No problem.