Boy Scouts Can Play Video Games and Get Praised and Rewarded For It

I thought the Boy Scouts was the official name for a group of children who climb up trees, camp out in the forest and cut wood with pen knives. Apparently now researching videogames is a Boy Scout qualification too. To earn yourself recognition for knowing about videogames, a child in the Boy Scouts has to know things every gamer knows and do things every gamer does.

To earn a belt loop badge, a child has to explain why the ratings system is important in videogaming, involve videogaming in their daily activities and learn to play a videogame under supervision from their parents. Getting an academic pin for videogaming is tougher if you’re an idiot because you have to do insanely difficult things such as “create a plan to buy a videogame”, “install a gaming system” and “play an appropriate videogame with a friend for an hour”.

I’m a little bit baffled as to how patronising this is, not only because the Boy Scouts group presume that children don’t know how to play videogames but also because they seem to think that children have to be rewarded now for understanding videogaming, as if it’s some sort of barren isolated area of society that you have to research and learn about early to understand why it exists.

The worst thing about this though? This suggests that children can play videogames for analysis and understanding, but not for personal leisure. This suggests that videogaming has to be approached like a sleeping dog that’s stolen your favourite toy. This suggests that videogaming is not a good thing, it’s just a weird pastime that children should merely experience because it exists.

Please, I implore you to correct me if I’m wrong so I don’t feel so annoyed by what I perceive to be ignorance.