ANN ARBOR, Mich. — While saving up to repair his broken gaming PC, local man Josh Quell underwent a transformation from an elite gamer into pretty much just your everyday bigot.
“Yeah, the change has been pretty dramatic. I used to hate people who are different from me in gaming, but now that I can’t play anything, I’m stuck just hating people who are different from me in general,” said Quell, 27, whose PC was damaged when a pipe burst in his mother’s house six months ago. “It’s like I’m a totally different person.”
The broken PC has also transformed Quell’s social life, cutting him off from the gaming world he used to interact with on a daily basis.
“My whole life was video games,” said Quell. “Like, there was this forum I loved, where I would post about how it’s bad to have trans people in video games. And on Twitter, there was this really diverse community of gaming journalists I would reply to, about how it’s bad to have trans people in video games. And the guys I used to play shooters with? I just know the fellas are talking shit about trans people in video games without me. It gives me serious FOMO.”
Quell needs three more months of allowance to pay for a new graphics card, so he has attempted to find other hobbies in the meantime.
“I tried to get into cooking, but it turns out food has been totally ruined by immigrants, who are always mixing their cultures to create new recipes that are somehow even grander than the sum of their parts. Uh, forced diversity much?” said Quell of his brief time moderating a subreddit he created, r/NYTimesCookingInAction. “Gardening was even worse. All the how-to guides were like, ‘Have a mix of colors and textures to make your garden more dynamic!’ You think I don’t know what they’re getting at? Stop shoving politics down my throat, Good Housekeeping.”
Asked what he most looks forward to when he can finally game again, Quell didn’t hesitate.
“Playing Cyberpunk 2077, definitely,” he said. “IGN’s review was way too positive or negative, and I’m excited to find out which. I’m already mad just thinking about it.”