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MGTOW: I learned how to live my life from The Sims

I told you fireworks were a bad idea.

Over on the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit, one Redditor tells his comrades how he developed his philosophy of life:


I learned mgtow from the original Sims (self.MGTOW) submitted 4 days ago by onbakeplatinum Way back when the original Sims came out and I was 14, I tried to play as my actual family. That turned out to be a complete nightmare, trying to control multiple people, always being short on money, dealing with their moods and unwillingness to do anything, etc. Then I played as just a single Sim. The game became ridiculously easy. I only had to manage one person, could live in a small house, and train/go to work all the time. My Sim was extremely happy. She became rich and I pimped her small house (I tried to make the smallest house possible) with the highest quality items. I maxed out all her stats. I don't remember much else. But it occurred to me way back then that this was how I wanted to live my life. Alone and simple. I didn't NEED to have a family like everyone else and manage/deal with other people. I could live in a small (but nice) place because it's just me, and even though I don't make much money, it's only me I have to worry about.

This seems a bit weird to me. I also played the original Sims game when it came out, and that wasn’t the lesson I drew from it at all. The lessons I learned were a little, well, darker. Some that I remember:

  • If you place a bunch of people in a house with no bathrooms and no doors, they will be extremely unhappy, and will start leaving puddles on the floor.
  • If you place a bunch of people in a house with the only toilet in the middle of the living room, they will be nearly as unhappy as the first bunch of people.
  • If you build a house with no doors, chairs, couches or beds, the people trapped within it will also be really unhappy, and will ultimately try to sleep standing up or lying on the floor.
  • Building a fence around them while they’re out in the yard will do the trick as well.
  • If someone is swimming in your backyard pool, and you quickly build an insurmountable wall around it, they will eventually drown.
  • Actually, never mind, I think if you simply “forget” to put a ladder in the pool, they can’t get out either.

So I guess I mainly learned some very basic “don’ts” in home design, such as the importance of having a door. And in fact I have not designed any doorless — or bathroomless, or bedless — houses since then. Or any houses at all, actually.

I’m not the only one who learned lessons about the importance of doors, as the following videos I found on Youtube make abundently clear. Also, shooting off fireworks inside a doorless room is pretty much a disaster waiting to happen.

Well, you get the idea.

Have you learned any important life lessons from the Sims, or any other videogames?

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magnesium
magnesium
9 years ago

Oh man. My sister had all the good Sims expansion packs, including the House Party pack.

Using a few tricks involving plants and a fireplace in a small room detached from my sim’s main house, I was able to invite neighbours over for parties and murder them in the fire room. I kept all of their tombstones in the backyard and then more victims would come to the parties and cry at the tombstones. They’d never leave the party, though. Wacky Sims.

mockingbird
mockingbird
9 years ago

I learned from The Sims that I hated The Sims.

I could barely manage my own life – why would I want to micromanage another person’s?

I learned from Battletoads that one should avoid friendly fire if at all possible.

And from the Borderlands franchise I learned that I can jump from just about any height and be hunky-dory (as long as that jump wasn’t off of the edge of the mapped world) and that even Badass Psychos are no match for an elemental-infused force bubble.

delphi_ote
delphi_ote
9 years ago

I learned that money literally grows on trees and that vampires and aliens are real.

mockingbird
mockingbird
9 years ago

Another important lesson from Borderlands for MRAs of all stripes:

https://youtu.be/lG_VItFUEEI

Terrabeau
Terrabeau
9 years ago

ARK: Survival Evolved has taught me the valuable lesson that if you have anything good in your life (like a rideable Utahraptor with a saddle that I spent really long on making), it will at some point be taken from you, and that you need to be able to emotionally deal with that loss.

Assassin’s Creed has taught me that I can jump off literally any building I want and survive, as long as there’s a conveniently placed haystack at the bottom. Also that my history teachers are seriously misinformed.

Finally, The Walking Dead has taught me that crying at a video game is an entirely acceptable thing for a young man to do, because OH GOD CLEMENTINE I’M SO SORRY I MADE YOU DO THAT I’M SO SORRYHHYYY

Button
Button
9 years ago

Hey, more power to this guy. The Sims is a weird source of inspiration for living the single life, granted, but you do you.

Paradoxical Intention
9 years ago

To be perfectly honest (and to repeat myself, as we often do when this comes up), I don’t mind if these guys want to go off on their own and live their own lives. That’s a perfectly valid thing to want to do, and they shouldn’t be shamed for it.

The problem comes when you blame an entire group of people (in this case, women) for being “forced” to make that decision, because you don’t like the way they do things. It’s not the fault of women that you want to “go your own way”, but rather that was a choice you made for yourself, and no one cares (and no one should care) if you do want to go.

To answer David’s question though, What Paradoxy Learned from Video Games:

Skyrim:
– If you want to do bad things like join a murder-cult or a guild of thieves, also go and join the good guilds too, and then people will only know about the good things.
– Also, become a thane and get political power, and you can get away with anything by telling the guards you’re a thane, and simply enjoying the legal immunity that comes with it.
– Then get lots of money, lots of houses, and become second only to the emperor of Tamriel, and people will be too scared to question you.

Saint’s Row:
– Hitting someone with a 4 foot long floppy purple dildo bat really hurts.
– Aliens are jerks who need to be hit with a 4 foot long floppy purple dildo bat.

Bioshock:
– Ayn Rand wasn’t that practical.

Prison Architect:
– Prisoners are people too, and if you don’t treat them right and give them basic comforts everyone should have, they’ll gang up on your guards and shank them all with homemade weapons and riot.

The Binding of Isaac:
– There’s a difference between being devout and being fanatic.

Postmortem: One Must Die
– Choices have consequences.

Minecraft:
– If you don’t like the world as it is, mod it until it breaks.

sheehank
9 years ago

Dwarf Fortress taught me a few things
1: Marxism-Leninism is the way forward. Capitalist economies ruin your FPS, impoverish the children of the nobility, and make dwarves waste time carrying coins everywhere.
2: It doesn’t matter if there’s a horrible massacre so long as you have a really nice dining room to cheer everyone up.
3: The best way to execute serial killers is to brick them up in a small room and force them to do paperwork until the end of time.
4: The best way to train your military is to throw your soldiers off a three story cliff onto a single wooden training spear. If they survive, they will become like unto gods.
5: Sand is infinite. You can never run out of sand.
6: Aquifers are literally satan.
7: Microcline is the greatest of all stones.
8: The instant a child grows up, they will become Mayor.

Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
Scented Fucking Hard Chairs
9 years ago

The Sims taught me that I’m a weirdo who can’t handle being cruel to virtual pets. I killed one, spent the next week feeling guiltier than a Catholic in Confession, and went back to Pokemon.

No, don’t ask how that meshes with my slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners approach to dealing with trolls, I have no idea. ಠ_ಠ

Paradoxical Intention
9 years ago

@SFHC:

Maybe it’s because you actually feel bad about the pet because they were small and cute, and didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to them, whereas the trolls are making the decision to be assholes, and thus you feel okay with raining down the wrath of GLaDOS upon them?

Mike
Mike
9 years ago

– If you’re shot, set on fire, impaled on spikes, etc., it’s generally not a big deal – you just might get placed a little bit far away from wherever it was you were shot/burned/impaled.

– If you walk around a town and talk to the people there, most of them will say the exact same thing no matter how many times you talk to them.

– Even in the midst of an intense, life-or-death struggle, you can usually stop time if you need to go to the bathroom or get a snack or something.

– When people die, they tend to just fade into the ether and no one really reacts to it.

Skull Bearer (@SkullBearer)

Honestly, apart from coming from a shit site, I think that’s a pretty good message to take away. Look after yourself and be happy being single instead of worrying about what other people think and compromising yourself to make them happy. If that’s what the guy took away, good for him.

Viscaria
Viscaria
9 years ago

Ah, the original Sims. Or, as I like to call it, I’m Totally Straight I Promise,* I Just Really Like Making My Sims Lesbians For Some Reason. Brings me back.

*Incorrect, baby me.

Monzach
Monzach
9 years ago

Things I’ve learned from video games:

– Sometimes stealing stuff really is the best way to move forward in life. (Thanks Fallout 1&2)

– When you’re in a commanding position in a professional sports franchise, ethics go out of the window fast! (Football Manager and Eastside Hockey Manager)

– It definitely is very good to be a king, though being an emperor is even better. (Paradox Grand Strategy games, mainly the various iterations of the Europa Universalis series)

– I really shouldn’t be the head of any state. (Civilization, Democracy, EU1-4…)

– But most of all, gaming really can be a lot of fun, which is why I’ve been doing it for 26 years now. ^_^

weirwoodtreehugger
9 years ago

Glad I’m not alone in thinking this particular post wasn’t so bad. I don’t mind being single and childless because life is so much simpler that way. I’m prone to laziness at best and depression at worst so only having to worry about me and the cats and my brother once my parents die or become infirm suits me well. It’s the misogyny that’s bad, not wanting to be single.

That said, if this guy is hanging out in MGTOW reddit, he’s probably pretty misogynist.

Garen Truscott
Garen Truscott
9 years ago

Bioshock: Every moral conundrum and libertarian extremist can be dealt with by use of a swarm of bees.

Swales
Swales
9 years ago

Oblivion taught me that stealing all the food in somebody’s house and placing a single poisoned apple on a plate in their kitchen is a flawless murder plot. Works every time.

Garen Truscott
Garen Truscott
9 years ago

The Sims: I had Jesus and the Devil live together in one household and in spite of the Devil’s attitude the household functioned pretty well once I relocated the devil and his family to the basement.

Garen Truscott
Garen Truscott
9 years ago

Soma: So apparently I’m willing to pull the plug on myself. That was interesting.

Tulgey Logger
Tulgey Logger
9 years ago

Alice and Kev is a pretty good sims story: https://aliceandkev.wordpress.com

Garen Truscott
Garen Truscott
9 years ago

Mass Effect 1 and 2: Never Never NEVER have sex with a person you have previously killed. Oddly this rule needs to be put in place in addition to my iron clad rule against necrophilia.

It just isn’t right.

NonServiam
NonServiam
9 years ago

Video games taught me that if it looks like you can’t get in somewhere, you just need to learn the right song on your Ocarina. Also you can come and go from adulthood if you find the right sword.

I haven’t learned any of those songs OR found that sword, but let me tell ya, when I do, life is gonna be sweeeeeet

Button
Button
9 years ago

7: Microcline is the greatest of all stones.

Fuck microcline. It’s everywhere and it’s not even magma-safe.

Garen Truscott
Garen Truscott
9 years ago

Daggerfall: Vagrancy is the worst of all crimes.

NonServiam
NonServiam
9 years ago

Red clothes will let you survive unholy levels of heat.

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