Nurtured Toxicity
Growing up with exposure to computer shop culture in the Philippines usually means you probably had the most traumatic or the best childhood ever.
Honestly, I’m not sure how popular computer shops are still today since I have my own devices at home. Ever since the acquisition of my cellphone, I didn’t have time to play at computer shops. However, I have many memories (for better or worse) growing up because of it.
I still remember playing Defense of the Ancients, Tetris, Minecraft, Prototype, Counter-Strike and Left for Dead among many others with cousins and friends. We would just have a blast for sometimes, 8 hours straight (a bit unhealthy, honestly).
One of the most thrilling yet frowned upon parts of computer shops in the Philippines is trash talk culture. Insulting each other’s plays, then eventually appearances, somehow your parents will get involved in the insults. This was an everyday occurrence and I’m usually on the receiving end of it.
I do not promote this type of interaction because they can be very harmful to a child’s development especially when the insults are genuinely meant. From my experience, it was all done in good spirits because, after the games, we usually give each other compliments.
That part of the computer shop is very similar to a gamer’s experience in the Southeast Asian Server. Admittedly, it is a highly toxic behavior and I’ve had my fair share of participation. At the same time, it indirectly helped me be less concerned with other people’s opinions.
Again, I’m clarifying that this is not something that should be encouraged among the youth. What I’m saying is somehow somehow, it affected me positively which is not the case for everyone who grew up in this kind of environment.
On the contrary, there’s also a sort of brotherhood inside a computer shop. Sometimes you form factions with people you don’t know to team up and beat people who came from another part of the city to play. That sort of Home vs Away competition was something special.
In conclusion, I sometimes reminisce about my time in computer shops but I also acknowledge the fact that I grew up. Those experiences may be more fitted to the era they happened. My views on life have drastically changed and I don’t think I will find the same amount of fun in things like trash-talking as much as I did before. However, I am not ashamed to say that the computer shop culture here in my country influenced me a lot (for better or worse).
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I just recently encountered an old friend from the computer shop I used to play at so I thought of writing this story. Thank you very much for reading! For more life stories like this, I suggest reading one of my articles about how poetry SAVED my life.
