I certainly applaud the behavior posted above and I by no means meant to imply that all young males are testosterone laden jerks.
As I said in my original post, it had to be couched in terms of gross generalization and stereotypical examples or it would have been far too long. Hopefully no one here characterizes the extreme form of adolescent and young adult male isolated peer groups such as street gangs exhibit.
But as a group, they are more aggressive, competitive and tend to identify with a peer group. For most well rounded, normal individuals this will only manifest itself in healthy outlets such participation in competitive team sports or simply a drive to excel. Even there, it is not uncommon for the top athletes, “the jocks” to form a subculture at a social which will exhibit more of the stereotypical player.
Most young men will maintain a reasonable healthy relationship with family and friends outside their peer group, male and female. But anyone that has spent much time in chat rooms can attest that there is a significant population that exhibit bigotry, abusive attitudes towards women and other signs of poor socialization.
But that does not mean that even basically healthy normal members of this demographic will not exhibit attitudes that certainly show a emphasis on competition.
Some great classic comments from these forums in the last 24 hours:
“Then again a lot of things about the Wii completely baffle me like what is the big deal with Wii Fit? Seriously a balance board? Is this even a game? “ (Male – no age given)
[If you can’t compete, and keep score what’s the point – this individual is not likely to fall in the demographic target group for Nintendogs either]
“Consoles have a more difficult aiming ability (and therefore a steeper learning curve) allowing for good gamers to reach high scores fairly quickly” (Male 25)
[ It is a great example of both hyper competitiveness and elitism to prefer an inferior control system because it will filter out all but the “true brethren”. Ie This will keep out the kids and grannies (IGN –term for “casuals” – note that this terminology in itself recognizes that the hardcore gamers are not female or preadolescents]
