The Steam Deck is changing how normies think of gaming PCs.
Just thought I'd share something I thought was pretty interesting. I have a mother in law who is... well let's just say she's a stereotypical older mom who doesn't own a computer, just an iPad. During the pandemic, she started getting into Nintendo games and bought herself a Switch. Fast forward a few years later and she's interested in getting a Steam Deck, since one of her "mom groups" told her about some pandemic inspired games, similar to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing that are only available on Steam.
When it comes down to it, she doesn't care about her computer, she just wants to play computer games in a way that's easy and accessible for her. We'll be getting her a Steam Deck for her birthday, which in my opinion is just super neat. Even PC gaming is becoming extremely accessible, and it's a fantastic time to be a gamer.
I don't love the pejorative "normies".
It’s cringe af and totally reinforces the “gamer” stereotype. We can do better.
IMO it’s up there with calling people npcs
NPC's is worse to be honest. It's generally used to attack people's social/political values and call them "sheeple" without using the term. Normie is gross but it's mainly just dismissive and having too high an opinion of one's own taste/interests.
Ultimately it's cringe as hell to say either lol
Really? I always thought it was supposed to be self deprecating, like saying "people who aren't fucking weirdos like myself"
I can see how it probably started that way, but once incels co-opt a term it makes it harder to use
Since when has normies been an incel thing?
At least five years… I think? This wiki page doesn’t have much of a date
I see, never heard of it used like that before.
really "normie" is a normie term now, ever since Wednesday on Netflix became a pop culture phenomenon. I've heard people in real life use this term
NPCs is ten times worse because it is used to dehumanize people you don't agree with, further alienates you away from normal society and pushes you deeper into cult like thinking.
Maybe there should be a contest to see who can come up with the most cringe worthy label.
“Classical liberal.”
The most absurd thing I’ve seen conservatives in the US try to co-opt.
it's way up there with using 'cringe' unironically
Meh cringe can be effective as a descriptor, but it's cringe to call people cringe as a personal attack. I've described situations as very "cringe-inducing."
Cringe is a thing, but it's way too common that people use their own self-consciousness as an excuse to try to shame people who are just enjoying themselves on their own corner.
Most definitely. I’m more distinguishing it from calling someone an NPC, which has no valid use  other than to dismiss or denigrate.
Unless referring to oneself. [me]
"We can do better" or worse "X do better" is more cringe.
It's just everyone judging everyone like they are worthless. Maybe people want to be part of the group maybe they have an identity with hardcore gamers. They don't need to do better that's their right.
Referring to any hobby group as "we" is cringe.
What hobby group was I referring to exactly?
Because I don’t think gamers are a hobby group any more than tv watchers are a hobby group.
Or do you think maybe I meant “we” as a collective for the people in this thread?
🤔
I'm guessing "wrong-sider" would be a step in the wrong direction?
it's definitely a weird term but in more than a few contexts (mostly very online contexts) i've found it to be the only suitable terminology because there's just nothing else which most of the people i talk to will "get" otherwise--it'd be nice to have something a little bit less embarrassing to work with, to be honest lol
I feel like 'layman' would be the perfect word here
without the artificial air of superiority
The group here may be different from most of the people you talk to.
Try:
"the average person"
Or (mostly joking) "allistic"?
"average person" i'm afraid lacks a certain it factor--probably the ironic steeping in terminally online culture implied by even speaking it--that's implied by using normie. i find in many of these circumstances it just seems out of place also. in a semantic sense i'm not sure "average person" maps to "normal person" either, which is another thing
Yeah I'm not sure "average person" works the same.... maybe "median person"? 🤣
The 10% nerdiest people hold 90% of the nerdiness?
But yeah I don't think "average person" works, because it's not a wide enough range and doesn't include the opposite extreme end
"non-normies" is a very small group, in this context non-normies would be the most extreme gamers. The "average people" would not include a somewhat invested gamer, and it also wouldn't include someone who is heavily opposed to gaming, both of which would be included in "normies".
I don't think someone heavily opposed to gaming would be considered a normie, they would be in their own separate extremist camp also apart from the average person.
the it factor you're talking about is "being a dick"
As someone alternative that been active in local gothic scenes I also use "normie" to refeer to people that do not engage with subcultures. I didn't even know it was considered pejorative until this post
I just think of "normie" as the new "vanilla" - every group that uses it, uses it uses it to refer to people who are not a part of that particular group, so its meaning depends on the context but should be self-explanatory and not (necessarily) derogatory.
As a software guy I like the word for its simplicity and ease of use.
Wow.
I cant even right now with this thread. There is nothing wrong with "normie."
I downright hate it.
Me either. I’m a “normie,” I guess, and it feels unwelcoming and condescending.
Maybe don't call them normies.
Would you prefer 'filthy casuals'?
"Peasants."
but you have to spit the 'p'.
That's what I call anyone with anything less than a 3070/6700XT, not just the technologically illiterate
I feel personally attacked
If it makes you feel any better, it took effort to lean into my Master Race side that hard 😂
Pheasants
bang!
In my day we called 'em n00bs.
"gooeys"
Post: Uses the word normies in a positive sense and literally says it's great that gaming is more accessible
Fediverse: Is this a neckbeard?
It's amazing that a non-slur single word can get y'all so fucking bent out of shape. It was worth a double take, but not shitting on the entire post. It's literally a post about a non-traditional gamer / not-power-user / etc person finding a sense of community and fun because of the rise of handhelds. Is shutting down that discussion over one word worth more than seeing the good in recent trends?
I hope we continue to see more good handhelds get made - I'd personally love a Steam Deck, but seeing Valve get some good competition would be good for the technology (not you, Apple / Meta). Maybe I'm just too old, but I'd love to see slide-out keyboards again...
I'm glad that somebody said it. Lemmy is becoming quite a shit show in this regard. These FOSS enthusiasts and Linux master race people are really starting to deter me from the platform.
I love FOSS software! I love Linux! I hate people telling other people how to think or what to spend their time with. Most of the people in this thread can fuck right off.
The reaction is a bit more like
"B-B-B-BUT THE CONNOTATIONS!!! Bro you just LITERALLY used a word that has PROBLEMATIC CONNOTATIONS because it's ALSO USED by PEOPLE I DON'T LIKE, and that makes you GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION!!! I am PROUD of how I combine purity testing and code switching into a DEFINITELY accurate litmus test, because I think I'm a character from Dune!! I don't know what the FUCK 'context' is but it SOUNDS like something the ALT-RIGHT would care about!!!!"
If I ever caught myself taking an obvious self-effacing remark seriously, I would be so ashamed. Anyone coming into this thread with hurt feelings about the word "normies" is a huge dork and needs go outside.
I would really appreciate if we stopped doing the “if you disagree with my opinion you’re an [insult] and also must be out of touch with reality so I will say you need to go outside” thing. It’s really exhausting. This is Beehaw, the be(e) nice server and I’m kind of getting sick of seeing this kind of snark on a server where the expectation is people being nice to each other.
I was skeptical at “normies” but the overall tone of the post is inclusive, so I’m not the target of your rant because I figured it out. I was able to figure it out because I’m terminally online and have the experience with online posts to know that some people use it as a pejorative and some people use it as a self-deprecating catch-all for people who aren’t too into their hobby.
I also have autism and some people with the condition aren’t as good as me at putting together the connotations of words AND the overall post to figure out the poster’s intentions. And some people aren’t terminally online and have less exposure to seeing this word used. They’ve likely overwhelmingly seen it used as a pejorative, and end up very skeptical of this post. I don’t like the idea that people like me, or that people who might have reasonably arrived at a different conclusion about this, are being told that they’re huge dorks who need to go outside.
Really starting to feel like Beehaw is just like any other online space. I see the same amount of snark and negative assumptions of people who didn’t see something the commenter’s/poster’s way. Sure, it’s free of bigotry, but all the spaces I occupied were already bigotry-free. Even back when I was on Reddit, because in the small subreddits I looked at the few bigots were downvoted to hell and had their comments hidden. (I’m aware that not everyone was lucky enough to only be interested in topics that had easily accessible bigotry-free areas so Beehaw still serves a useful purpose for them.)
Yeah, I get it. Here's the thing though, this specific part:
Those people all have one thing in common: nobody put a gun to their head and said "what's going on with this post? Make the call and post your comment NOW". One thing all we here on the internet do all have in common is the ability to read, and to use our sapience to make decisions about what we read. To say "this seems out of line. Could it be what I think it is, or am I assuming?" By process of elimination, a person either chooses to do that, or chooses to be assumptive. And also:
There is no reasonable way to get to the wrong conclusion.
Ever.
If you're being reasonable, you either find the right conclusion beyond all reasonable doubt, or you concede that you don't have enough information and then move on with your life. The only way to get to the wrong conclusion is to jump to conclusions, because being reasonable requires you to start from the point of "there may be no answer I can find". The people in this thread who got it wrong made assumptions, jumped to conclusions, and defended themselves by being belligerent. That is a fundamental lack of respect for others' intelligence that goes beyond being rude to people and using mean words.
I’m assuming you’re human right now, even though the possibility exists that you are an alien who hasn’t revealed themselves as such and that your alien self prioritizes engaging here instead of talking to the world’s governments. I’m choosing to be assumptive because I don’t care to track you down and try to match your identity to a human person in real life, because I find doing that distasteful even if I never end up exposing your identity to anyone else in the world, and because I am extremely confident that this assumption is correct. But it is still an unproven assumption.
Should I hold the possibility that on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog or alien or something in my head because it’s an assumption? Probably not. I should probably assume you are human. People will make assumptions they believe to be reasonable, and people will also call out what they believe to be bad behavior even if they’re wrong.
Hi, please remember to Be(e) nice. I also think it's a little silly to get in a huge flap about the headline of this article, but I'd ask that you also remember to be kind to other users.
I applaud your ability to suffer fools, but it's not one I share.
It's also changing how normies think of Linux.
Also it basically doubled the % of linux users at Steam.
Normies don't think about Linux. You don't even need to see Linux if you use a Steam Deck.
Still, casual gamers did think Linux couldn't game. It's changing this opinion in the best way possible and that's really important since Linux is the best OS. I personally think we still live in medieval PC times as long as Windows is the main OS used.
The parent comment is right. Most people don't think about Linux. Ask a 'casual' Swtich owner what OS the Switch uses, and their answer is probably going to be pretty close to the answer that a similar Deck user would give.
I was going to say I slightly disagree, but then I thought about it some more and realized they probably just see it as SteamOS in the same way Android doesn't make people think about Linux either.
Normies¹ don't even really think about Windows or OS in general, most people just think it's just what a computer is like regardless.
¹ : Normie as in person who is not experienced with computers and PC gaming
Even so it made it significantly harder for people to make the dated throwaway comment that you'll lose access to a majority of your games by switching to Linux.
With that I feel like people will see it's just as usable as MacOS and Windows in a majority of circumstances.
I lost all my games when I swapped to Linux.
But that’s because it was a decade ago, and I was way too lazy to figure out why wine wouldn’t work, tho I don’t really pc game anyway and these were mostly older games, even then. Small loss.
I know there’s a lot of stuff either native dev or ported/cracked for Linux, just never really spent the time to look into it.
The only thing that’s going to cause problems for me now is idk how Linux handles vr. I assume not terribly well, since none (almost none?) of it is native dev. I’m looking to move away from consoles now that they are moving away from physical media (no point collecting if there’s nothing to collect), so Linux being more robust is great! But vr maybe my stick point. Depends how well developed it gets I guess.
VR headsets and games with anti-cheat software still have issues. I haven't been able to get Oculus Rift S to work for example.
I think some headsets like the ones made by Valve and HTC work better though. I'm not sure if there's currently the same degree of rapid advancements for VR Linux gaming as there are for gaming in general on Linux. I know OpenHMD exists but I haven't tried it out myself.
My Vive Pro does work - but not as nicely as it did on windows. Driver support for stuff like reprojection doesn't seem to be there.
Yeah that’s kinda what I was expecting.
I don’t really have a vr setup right now (have a psvr, the tracking sucks but I want to like it) but I was thinking maybe an index at some point..
Tho tbh if I need to keep a windows pc for that to work… I can… I won’t be thrilled for it, but my laptop is touchscreen and running 11… idk how Linux does with touchscreen so I haven’t changed it out yet, probs could upgrade the hardware to game off it.
Have you tried using the PSVR on your computer?
Not yet, but I looked into it before I bought it and I’ve seen that it can be done as sort of a viewing unit? If I understand correctly that’s all it would be, which is still probably a powerful tool, but I just got the vr like a month ago and then immediately got two surprise kittens so I have not had time to play at all, much less do anything fancy with it.
However if you want to tell me all about it, I am more than happy to learn from a person rather than an impersonal article. Really.
I would have linked an article. I haven't experimented with it myself but it seems like there's one paid project available through Steam that aims to support the PSVR
No worries.
It’s a thing I’ll probably do at some point. Just for kicks. I’m a big fan of playing around with hardware to save money 😁 but it’ll probably be a while before I get to it. I have some self hosting and automation to learn to do first (not super knowledgeable presently, but omfg is the fediverse helpful with tech stuff 💜)
Me too. Messing around with hardware is something that's always stuck with me from when I was a teenager. If you give the PSVR thing a test mind messaging me or commenting so I can hear how it goes?
I was also messing with hardware/software starting in teens. Grew up during the brief period in which home computers were fairly common though still quite expensive, but pc repair shops weren’t really around.
I will try to remember, but it might not be for a while. :)
You can use crossover and it isn't awful, but I think Mac is third for gaming at this point.
I'm not too sure. I used to browse /r/MacGaming despite not owning a Mac but I lost of track of things when they killed 32 bit support
There are some games that get official Mac ports, and that's nice, but compatibility on the rest of your library doesn't just work out of the box.
Like I said, crossover is OK but when Mac's biggest strength is ease of use, fiddly manual configuration to make your library work isn't awesome.
When some Microsoft simp makes unfounded claims about how you can't game on Linux, we now only need to point at the Steam Deck.
that's like saying apple is changing how normies think of Unix
Thats because its linux only in a technical sense
We're talking about software, what other senses are there? :D
Well for the user. Like the mum from the post won't go like "Oh wow the linux pc that is my steam deck can game"
They only experience steam OS as the console. Like when mum used to say you play "the nintendo" too much :D
Most people probably won't explore the desktop mode, but SteamOS is basically a full-on Linux distro.
Exactly!
Most improvements on the Deck translate to all Linux distros. That's pretty good.
Good point, i didnt think about it that way
No, this is incorrect, OP thought steam deck is ok because the games are exclusively only in steam. OP never try to consider her mother-in-law. Giving someone linux and just assuming they understand is not going to help make them like the game or machine.
First off: normies?
Second, you're absolutely right. Steam did a great job with the whole Steam Deck Verified thing. It ensures that the game "just works", which is someone that can't always be said of PC games. It makes sense, given the near uniform hardware of the Deck, of course, but it's still important for reaching the console and/or casual gamer markets.
And let's face it, the Deck is just convenient as hell. It's the mobile gaming solution I've wanted for decades.
…but I totally get what he means. Some people just aren't excited about fiddling with settings, hardware, software or otherwise. It's just a pain. Even myself, I've noticed I've lost most of my appetite for twiddling with drivers and such so I get it. When I play a game, I want to play the game, not set up the game, tweak the game, etc.
This has always been one of the key advantages of consoles over PC gaming. You can go to Gamestop, buy the game, plug it into your console, and then play. Or at least you used to.
Consoles have gotten more fiddly over the years, and the Steam Deck meets them halfway. If you are okay with online game stores, managing storage space for your games, you are already good to go with your Steam Deck. If you want to, you can tweak your settings for more battery life or performance, or venture outside the Steam Deck Verified games.
Eh, it's not always great, Baldurs Gate 3 is "Varifed", but it took some fiddling with the settings to get it toba stable 30 with decent lod on my deck.
normies is cringe. reminds me of way back when it started to become more socially acceptable to be nerdy and people got mad about it
This guy normies!
Since when is "normies" a problem?
Putting the connotation aside for a moment, is it even accurate to call people who are interested on niche secondary gaming devices as "normies"? Whatever may be their backgrounds, seems to me like they are dedicated gaming enthusiasts.
I'd say they are. "Mom groups who want to play Animal Crossing-esque games" certainly aren't what I'd think of when I'd think "dedicated gaming enthusiasts," at least not what most people are thinking of.
Steam Deck lacks publicity relative to Nintendo Switch or even traditional PC gaming, but the product itself is absolutely more accessible than traditional PC gaming, even if not as accessible as consoles.
I mean, why not? Women play games and gamers do in fact sometimes breed or even adopt.
I would also like to bitch at you for talking in terms of "normies". Gross.
All sorts of hobbies use the term to describe people who aren't fully into something but have a passing interest, it's a pretty standard phrase.
How is it gross?
The implied derision.
Not seeing it in this context. If anything it is self deriding. Still a stretch.
did you say.. normies?
I mean, what’s another way of easily conveying the same idea. “Those people who you might not typically consider to be X”?
I feel like I’ve seen and heard normies used in a variety of contexts, to refer to people outside of a particular group. Not to say they can’t be in the group, or that there’s anything wrong with them.
But then again, what do I know.
"casual gamers" for example. "average users", "non-geeks" are others
You'd have to say all 3 of those, and then you'd still be missing a ton of the other groups that also fall under "normies", even in just this specific instance. "Non-hardcore gamers" would work in this context, but the whole point is to have jargon for it as a concept ("someone who is not a member of your specialized in-group"), rather than saying the specific in-group being discussed each time. "Non-Supernatural fandom-nerds", "non-/a/ lurkers", "non-r/SocialistRA lurkers"... or just "normies".
Welcome to the internet, I guess?
I love my Steam Deck.
You're probably too young to remember when computers were a huge pia to use. Your MIL probably knows more about PCs than you do if she worked in an office in the 80s and 90s.
It is odd being in the gen X and millenial cohorts and being two generations trapped between ones that either had little to no experience with computers or have only used smart tech that simplified everything down.
I'm 18, so also Gen Z I guess. But growing up all I did was try to bypass WiFi and device time limits & content filters. Later I got more into programming (due to mental health I've been letting that slip unfortunately), and currently I'm looking to study AI and CompSci.
And I constantly wonder why other people aren't as interested in this stuff. And are completely helpless in troubleshooting. I kind of want to buy a PC for my siblings to get them interested too, but I don't have high hopes of it working...
I don't know if I was trying to make a point here but I'll post anyways, enjoy
There's always going to be people interested on computing more so than their average cohort, if there weren't boomers into it we wouldn't have got anywhere with the tech to begin with.
However simply owning a computer between the 70s to 2010 odd meant you had to do a lot more problem solving and fiddling that lead to a better understanding of how stuff worked across the generation as a whole in comparison. Whether it was learning to use BASIC on your micro computer or having to mess about with drivers in Win 98.
The exception rather than the rule. I've seen several articles claiming your lot don't know that computers have a file system. Ie they use the search function to find their files and don't pay attention to where things are saved. Ie the computer is a large bucket full of my shit and the only way to access it is by telling the computer to rummage through it.
wow, that sounds terrible
It's fine for me. I just got hired as a "programmer" despite having extremely basic python skills and ability to use Linux. I'm quite happy to be "settled for".
Nice ! congrats
Yeah it's disappointing... It really makes me wish more people were even slightly interested. Else how will the field continue developing?
With the risk of being tagged as a car analogy, its similar to the experience with internal combustion engine cars, shifted by two generations. My parents (boomers) and the Silent gen often knew cars backwards and forwards because it was the only way to get them to work reliably, not unlike computers of the (60s) 70s and 80s. Those older were pretty resistant/baffled, and those after tend to just see them as appliances - being regularly ridiculed by boomers for things like not knowing how to change the transmission fluid (no longer necessary in many CVTs), drive a stick shift (rare on modern US vehicles), or brake "properly" (aka pumping brakes, which in an ABS enabled system is not recommended).
Yeah, I guess this has always been an issue with tech though the ages, computers are just my point of reference.
"lifetime" fluid doesn't mean what you think it does. It means the lifetime of the transmission, which will fail if you don't change the fluid at some point.
Any time a manufacturer has said that it has turned out to be b.s. and someone figures out that some off the shelf fluid works better than the stuff they put in at the factory.
lifetime fluid usually means "lifetime of the warranty" There are incredible high tech oils now that can easily last 100k mi in their intended use but they don't work forever.
while we are on this topic the Detroit recommended oil change interval for the semi I drove was 85k miles, so basically slightly more than anually. Completely blew my mind, though in between oil changes they also took samples and tested them which is a big part of what makes that possible otherwise you'd change it at 35k to be safe. also the things took 5 gallons of motor oil, so a smaller proportion of the oil is being pummeled by the crankshaft bearings and piston seals, at least that's how it was explained to me.
Remembers fondly back to my first PC which was a Tandy Sensation and had a custom UI on top of Windows 3.1 because Windows 3.1 was so infuriating,
Ah WinMate; how I loved thee.
Putting the connotation aside for a moment, is it even accurate to call people who are interested on niche secondary gaming devices as "normies"? Whatever may be their backgrounds, seems to me like they are dedicated gaming enthusiasts.
Have her check out Dinkum and Disney Dreamlight Valley when she gets the steam deck.
This is cute. I hope she enjoys the gift.
I'm a long time pc gamer and linux gamer. I do not care to play games unless it is in a handheld mode. I have been playing my switch a lot more recently, but am really looking forward to the steamdeck.
did you say.. normies?
It's really sad that Steam deck is not officially sell in my country, and the ones available are all have $200-$300 mark up price.