My cohort and I attended the first-ever PAX East this past weekend. For the uninitiated, PAX East is the annual Penny-Arcade gaming convention held in Boston, Ma. Per show, it easily draws in a staggering 60,000 people (many of whom actually physically stagger.)  Extrapolating from past data, it is expected to grow with the fervor of an unabated opportunistic malignance. As per protocol, we have chronicled our unique experience for your enjoyment in the usual humor absorption format, a PNG.

I have always seen gaming as an activity that rewards isolation from grown-up society. Most gamers refute this claim and believe in-game communities to be just as genuine as or more genuine than the relationships with the humans living near them in their immediate perimeter; relationships they take for granted.  This weekend we saw a kind of documentary of the cumulative effects sedentary activities (namely gaming) have had on our generation.

I am talking about fat people. Not overweight people, but people who at the show, could not physically support their food engorged husks on their wasted stilts for more than a few hours.  The people who had to beach their swollen frames onto ground level pillows to establish the beginnings of some kind of obese throne. The people who have completely lost control of basic hygiene rituals due to the logistics involved of cleaning under that many folds of skin.

These aren’t people who should be celebrated or marginalized with some geekish designation. These are people that are actually dying and need help.

As fun as it is to suggest the number of chins a person has is direct correlation to their nerd cred, we need to take a step back and remember their lives are in immediate danger from the many ailments caused by morbid obesity.

It’s time to admit that there is a problem and find a solution we can all embrace. Next year’s PAX the first shirt size to sell out should be a Medium.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Stickcat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.