The world of online gaming confuses me. I know that, for my age (I was born in 1984), I'm a little unusual in respect to the fact that I never really played any kind of video games growing up. Our family was more of a computer game/Scrabble type of family; we had one of the original Apple computers and my sister and I played a series of winter games, Tetris, chess, and solitaire and such. I remember Oregon Trail and Number Munchers on floppy disk at school, but none of the action type of games most people my age and older grew up playing. I find it fascinating how attached to these things people are; that the Super Mario Brothers theme is so integrated into the cultural mindset of my generation astounds me. None of it is part of who I grew up to be, so the fact that Elton loves those types of games is a constant source of wonder as well. How is it that he is so enthralled and I simply don't care? What is it about this random digital world? Well, Robbie Cooper is a photographer, I recently discovered, who explores the relationship between real life people and the avatars they create to represent themselves in their online lives. I love the series of photographs, found here, he created to show the contrast between flesh and blood and pixels; he also has a published book, found here. Enjoy the "GIRLS" aka Guys In Real Life.
