Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/01/snl-tackles-mid-forties-fortni.html
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I showed this to my kids because it was pretty tame for SNL (except for the comment about rehab at the end maybe). They didn’t laugh once. didn’t even crack a smile. They just didn’t get it. I think it’s because showing an old person that doesn’t understand a video game, well, that’s daily life for them. My son was like, “Why does he keep hitting the wall? He’s not very good.” And I was like, “Thems the jokes, kid!!” all while they gave me a blank stare. I guess this level of satire is lost on young children, but it might also hint at why SNL just isn’t that funny anymore, at least not to everyone. Or my kids have no sense of humor.
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Well, it kinda shows to me they a) know FN is a cultural phemonenon and b) were too lazy to really figure out what’s funny
Or maybe it wasn’t funny? maybe?
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My 11 year daughter who is an animator and a gamer (but not Fortnite) sent me this video:
ETA: she didn’t create this one, but I had to laugh
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My son thought it was pretty funny, as did I. But then again he’s 14, which I’m guessing is older than your kids (if you don’t let them watch the rest of SNL, I assume they’re elementary age).
I also thought it was funny, because I am also over forty and feel similarly incapable sometimes when I’m playing video games. I suspect my age group was the target audience.
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This just doesn’t ring true. A person in their mid-forties would most likely have grown up with Atari, NES, SNES, Genesis as a kid. And might have played XBox, Dreamcast in college. Or Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem, Rainbow Six, or Starcraft on PC. Even if they didn’t like video game consoles, they’re going to know the basics. Fortnite is one of the simpler games to play. It’s like having a sketch with a parent who doesn’t know how to hold a smartphone, no basis in reality. It’s about a generation off. Conan O’Brien’s video game bits are much funnier because he’s obviously never played before but the funny thing isn’t just that he doesn’t know how to play, it’s that his ignorance reveals how ridiculous gaming conventions can be and how much gamers buy into the illusion of games. Visually, the fortnite sketch was ridiculous. There’s so much about the game itself that’s absurd and funny and ripe for humorous treatment. A missed opportunity.
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That completely ignores those of us who couldn’t afford to buy video games due to circumstance. Once my parents separated in 84, I never owned a console of my own until the first-gen XBox, and haven’t had another since.
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I’m over 60, and I played most of those games you mentioned, when they came out. I can do very well on games like StarCraft, or World of Warships-games that require planning, scouting, and teamwork. I don’t do well on Twitch-and-Shoot games. My reactions are not as good as those of a 15-year-old. I’ve never played Fortnite, partly for that reason.
I forgot what my point was, and why I came into this room. Oh, yeah, maybe Fortnite, though simple, requires more “young-person” skills than “wise-person” skills.
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There is always a period of awkwardness and fumbling in the beginner stages if any game, except in cases of long running franchises or when moving from one platform to another.
I don’t think age is really a factor in the learning curve, except with respect to the amount of free time a given person has to log hours of practice.
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True, I can’t claim that this would be a universal experience. I will say my gaming was mostly on other friend’s consoles. My parents only bought me an NES. I didn’t own a console again until XBox 360. And first gen XBox came out when I was my twenties! Surely having a kid wouldn’t erase all those Halo sessions from memory.
Yes, buttonology is part of the learning process and the sketch had to exaggerate it for humor purposes. I get it but it just felt like this one was stretching a bit too far with the old people vs technology joke.
My reply was meant to affirm, not disagree with yours.
There’s a weird divide, at least in the US, between 40-somethings who are technological adapters, and those who are eventually forced into accepting some technology in their lives. Say, once their eldest child reaches approximately age 9. This guy in the sketch? PS1 was released after he graduated university. He may or may not have played Dreamcast or Game Cube at uni, or maybe he cursed all those bros in the computer lab who hogged a bunch of machines playing Doom.
Really, the Kidd household might be a bit unusual in that I’ve owned each PS, and Mr. Kidd has owned each Xbox. (And there’s still an Atari 2600 tucked away in the house somewhere.)
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I think its funny, but it doesn’t show much knowledge about the game. It could be any game with a 46 year old from 1972.
I’m apparently the target demographic for this; I thought it was pretty funny, both for the conceit of the players (who, to my eye, captured the bobbing weirdness of what I see when I watch the kid play his X-box games perfectly) and the stumbling ignorance of a newbie.
I’ve been doing computer stuff since a class in BASIC in high school in the late seventies, and played lots of games on PCs over the years, but I would be as inept as the dad on a console game. I don’t play shooters, and I haven’t personally owned a console since Atari. When Grand Theft Auto came out I tried it at a friend’s house. They gave me the basics of how to drive, but didn’t warn me that the controller would vibrate, which startled me so much I threw the controller away from me.
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As a 45-year old let me say this: only children play on console anyway. Be an adult and play with a mouse and keyboard like a big boy!
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This would have worked just as well with Minecraft, ten years ago.
As a 44 year old who plays on a Switch, that hurts. 
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