The Misadventures of Li’l Gid

by Gideon, HSM team writer

Hi! My name is Gid. My friends call me Lil Gid. I guess it’s because I’m kinda small for my age. But that’s ok, I like the nickname. I think it’s cool! I’ve been playing games as long as I can remember. I haven’t played some of the more popular games because Mom won’t let me. She’s really strict on what I can and can’t play. She’s FINALLY letting me play games that are rated Teen! She gave me a couple of new Teen games and I’ve been playing them pretty much NON-stop ALL week! Well, except for the OTHER thing I can play now, that online world that’s on the PS3, PlayStation Home!

When my brother finished college and moved away, he left his PS3 with us because he said he wanted to get a slim one. Since my parents don’t really play videogames, they told me that I could keep the PS3 in my room! I was so excited, but then the first thing they did was change the parental settings on his account to a really low level so I could use it. I was upset at first, but my dad explained why he did it and I understood. He said that he would raise the parental level once I got older and he did! After my birthday, my dad raised the parental lock on the PS3 to level 5. He said that was the level that was appropriate for my age, according to my brother.

I noticed a couple days later that I could get into PlayStation Home. I was surprised that I could get on Home, I had never been able to before. Dad said that the people who make Home said it was okay for a thirteen year old, and that just so happens to be how old I am now! Before I was allowed to play, Dad talked to me about talking to people on the Internet and how to never give out my personal information and how to be careful when making friends. I know he’s looking out for me, but he can be really annoying sometimes.

There’s SO much to do in Home; I haven’t even been able to see all of it, but what I have played I have really liked. Home seems to always be coming out with new stuff and new things for us to do. Like EVERY week they update it with new stuff and give away free stuff! I don’t usually get the free stuff for girls, but my Home friends tell me it’s okay if I want to be a girl on Home. They told me that most of the girls on Home are guys, which is kinda weird, but I kinda get it. I made a girl character just to see what it’s like. It’s kinda fun and I’m not hurting anyone, right?

I’ve made a couple of friends on there when I was a girl. One guy asked for my picture and I told him I didn’t have one. He then said some things that I once heard some older kids say at school. I didn’t accept his friend request and I changed back to a guy. Being a girl was a little creepy, so I don’t think I’ll do it very often.

It’s okay being a guy in Home. I don’t get as many friend requests in Home and the girls act like the girls in my class when I try to talk to them. Some of the girls are pretty stuck up and won’t talk to me at all, but that’s okay because a lot of them don’t wear much. It’s like they run around in their underwear! It’s awesome! I see things that I have only seen on my friends’ computer and on late night TV. My dad keeps the computer locked up pretty tight. I can use the internet for schoolwork but I can’t do much else on there. They say it’s to keep me safe, and I guess I understand, but it’s really hard to not be able to do the things my friends can.

My parents keep a pretty close eye on me...

But NOW I can use PlayStation Home just like my friends.

My parents won’t let me have money on there. They say it’s a waste of good hard earned money. I even asked if I could use my allowance to buy a PSN card. I get ten bucks a week, so it doesn’t take long to get twenty bucks. My mom just said I was being silly and didn’t answer. I learned the hard way that when mom doesn’t say yes, that means no.

That means I’m stuck collecting the free stuff on Home, which is okay because there’s SO much of it, and like I said before they come out with NEW stuff EVERY week. I have fun finding all the ways I can get t-shirts and stuff for my apartment. You should see it. It’s FULL of some pretty sweet stuff.

One of my online friends, I think he’s older – like 22 or something like that – invited me over to his personal space that looked like a yacht with this big TV in it. He told me the TV had something new on it called Crackle. I thought it was a funny name but was totally excited by it! It lets you watch TV shows and movies right inside PlayStation Home! I never knew Home could do stuff like that! It made me so jealous that he had that personal space and I couldn’t get it because my parents won’t let me have money on Home.

We spent some time watching some pretty funny stuff on there! We watched this one show that my friend said was one of his favorites. I guess it was okay, but I was kinda bored by it. I asked if I could choose a show and he let me see what was there. I was so excited when I saw that there was anime on there! I have always really liked anime. I like anime that takes place in fantasy times with swords and dragons and magic and stuff. There was one that looked like it might be about that, so I watched that. I figured it might be the same as the sorts of anime I’ve seen before.

Don't worry, that armor doesn't stay on long.

BOY is it not the same!

Just about all the characters in the show are girls and they wear the kind of things I see girls in Home wearing. Except things go further in the anime! I didn’t know they made anime like this! We watched a couple episodes before I had to go to bed. I had to be careful because if my Mom or Dad caught me watching something like that they would totally stop letting me play PlayStation Home. Like I said before, they are kind of strict on what I watch and play.

The next day I sent my friend a message asking if I could come over and watch more anime and he told me there was a PUBLIC space that I could go to any time to watch any of the shows that are on Crackle. Oh man was I excited!

There’s this huge space theater where I can go now that has even MORE shows and movies than my friend had on his Crackle TV. I gotta say, I really have spent quite a bit of time in there and you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff that they let me watch! Home doesn’t even ask me for my birthday! I tried to go on Crackle on the computer and I wasn’t able to watch a lot of the stuff I can in Home. On the computer it would ask me for my birthday and if I entered my real birthday it wouldn’t let me watch. I know I can enter a fake birthday, but I really try not to purposefully lie, especially when I can just watch all the TV-MA shows I want on Home!

Most of the other animes don’t show a lot of girls without clothes like the one I watched, but there’s this one where this guy has three girls who live with him and they wear costumes for him and seem to be his servants or something. That one has a lot of jiggling parts. I actually got to watch quite a bit of anime I had not seen before; most of it is pretty good!

Crackle is SO awesome!

After I watched pretty much all the anime they had I found this one series that has the same name as a sports magazine, but I tell ya, the show doesn’t have much to do with sports at ALL! The WHOLE thing is of real ladies who are getting their pictures taken with their bathing suits on. I kept expecting something to happen that had to do with sports, but I never saw anything about football or baseball or anything. I watched a couple of those and decided I like the shows of real girls a lot more than the anime ones.

There weren’t many more shows like that so I went over to the movies section and I found SO much more there!

This one movie, which I found kinda scary, was all about this guy who was looking for this girl who got killed and someone filmed it or something. They were calling it a sniff movie, or something like that. To be honest I didn’t finish that movie because it scared me too much. My parents don’t let me watch scary movies so I’m not used to that kinda story.

There were so many movies on there that had things that my friends talked about, but I had only seen once or twice before. There were lots of movies that shows girls without clothes. I saw a couple where girls were kissing girls. Some of the movies had a lot of drug use. There were some other scary movies I tried to watch but I could never make it through them. A lot of the movies were the kinds of movies that Mom and Dad would NEVER let me watch!

Then there were these two movies that had ALL sorts of stuff in them.

One movie was a documentary of this photographer that went all around America taking pictures of all sorts of naked people. Guys, girls, younger, older, skinny, fat… it didn’t matter to this guy! He wanted to see everyone naked! I watched a bit of that and I saw everything on a lot people! I just couldn’t believe that so many people were willing to take off their clothes in public. Looked like they were having fun though!

The other movie was kind of like a documentary, but it was fake I think. It was about this movie director, or writer, who made adult movies. I saw a lot of stuff in that movie that I never even thought about existing.

These guys are about do very... friendly things to each other.

I was telling my friend about it at school and oh man, am I lucky that my parents don’t know more about the PS3! My friend said that he uses a thing called a sub-account that is all his that his parents created for him. Although he is old enough to get on Home, his parents keep him from being able to chat with people so Home is sort of pointless. I told him about Crackle and he said that he can watch the anime with the girls but he can’t watch movies that are rated R and NR. I guess I lucked out that my parents let me use my brother’s account instead of making me create one of my own.

I guess Crackle looks at the age on the account and just ignores the parental controls. That’s good for me and other kids like me whose parents don’t know all the different settings of the PS3!

Man, I’m so glad I can get on Home now. All the free games I can play, new friends to meet, girls walking around in next to nothing, TV shows and movies that I didn’t even know existed and I’m pretty sure my parents would NEVER let me watch! I just hope my parents never find out about the sub-accounts!

January 22nd, 2012 by | 13 comments
Gideon is a team writer for HomeStation Magazine and likes cheese in all its forms. Whether it be block, slice, cream, wheel, log, string or aerosol, Gideon cant resist the pungent bitter taste of good cheese. Heck, he'll even take mediocre cheese, as long as its slapped between two pieces of whole wheat bread with a little bit of mustard.

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13 Responses to “The Misadventures of Li’l Gid”

  1. Burbie52 says:

    Great article Gideon, I wish that all parents of young teens could read this one before they allow their children unlimited access to Home. I would have never allowed my son at 13 or 14 to have access to these kinds of things. In fact I doubt I would have let him on Home at all til he was 16.
    This was a very entertaining way for you to point out to parents that they do have some control over what their children have access to, even on Home.

  2. That’s one of the if not the most interesting articles I’ve read in this magazine.
    You sound level headed as to what’s right and wrong but you best watch yourself on what you watch or you’re gonna’ get grounded from your PS3. :(
    Parents know more than you think they know.

  3. in a sence i agree and disagree with the fact i turned 15 yesterday but i am a one year home veteran myself i have made life long friends with the majority of them being over 30 years old but yet i later found out that upon meeting me thy belived i was early 40’s late 30’s because of what thy said was my extreme maturity for example my closest friend on home is 38 but yet we can have 45 minute political debates and religous debates the age should not be raised the bar should be raised for decensy by the adults of home because we live in the century of sex sells and it does so how do you fix the age issue in home. three steps 1st dont promote the growing sexual over tones. 2nd dont ignore mentor 3rd use comon sence. thank you and god bless.

  4. NorseGamer says:

    There really are some excellent *satirical* voices in HSM. Kassadee’s one of them. Gideon’s another. Satire’s hard to pull off within the Home community, but when it’s done right, it can really get a point across.

    Case in point: if you didn’t know about this stuff playing in PlayStation Home, you sure do now! And it does raise some interesting questions for us as a society to examine.

    • That’s nice, NorseGamer except I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry.
      :(
      Have a good day.
      :)

    • good point but if the age limt is raise the only thing that will come of it is more for sexual content a prime example is the social gaming site second life witch if 18+ where home is 13+ the diffenece is in one week home was updated with new personal spaces and clothing etc. where second life was updated with the ability to uninate anywhere.. now tell me is that what you what the future of home to be.

  5. Very clever article, Gideon, and an enjoyable read that makes the point really clear. My son has a sub-account and he is 16. We initially had chat completely turned off for him and one of us are always there when he is on. I agree with Burbie that there are many good parents out there that just are not aware of sub-accounts or setting parental control.

  6. ted2112 says:

    I love the way you switched up the perspective on us. You made Li’l Gid’s voice was very clear in a great stream of consciousness. You hit upon an issue that is still really unresolved in Home. That of Younger kids on Home and what (if anything) needs to be done to help/protect them. I don’t feel it’s our responsibility, but at the same time as a citizen of Home I want everyone to have a good and safe experience here. What the best answer is, I have no idea. Great writing!

  7. Gideon says:

    Thanks for all the great feedback everyone! I had a fun time writing this article. It was fun to try a different voice, especially one so young. A big thanks goes out to Terra_Cide for her help with this article. She helped make sure all the bases were covered in regards to the parental controls available on the PS3.

    I think we all need to be aware of the kids on Home, I know many times I let my sense of humor get away with me while in Home then I realize whose eyes might be reading what I’m typing.

    In a virtual world, everyone, from the developer to the player, has a responsibility to be aware and be socially aware of the fact that what we do in that space might just have a lasting impact on a budding individual.

    What we do in a virtual world might just matter to someone in the real.

  8. I3linder says:

    One thing is wrong about this article when parental controls are set music. movies and the community theater are not accessible to ppl undr 18

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