Governmental ads: "give your thumbs a rest"
by Jennie Lees 
{ Feb 27th 2006 at 7:00PM }
An ad campaign from the Centers for Disease Control is pulling no punches with their tagline "Give your
thumbs a rest. Play for real." Supposedly encouraging active lifestyles rather than the way of the couch potato,
the ad features an in-game style image of obese baseball players on an overgrown field.As Water Cooler Games points out, this seems to have been created with no thought for its target audience. In particular, the ad mocks rather than reaches out to gamers; not the best way to connect with a demographic. Also, as governmental propaganda goes, jumping on the anti-gaming bandwagon is a disturbing trend--a sideline political campaign is one thing, but a government-approved message seems overkill.
With CDC themselves turning to games for educational purposes, we can't help but feel there's a mixed message here.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2kings @ Feb 27th 2006 7:07PM
These are 2 thumbs the government is not getting!
guano @ Feb 27th 2006 7:32PM
They're operating under the assumption that the majority of gamers are overweight. Do they have proof of this? Maybe if they showed the data in the ad it would have more effect.
Tom @ Feb 27th 2006 7:44PM
People, relax, they're not saying you shouldn't play video games - it's pretty clever, don't take it as an assault.
Doug teh H-Nut @ Feb 27th 2006 8:15PM
Jack Thompson's being considered for U.S. president (check Wikipedia). If stuff like this continues in America, London and Sydney are looking pretty nice.
bigbear @ Feb 27th 2006 8:16PM
You got this backwards. The videogame characters are getting fat because the videogame players are doing things in the real world.
Eric @ Feb 27th 2006 8:17PM
When I did my undergrad in Human Performance, we examined many reasons that contribute to the sharp incline in childhood obesity...Gaming just happens to be ONE of them. Sitting at a computer or infront of a console all day definitely contributes to obesity.
Look, there are a lot of irresponsible parents out there that let their fat kids (fat or otherwise I suppose) do whatever they want as long as they don't scream. And there are a lot of zero discipline fat kids out there that would enjoy nothing more than to play video games all day and eat cake.(not saying I wouldn't love to do that for a while...but it would get old)
I think this add is only out there because childhood obesity has become a serious epidemic*.
As a gamer I'm pissed, but as a personal trainer I can understand where they are coming from.
Take it with a grain of salt and keep gaming people!!
*They believe anyways
TheUndertow @ Feb 27th 2006 8:41PM
"Give your thumbs a rest" - Work your index (trigger) finger instead.
Branewalker @ Feb 27th 2006 8:55PM
Oh well, if I can't use my thumbs, my feet play a mean game of DDR.
--Branewalker
Dave @ Feb 27th 2006 9:18PM
Who cares? Every gamer knows that real life isn't anywhere near as interesting as fantasy--plus, you only get one life. And the classes are poorly balanced. And the graphics suck. And the soundtrack blows. And the acting is crap. And all the levels are too hard...
David @ Feb 27th 2006 9:28PM
I think it's sad that the government is so quick to play off of the gamer stereotype. The "fat, ugly, anti-social gamer" can't do anything besides sit inside and play RPGs all day. Everyone I know why plays video games is very slinder and gets plenty of exercise. The government can't go around making ads using racial or sex-based stereotypes. How do you think people would respond to an ad telling all black people to "give their guns a rest" and try not holding up gas stations? People would be outraged, and for good reason. Stereotyping any group of people is never a good idea, and the CDC should know better.
Tom Tuttle @ Feb 27th 2006 9:45PM
Yeah, cause we should listen to what the CDC says about fatness:
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/article_detail.cfm?article=161
The 'smarinnies' (smart and skinny in plural) had to retract their own report on fat death.
MrP @ Feb 27th 2006 10:16PM
Meh. It's just another get-off-your-lazy-asses-and-do-some-exercise-plz ad. Wouldn't call it an attack on gaming any more than the stereotypical image of a fat guy sitting with beer and potato chips in front of the TV is an attack on movies.
32_Footsteps @ Feb 27th 2006 10:55PM
You know, I decided that the government was right, and I needed to give my thumbs a rest.
So I played Guitar Hero and used my whole hand instead.
RJ @ Feb 28th 2006 12:33AM
If the video game industry had lobbyists as organized and powerful as the fast food industry, it wouldn't be picked on so much by the government in ads like these. Everyone knows fast food and other processed mass marketed foods are the main culprits for childhood obesity, but somehow it's video games that get the blame once again. Similarly video games get blamed for violent kids, but not the gun industry or hollywood anymore.
Nick @ Feb 28th 2006 12:52AM
Actually, I think both Joystiq and Water Cooler Games got it wrong. It works because it offends, and snags the interest of the gamer. It is almost only gamers that will double-take on this add - myself, I know when I go thumbing through a Newsweek or Time, I ignore almost all ads, except for that extremely rarely placed videogame ad. In this case, if I stumbled across the ad, I'd check the it out, first wondering who was advertising such a poorly rendered game (looks like a sub-Dreamcast/slightly-smoother-PSOne looking game). And then I'd realize that it was an anti-ad. It is more effective than those truth.com ads, which are agressively annoying, and at least chuckle at the ad. While I may be pissed that they'd characterize me as a chubby gamer, in reality, thats the truth.
Maybe next time I'll put on some running shoes instead of picking up the controller. I can't remember the last time that I ran for two hours straight, yet I did, as of last week, spend several lazy play sessions after school. So perhaps next time that I see a goofy ad like this from the CDC, I can laugh it off for not applying to the new, thinner me, rather than reluctantly admitting that they nailed a stereotype that does apply to me.
But for now, back to my paper.
Dave @ Feb 28th 2006 2:32AM
Totally. I almost signed up--but then I decided to just go to the fridge and grab another piece of cheesecake instead.
Ninegauger @ Feb 28th 2006 2:33AM
I don't know... maybe they're just trying to get kids to stop playing Sports games like Madden. Like "Hey retard kid! Go play a sport or something and when you're done come back and play a real game on the TV like about killing or saving kingdoms, just for God's sake don't play a sport on the Television..."
Ramen Junkie @ Feb 28th 2006 9:25AM
Meh, the government always contradicts itself. It's so huge with so many people working for different overall goals it happens all over the place. It's not centralized enough to be consistant.