There's a sort of knee-jerk thing that many of us do when we're younger where we just automatically pretend to hate on everything, because it's edgy and cool, and God forbid we actually like something. It's a form of armour; keep everything at arm's length, and it can't hurt you. Don't like anything, and nobody can make fun of you for the things you do like.
I don't do that anymore. I probably give stuff - and people - more benefit of the doubt than I once did, while also, hopefully, keeping my wits about me enough that I'm not surprised when I'm let down.
I see now that the world is a mix of bad and good. I believe that people are inherently decent, but that the system into which we're born is seriously, fundamentally, wrong. It devalues us as individuals, while gifting certain people with undue levels of power and significance.
I mean, I got validated on Twitter yesterday. I only applied because my attempts to get other validated Twitter users to notice Mr Biffo's Found Footage was falling on deaf ears, because, if you're validated, you can silence the tweets of the "non-entities" who don't have a Twitter tick.
Isn't that horrible?
I get that validation works as a way for people in the public eye to protect their identities, but then being able to silence the noise of "plebs", so that they only listen to their fellow elites... ugh. I had a lot of people congratulate me on getting ticked-up, but it doesn't feel like an achievement so much as something I feel I've got no choice over. Nevertheless, that damn tick is symbolic of everything that grates on me in regard to our celebrity culture.
But that isn't what I wish to discuss today. I've started off on a completely different subject. What a terrible error.
You see, something I do miss about being younger is that thrill of the new - and I wonder if today's gamers get to experience what I experienced.
Sorry to bang on again about the Super NES Classic Mini, but a funny thing has started to happen to me while I've been playing on it. I mean, obviously I expected to feel nostalgic, but the way in which it has made me feel nostalgic has surprised me.
What's really interesting about the selection of games on there is how they span the life of the SNES. Super Mario World is a classic, obviously, but then you get Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi's Island, and Star Fox. All four of these games blew me away at the time. All, in their own, way, felt like signposts to the future. They felt like something utterly new and different, as did the SNES itself.
Playing them again, with a proper SNES pad in my hand, has reminded me just how ruddy exciting that time was. How it really felt like we - even as gamers - were pioneers, in a way. We were on a journey together, moving ever forwards.
I know there was other stuff happening for me. I mean, I'd accidentally gotten myself a job as a games journalist, for one thing. I was getting every new game sent to me for free - often arriving in a package with t-shirts and other tat - the games companies were taking me on jollies, and I was going to launch parties full of celebrities.
Unfortunately, outside of working for Digi, pretty much the only celebrities I'd ever seen in person up until that point were Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith...
I get that I don't have all that glitz surrounding me now when I play a game. Nevertheless, there was something more in the air during that era - a feeling of home gaming at last reaching its potential. The fact that most SNES games stand up today - the first time a gaming generation can claim such a thing - is testament to this.
Now it just feels to me as if gaming is no longer moving forwards, but around in a circle.
Something I wonder is whether my attitude to modern gaming is tainted by age and experience, and whether the generation of gamers coming up now feel the same way as I once did.
I guess everything is new to them, just like it was once to me - although, when I was a kid it was new full stop, and I'm pretty sure I was aware of that. It feels damned special to know I was there, that I was part of something as massive as the birth of video gaming.
My family had a Binatone. I played Space Invaders in the arcade. We had an Atari 2600, a Donkey Kong Game & Watch, an Astro Wars, a ZX Spectrum, a Game Boy... I got to be there when every one of those things was something the world had never seen before. And then when the 16-bit era dawned I was there again, and I knew that everything that had come before had been leading towards it.
Every generation, every new development, felt like a leap forwards - and it happened fast. By comparison, the progress of gaming has slowed to a crawl. New consoles offer slightly higher definition graphics, rather than a real, noticeable, surge.
Of course, there was always going to come a time when this happened. It was sort of inevitable.
Nonetheless, it intrigues me - given that gaming now has that weight of history behind it - whether new, younger, gamers are as blown away by games, or just sort of accept them as part and parcel of life, in the way that I did film and TV. Whether they take games for granted, whether a new FIFA is appreciated because it's predictable. Whether the comfort of knowing you'll get a new instalment of your favourite franchise every Christmas has overtaken the thrill of the new.
I want to know whether my lack of excitement about the latest Call of Duty is due to my age, or because I'm sick of identikit games, sick of wandering around massive, open world, forests, shooting or hacking at things.
In short: is it me or them?