“I’m Josh, and I’m a recovering fanboy,” confesses 23-year-old writer Josh Laddin in his first AsianWeek blog entry.
The blog is relatively young — it began just seven months ago, but Laddin’s obsession with video games goes way back. He received his first Nintendo at the tender age of 5. His father had no idea his present would turn into a lifelong passion for his son.
“It hit me pretty hard,” Laddin says. “I’ve had a weird loyalty to Nintendo ever since. I have a lot of good childhood memories from it.”
Laddin grew up in San Francisco’s tiny Sunnyside district, near Ingleside. His mother, who was Chinese, died when he was a young child. His father, who is Jewish, was raised in an Orthodox household in Brooklyn, N.Y. Laddin says his paternal grandmother was adamant about keeping tradition alive in the family.
Laddin and his father make sure to observe Yom Kippur and celebrate Chanukah each year, and the two occasionally attend synagogue. But mostly, they have created their own traditions, usually centered on a quiet meal together.
“I take pride in the fact that I’m mixed,” Laddin says. “I guess it is part of that human desire to be different, to be special.”
The idea that he could parlay his lifelong interest in gaming into a career still tickles him.
In the fall of 2008, Laddin was a recent graduate of U.C. Davis with a degree in English. When an ad listing for an intern at AsianWeek magazine was posted, both Laddin’s aunt and a close friend contacted him to encourage him to apply.
Laddin landed an interview, and by happenstance, mentioned his love for gaming. It just so happened the editor had been looking for someone to create a video game blog for AsianWeek’s Web site. Within a short period of time, Laddin and fellow blogger Andrew Lee started AsianGeek.
In his first entry, Laddin explained that the blog would be used to discuss new games, ethnic stereotyping in the industry, and how to reconcile the two.
“When you really think about it … fanboyism is nothing more than stereotyping, making presumptions about other people and products because of where they come from.
“The last thing we, as Asian gamers, need is more stereotypes. We’re already defined as anti-social, overly competitive geeks — and yes, I’m aware that writing for a blog named AsianGeek makes it hypocritical for me to say this — but let’s try not to fan the flames.”
Laddin appears to at least partially fit into the fanboy stereotype, but perhaps with a calmer demeanor. When he talks about his favorites games — “Final Fantasy 9,” “Chrono Trigger” — he cocks his head to the side and furrows his brow, thoughtfully describing the plotlines in these games.
While Asian stereotypes run rampant throughout the gaming world (“ninja” is the most commonplace), Jews are largely unrepresented. When pressed, Laddin could name only one instance of a representation of a Jew in a game — a businessman with glasses and a Yiddish accent in the controversial “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.”
It’s a possibility that Laddin could one day have a say in those video game storylines: He’s working toward a full-blown gaming career.
While it may seem like a lofty goal, he’s already on the right path. He’s been hammering out the concept for a new game, and his English degree can come in handy for video game storytelling, he says with a grin. He is also taking a screenwriting class to bone up on his dialogue skills.
“[My father] always felt like, if I was so interested in video games, I should just make it a career,” Laddin says with a chuckle. “But it actually has been such a big part of my life that, so far, I’ve been able to move in that direction.”