Wordscraper, Words with Friends, Wordfeud and other offshoot bastardizations of the noble game of Scrabble are bullshit.
That's right. Bullshit. Even as I type these words, I can hear the voices of my extended family as they scream obscenities at me and disown me. Many of my beloved friends and family members are avid participants in these games of lesser humans. But it must end. I am willing to endure the inevitable persecution for the truth. It must be told, that we may evolve and carry on. For with Wordscraper, we all perish.
In each of your hearts, you know that what I say is the truth. It may pain you greatly, and the inclination will be to allow your ego to coddle you. For as fallible humans, our ego dictates that we MUST be right, even if the truth says otherwise. Aristotle died because of this. Socrates was put to death. Gandhi was assassinated. But the truths they spoke live on. And should death be brought to my doorstep, so help me God, this truth too, shall survive.
And here is why all those sub-Scrabble games are bullshit.
1. You don't have to actually sit face to face with anyone. How many more of our group activities are we going to relegate to sitting behind a computer screen. I am suspicious of any situation where you can be playing a game with someone and in another window be looking up photos of chicks with dicks (Click it. You know you want to. You're making assumptions. Go ahead and click it. It's not what you think). It would shock you how often this happens. I've been compiling statistics. Even as I write this I have a window open with a picture of a dog biting its own balls. It's disrespectful to the game, the other person, yourself, and probably the earth. But it's the inevitable consequence of anything done on the internet. It's a distracting environment. Scientists have proven that there is no human alive on earth today that can check their email without also watching an infomercial for pajamajeans or a video of a slow loris walking around doing slow loris things. Imagine trying to stay focused while waiting for someone else to take their turn with nothing to do but sit and stare at a gameboard with a god awful color scheme and way too many bonus squares. Even thinking about it makes me cringe. Shit talking, misdirection, and psychological ploys are the heart and soul of a true game of Scrabble and require an actual opponent. Yelling "You no good dirty poop eating word puker!" at your computer screen has little to no effect on a person on the other side of a broadband connection. But yell that in someone's face and watch their heart melt with fear. Computers are just robots without legs and robots are replacing everyone and it should be a red flag to us as humans. Has no one seen the Terminator movies? The first time I saw a self checkout in the grocery store I thought to myself, "Shit, somehow this is going to ruin Scrabble and eventually the world."
2. Speaking of bonus squares, there are way too many of them on non-Scrabbles. As mentioned before, the trickery of the human ego is strong. And being able to get scores in the thousands because there are 47 quadruple word squares and they're 3 squares away from triple letter scores is not healthy. It's giving people an overinflated sense of their ability. Human beings need struggle to be fully human. But these games are turning us into cattle. Sheep for the slaughter. Fish for the plucking. Popplers for the eating. It's a dire situation. If we keep validating ourselves without an adequate effort, next thing you know we'll sacrifice all of our civil and basic rights because it's too hard to walk downtown and participate in a demonstration. Plus, what if someone takes their turn while we're gone? I know from experience the effects of this mental attitude. I missed the Million Man March (I was a keynote speaker) because I was involved in a protracted game of Warcraft. Not World of Warcraft you nerd. The real Warcraft.
3. Along with having a chicks with dicks window open, many people choose to have a Scrabble word generator (contrary to the website slogan, this is not conducive with winning) window open. It doesn't matter if I'm your opponent, because my game is so complete, so perfect, that your digital crutches won't help you hobble on to victory. At best you might stay within a hundred points of me for 5 turns. But it's still ruining the sportsmanship, the rich heritage of honor and integrity once associated with Scrabble. I know this to be a common practice because I have friends who I've never heard use a 3 syllable word in real life and often have a genuine look of being offended when someone else does. And then they spell words on these bastardized game boards like "obeisance." Again, bullshit. It's not like you even need the word generator up. That's just for those who are extra lazy. Because the game won't accept any input that isn't an actual word. You can just randomly fling letters about until some word happens that uses a bonus square that you had your eye on. This is the modern equivalent of flinging poop at a wall just to see what sticks. Which brings me sharply to my next point.
4. There is no word challenge function. This is probably 40% of what makes Scrabble Scrabble. Most grown ups would admit that actions have consequences. This is a concept lost on the youth as a direct result of these watered down Scrabble abominations. Not having the ability to lay down farce words and not having the ability to challenge or to bait others to challenge when you use an unlikely but entirely legitimate word eliminates the entire psychological component of the game. It is another dangerous trend in our country. Less thinking, more mindless clicking. Never having to read a Scrabble opponent puts you at a direct disadvantage when entering the job market. It's not that the economy is down and unemployment is up. It's just that college graduates are dumber. Because of psuedo-Scrabbles. No one wants to hire someone who has never mindf***ed anyone. Every job, in the end, just boils down to sales. And that's all about the mindf***. Again, there's probably science to back up what I'm saying. But I'm busy. I can't check. You check.
5. This is sort of a continuation of the Scrabble word generator thing. But it's worth mentioning again. Quit hiding behind the fact that you can just make random combinations of letters until the computer accepts one. Learn some skills. Figure out how to make a good, strategic block. Anticipate your opponent's next move. And then screw them as hard as you can. Follow it up by blowing in a conch shell. A victorious conch bellow. For the love of god people, learn the 2 letter words. Here's a free lesson. There are 101 acceptable two letter words in Scrabble. There are none with the letter V or C. You learned the alphabet when you were like 1. You should be able to learn the "Words of Annihilation" as I am fond of referring to them. They're only made up of letters you learned from the original alphabet. There aren't any curveballs in there. No umlauts. No Chinese characters. Just those same letters arranged into various sequences of 2. Even if you're too lazy to memorize them, learn these ones. They're raw power... xi, qi, za, and jo. Those are high dollar letters. I've gotten 62 points with them. And if you want to add some credibility to your being at the most fundamental level, figure out what they mean.
6. If nothing else, think of the tiles. Remember back to the first time you played Scrabble with your parents or some kids from the neighborhood. Remember the smell of the plastic grey bag, containing so much potential for wordsmithery. You can almost feel the smooth rounded corners of the little letter squares, the slight groove of the engraved characters, painted white to contrast with the rich fake mahogany color of the tiles, or the black letters against the naked wood (yes, naked wood) if your parents wouldn't shell out the extra money for a deluxe board. Then there's the sound of the click and tap as you lay down the letters, triumphantly spelling the word "gymnasts" on a triple word score. You guys never had a chance.
Look, I know why you did it. I understand the allure of convenience and luster of technology. But there are some things that are our birthright as human beings. And if we don't protect and preserve them, what will be left for our children? Put your phones and mouses (mice? meese?) down. The cost is far too high.
My nephew is choking on a tortilla chip. So I should go. Eh, viva la revolucion! Seacrest, out.
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