Noise

By Rod Dreher • July 3, 2012, 8:11 PM

I went to a kid’s birthday party last week at Celebration Station, one of those Dave & Buster’s/Chuck E. Cheese’s type places where there are tons of video games and noisy, flashy crap for kids, and they basically print money by having kids turn in tickets that cost them $50 to acquire for a $5 toy. I’m too damn old, and too damn sensory-screwed-up, for places like that. I felt like a used-up piece of Silly Putty by the time I left. Too much noise!

I don’t get the appeal of places like that. But then again, I don’t get Disneyworld either.

Posted in Whatever!.

16 Responses to Noise

Patrick Bardamu says:

July 3, 2012 at 8:20 pm

What I find strange is how these types of places (not Chuck E. Cheese, but Dave and Buster’s and others) are also meant for adults. D&B’s actually has ads that target adults and I’ve been invited to a local version of these types of places on a number of occasions- by 20 somethings excited to drink too much and then play video games. It wasn’t even a guilty pleasure type of thing either. The idea that grown men would do this on a Friday night was accepted as perfectly normal for some reason.

My point is, your response was that of any sane adult and my generation desperately needs to find other things to do.
Lord Karth says:

July 3, 2012 at 8:29 pm

Mr. Dreher, as the father of three boys in that age group, I can tell you this much: there is nothing wrong with children that age wanting to go to “Celebration Station”. Or you wanting to escape it. Remember the words of the Book:

“Once I was a child, and I thought as a child. And then I put away childish things.”
(Or something like that.)

Children are supposed to want to run around, and play, and make all sorts of noise. It is our job, as adults, to supervise them and make sure they don’t overindulge and/or hurt themselves in a place like that. (And to make sure that they do get the chance to overindulge once in a while—else how will they learn ?)

People of our age (I will assume that you and I are roughly of an age; I am 48) are
past the point of frivolous play. We are supposed to be men (and women) of solid attainments, doing the hard and necessary work of maintaining this culture of ours and getting ready to pass it along to them. In all honesty, sir Dreher, I would worry more about you were you posting as to how much you enjoyed your trip to this place, and how it made you feel young again. Just as I would worry about such children of yours who spurned such a place in favor of a chair by the fire, a cup of something warm and a good book.

For is there not a time for every purpose, under Heaven ? Allow your children their time for that purpose, even as you fulfill your purpose of this day and hour.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

P.S. I know exactly and precisely what you mean about Disneyland. The NY/NJ branch of my Line is going to Disneyworld this fall; three families (nuclear) and 12 kids.

From what I am told the organizers of this misbegotten venture are planning, there will be all sorts of noise, standing in lines, sheperding of the immature and general unwanted exertions on my part. Not to mention having to take a week-plus away from my proper work and responsibilities, with all the losses that are implied.

For my part, sir Dreher, I’d give a month’s pay in gold, three-nines fine, NOT to go. Desperately.
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:

July 3, 2012 at 8:31 pm

My family went to Disney World and we passed under a sign that said “Where dreams come true.” I said to my wife “they’re lying because a bucket of money didn’t appear in my lap.” She replied, “they didn’t say whose dreams.”
SteveM says:

July 3, 2012 at 8:57 pm

One of my visions of Hell is an eternal Saturday afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese with 10,000 screaming kids, and I’m the only attendant with tokens and a mop.

P.S. if an especially egregious mortal sin put me there, toss in a huge hangover…
Dave Dutcher says:

July 3, 2012 at 8:58 pm

There’s two sides of these kinds of places, one good, one bad.

The good side are the video games and redemption games that promote physical activity. Playing timed basketball shooting, or the dance dance revolution style of game where you have to hop on a flashing pad, for example. These games are good in that they pay a relatively fixed amount of tickets and are fun in themselves. Also good are the big event video games where people can play together for brief periods of time as a group.

The bad side are, well, gambling games. You take a token and drop it into a random machine to try and win a big reward of tickets. These are slot machines in principle, yet adapted to children, and they are horrible.

What happened was that the old video game arcades soon found that even with deluxe cabinet games like 8-player Daytona USA, they couldn’t make enough money due to the home video game systems. So they created a redemption set-up that is eerily similar to gambling, but targets children. It’s like pachinko in you play for items, and trade the items in rather than play for money directly.

As for the appeal, did you ever go into a video arcade when you were younger? Same thing, communal electronic gaming can be a lot of fun. I somewhat regret that home consoles ever became popular: the arcade model was very good and counteracting the downsides of playing video games, like the isolation, and the ability to play for as many hours straight as your body can handle.
LawAndGospel says:

July 3, 2012 at 9:07 pm

No Disneyworld? Mr. Dreher, your descent into curmudgeon-dom is complete.
JonF says:

July 3, 2012 at 9:20 pm

Have to agree with you, Rod. What is the delight of all that racket? Though whenever I am tempted to complain about rowdy, noisy kids (outside of venues where that is wholly inappropriate) I remember that I once promised myself as a child that I would never grow up to be “Old Man JonF”, the sourpuss neighbor who looks at children as if they were two steps lower than cockroaches. So far so good, albeit with some bitten tongue along the way.
Naturalmom says:

July 3, 2012 at 10:53 pm

I’m no lover of places like that, but I could never understand the loathing my friends had for Chuck E Cheese. Then I went on a Saturday. Ei-yi-yi! Never again! As homeschoolers, we always went on a weekday at, say, 11 am. Much different place at that time!

Recently we went to Chuck E Cheese after an absence of about a year. My 10 and 12 year olds eagerly (greedily?) acquired a massive amount of tickets only to discover at the end that they no longer want any of the cheap trinkets the tickets could buy. It was kind of a bittersweet moment for them. They are growing up and slowly leaving those childish things behind, as Karth says. I suspect the next time we go to a place like that, they’ll focus on enjoying the arcade games they really enjoy for the game-play, rather than the ones that generate the most tickets.

Oh, and count me as another person who doesn’t get the appeal of Disney World. I’ve never been, and have about 1,001 other places I’d rather go instead, so I’ll probably never go.
Rod Dreher says:

July 3, 2012 at 11:33 pm

I don’t have any principled objection to places like that. I had never been to one before, and I found it very, very hard to take. I can understand why kids like it, and I don’t begrudge them that. The whole tickets-and-trinkets thing ticked me off, though.

I have no idea why grown men and women would frequent places like this. The allure is lost on me.

I know lots of people who love Disney. I went once, back in 1995, before I had kids. Holy cow. If I had a choice between an all expenses paid vacation at Disney, or no vacation at all, I’d take the latter. I hate most rides and I hate lines, and I really want those kids to get off my lawn.
TWylite says:

July 3, 2012 at 11:54 pm

If I can get a few rounds of skee-ball and suspiciously bouncy basketball with suspiciously undersized rim, I’m a happy enough camper at these kinds of outings, which are invariably birthday parties for my kids’ friends. I’m pretty sure the hard-earned game tickets for cheap plastic crap that won’t last until the next day is a time-honored tradition. I think the ancient Sumerians had this same kind of thing, except with cheap stone crap that didn’t last until the next day.
Dave Dutcher says:

July 4, 2012 at 12:12 am

Karth:

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

C.S. Lewis.

Patrick, like what? You go to D&B to have dinner, drink, maybe shoot pool and play a few multiplayer games. After, you go see a movie at the Imax in the same mall. It’s just a casual night out with added video games. Not that much different than any other.
Dan says:

July 4, 2012 at 9:08 am

If your vacation time is short, go to Disney World. It will seem like an eternity.
Floridan says:

July 4, 2012 at 9:37 am

I’ve never been to a Celebration Station, but I dread going to Chuck E. Cheese. I go willingly, however, for my grandaughters who love it — the noise, the cardboard pizza, the games and the general sense of anarchy that is the leitmotif of such places.

Grousing about a place that is intended for kids puts me in mind of a guy who sat near me at a youth (8 year olds) basketball game and complained that the players weren’t commiting intentional fouls to prevent easy lay-ups.
David J. White says:

July 4, 2012 at 1:38 pm

Not having children — not only none of my own, but also no small children in my life, ever, at least not that I see more than once a year, if that (no nieces or nephews, no close friends with small children, etc.) — often makes look at the larger, family- and child-centered culture around me feeling like an astronaut in a space suit, or a deep-sea diver in a diving suit, or an anthropologist doing field work, feeling surrounded by and yet distinct and detached from a completely alien environment that I will not likely ever be part of nor fully comprehend. Seriously. When I’m out shopping, or eating out, or strolling through the mall, and I’m surrounded by families with kids, dealing with their family-and-kid issues, I feel like I’m in a bubble, observing the natives on planet Xenon or something. It doesn’t bother me, mind you; I just feel I’m in the inverse of an ant farm or goldfish bowl, where instead of being a detached obverver on the outside looking in, I’m a detached observer on the inside looking out.
GhaleonQ says:

July 4, 2012 at 4:39 pm

*laughs* I won’t deny the generation gap here. They’re delightful for the same reasons that circuses, carnivals, amusement parks, live sports, and the like are delightful. When you want to focus on 1 thing, that thing fully engulfs your 5 senses. When you want to focus on all of them, everything together creates an uplifting noise that reminds you that everyone around you is totally devoted to having fun.

All of that, of course, depends on having the type of perception that most people my age have. *turns off podcast* *closes 2nd and 3rd browser windows* *stops twirling pencil in fingers* What was I typing, now? Oh, right, going to a real arcade in a large Japanese city is 1 of the greatest urban pleasures. It’s the best and worst of humanity in 1 spot! Trust me, 1/2 of your favorite writers would have written volumes about smoke-filled, dim hovels filled with people exceptionally devoted to and skilled at a wonderful artifice.
Patrick Bardamu says:

July 4, 2012 at 5:13 pm

I don’t know….there’s something that feels not quite right about waiting in line at the skee ball machine behind screaming ten year olds. If an adult enjoys these types of places then by all means they should include it during a night out. But its strange to me that this is actually advertised as something a normal adult would do…. I am overthinking this of course, but it would al seem more normal if there was a sense that it is out of the ordinary for adults to be doing this sort of thing. A sense of irony would rescue it from the weirdness.