If you spent your teenage years interacting with people IRL - hanging out in the local park, playing team sports or joining wholesome clubs like the Girl Guides - then leave now. This article is for those who spent their youth hogging the family computer, refusing to shower and slowly growing their neighbourhood on the greatest computer game that was ever known to man: The Sims.
This week, Sims fans, is very special. The fourth instalment of the computer game version has just come out, and takes with it any possibility of a productive weekend. Just as we were managing to wean ourselves off the iPad version too. Which is just as well, since we’ve definitely spent over £40 on in-app purchases. Oops.
Here's a few ways The Sims made you into the terrible person you are today*.
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Full disclaimer, I never got further than Sims 1 - something to do with discovering boys and make-up probably. So if Sims 2 and/or 3 contained any more ways to ruin your life, do let me know.
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It brought out your inner murderous dictator
Although you originally started off as a benevolent leader, the power of controlling a small but thriving neighbourhood of people with successful jobs and family lives eventually went to your head. For whatever reason, even though you created him, one Sim always knew how to push your buttons – be it the stupid way he grooved to ‘Pop’ music on the boombox, or the sly look he had in his eye when he ‘flirted’. Either way, he had to go. Into the swimming pool he went, minus the steps, where you watched him splash about inanely around before sinking below the pastel blue waters to meet his untimely end.
It cut your attention span in half
You know how everyone blames the internet for our generation having the concentration levels of a small child pepped up on ice cream and Jelly Tots? Rubbish. The real reason we can’t commit to reading more than 200 words in a row now is entirely down to The Sims and its fast forwarding feature (now disappointingly defunct). Can’t be bothered to wait for a Sim to come home from school? A bath taking too long? Walking from one side of the room to the other boring as hell? Just fast forward. It wasn’t until you found yourself clicking an imaginary mouse button to fast forward a real life car journey that you realised it had all gone too far.
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It gave you false expectations about the housing market
Original Sims was 20% controlling lives and 80% designing the pads they lived in. Which you couldn’t do much of with the measly amount of Simoleons you started out with. Luckily the now infamous ‘Rosebud’ cheat meant money was never an issue. Out came the medieval mansions and the three-storey red and pink love nests as you created virtual versions of the houses you thought you’d one day live in. As a result, the harsh reality of today’s housing market came as even more of a terrible shock: one that’s left you bitter, twisted and jaded about adult life.
It put you off babies forever
The ‘Should Sarah have a baby?’ pop-up was always the happiest outcome from a spot of heavy petting between two married Sims. Until the baby arrived. While you used to rely on a solid twelve hour sleep to get your Sims through the rigorous activities you planned to put them through the next day (having sex in the shower, shagging in the vibrating bed…) they were now woken up bi-hourly every night by the wailing bassinet that you stupidly once thought you wanted. Their anguished foot stamps at being awoken prematurely still come to mind when you hear a baby’s cry today.
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Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.