In this edition of MiL, I sat down and chatted with one of the most famous guys on youtube, Adande “Swoozie” Thorne. In gaming Adande is known for his awesome DoA 4 skills from playing in the Championship Gaming Series season 1, and being the newest host of the CGS during season 2! On myspace and youtube he is know for his incredibly addicting vlogs where he talks about God, gaming, and girls! So I wanted to get into his brain a little bit to find out his take on the whole meeting-your-love-online thing.
Chicka: So, you talk a lot about love and gaming, do you feel that its “strange” that people find love in online gaming? Wait! First, I should ask you if you’ve ever dated someone online!
Swoozie: I have never dated anyone online. The circles I run in, for whatever reason- a lot of gamers who are guys pose as girls for starters. And that’s been happening to me since the middle school days. Now guys are taking it the whole nine yards! They make fake myspaces posing as a girl; make girly gamer tags, then tell everyone their mic is broken. So with the amount of silliness that goes on, I think it has always left a bad lasting impression with me.
Chicka: Oh wow! I never knew that! I bet that gets kind of weird to even think about dating someone you met online!
Swoozie: Well, it gets worse.
Chicka: =/ Do tell….
Swoozie: Well because now there are girls who pose as other girls. So they’ll have a headset and play online and talk with guys online, but the myspace they send them to is theirs, but with stolen pictures from another girl’s site.
Chicka: So, there’s guys posing as girls, and GIRLS posing as cuter girls?
Swoozie: Exactly.
Chicka: Dang!
Swoozie: So with all this madness- you can see why I’m not one for falling in love so quickly on the internet– but I’m totally not against it either.
Chicka: So you’re one of those people who feels like it could never happen to you?
Swoozie: Oh no, I think it could happen to me, BUT there is A LOT of red tape to cross. It gets messy. You have to look at the situation sometimes, but I’m not against the idea at all. Cute/awesome girls gotta use the computer too at some point, but I’d have to do a live stream with her or see Xbox live chat or something before I’m a believer these days.
Chicka: YEAH! It’s craziness these days! Since you play a lot of online games, do you think that it’s natural for online gamers to feel connected to people they have NEVER seen before?
Swoozie: Definitely! I think a lot of people take it for granted more these days, but there is very little chance you could get as personal as you do online as opposed to face to face, and that goes for gaming and internet in general. On myspace I can go to a total stranger in the UK and say “You seem very cool from your profile pic”, and BOOM, that can spawn massive emails. If I were to approach that same person on the street and compliment them…the reaction is much different. Even after a quick compliment or me asking “Hey what’s your myspace?”, when it’s that fast and face to face even that’s a little weird. There’s a totally different set of rules over the net.
Chicka: So you’re saying that a totally shy person can open up over the internet, when in real life they’d totally pass up the chance to talk to people?
Swoozie: I’d say that’s the case for the majority of people. I’d say I’m a shy person.
Chicka: Haha! no you’re not!
Swoozie: Oh, in real life toward strangers I am, especially the females. I have my moments.
Chicka: Well you seem pretty smooth to me, or maybe you’re the perfect case of smooth on the internet, but shy in real life!
Swoozie: Bingo! Online I have the confidence of Brad Pitt. It’s not a front though. I just feel like there are no boundaries. I know with certain girls…they have a not so great history with strangers approaching them, so an invisible wall goes up sometimes before words are spoken. Online it’s different. You can say to a girl “You are hot beyond description” in a random myspace email, and the chances of her getting a smile are really good. In real life- that can be a bit creepier. I myself just try to be as respectful as I can be on or offline. Online - being respectful to girls goes a very long way.
Chicka: Yeah, it’s pretty annoying getting the “Damn girl you sexy as @#$@, you wanna new friend here’s my number” messages. But if a guy has a good conversation and approaches you as a friend with a subtle interest at first that grows, it’s actually really, REALLY nice to get the compliments on your looks.
Swoozie: Yeah, so when you are a gentleman online it goes a LONG way. Delivery is everything on or offline
Chicka: Wow that’s good advice to everyone, gamers or non gamers!
Swoozie: Exactly. Well, the thing I love about how it’s all turned out is that you can meet someone in real life, be mildly interested, exchange emails or myspace address, and THEN you can really get to the substance.
Chicka: Do you do this a lot?
Swoozie: I know how it works very well- I don’t do it a lot, but when I do it, it’s with ninja like tact.
Chicka: Hahaha :D, you’re seriously like a Love Guru! Someone needs to get themselves a “Hitch” biz started up! Okay here’s another question.
Swoozie: Fire at random!
Chicka: When I talked to some gamers, I’d hear the word “pathetic” or “nerd” when I talk about falling in love over online gaming. Actually, lots of people think that this happens only to WoW addicts. Do you think that there’s a level of “nerdiness” that you have to have to find the love of your life over a video game, AND do you think there’s a greater effect on men than women?
Swoozie: For the first part I disagree on the level of “nerdiness“. When people say that- they are entitled to their opinion, but something that pulls us together is words, and people don’t really give words the credit they deserve. People fall in love over the internet with just words organized in the right order when the eye hits it. The Bible is given to us in words written and spoken and it’s so powerful. WoW-lots of words.
Chicka: Yeah, sometimes when I read the Bible I get chills!
Swoozie: Exactly- words carry a lot of things. When it comes to men vs women online, I think just the sound of a woman’s voice online is a lot of men’s kryptonite! Especially after only hearing guys for hours or days at a time. I freaked the first time I heard a girl online. My first thought was… “WOW this is a girl… playing on her own free will… and she likes this game! I wonder what else we have in common”. Now I know better. Haha! But there are still guys out there who try to collect girls like trophies to add them to their friends list. Girls are different in the gaming world online and they know it.
Chicka: Oh no, I hate that! I immediately delete a guy when I notice that there’s like 75 girls on their friends list including me! As far as some women, there are those who have the “I’M JUST A GAMER I’M NOT SPECIAL” motto, but we’re all different. I’m like the semi feminist that doesn’t mind being called a “gurl gamer” and I don’t feel that I’m special, but I know I’m different.
Swoozie: It gets deep. Well there are those of us who like attention -guys and girls. Girls online, especially those who play consoles, its like a switch that never goes off, especially if you play in public rooms or games like Uno. I thought I’d seen some things in my day but to see how guys act on Uno is an eye opener!
Chicka: I don’t even play on Uno anymore. The last time I played, I encountered one of “those girls”….and lemme tell you- I got an eye opener!
Swoozie: I seriously could talk about the whole girl gaming thing for a LONG time!
And we did! There’s actually an extended version of this interview, but I had to cut it short because after all, this is an interview about love, not the girl gamer issue! Quite a RAD interview, and it’s great to get a guys take on the subject, especially if said guy is a love guru, haha! You can catch Swoozie at myspace.com/adande and definitely subscribe to him on youtube at youtube.com/user/swoozie06! Go get addicted like I did! For all the ladies out there wondering- YES HE IS SINGLE! 
September 19th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
OoOoohh! I liked this feature of MiL! Great read hun!
September 19th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Swooz is the man! Talented and super cool to boot. Great interview!
September 20th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Haha, fun read. It is nice to get an guys perspective ont he subject!
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:23 am
Yeah, Swoozie is the man! Really sweet guy <3
September 29th, 2009 at 9:12 am
u suck
September 29th, 2009 at 9:13 am
all those coments are old