The end of Digital Cool

Discovered in my basement--an 80s order form for video gaming merchandise; a scan of the front is below.

With video games now a mainstream form of entertainment, it's easy to forget that early gamers were rebels, genuine outcasts.

Anyone wearing these clothes and accessories in the 80s was a true dissident, a free-thinker, the fullest expression of self in a world that scorned and ostracized the gamer.

Look upon these garments, you the young, you the adolescent, and weep. The ladders have been tipped, the giants scattered, the bar lowered until it rests on the surface. These heroes, this digitized brotherhood--how now will you ever walk among them?

(click for full-size)