This is me in my crowbar shirt, which I picked up during the San Diego Comicon at the
Gameskins.com booth. I'm sure most of you have seen it before, as I posted it in the 'Post Your Picture' thread as well as numerous times in the days following because I was so glad to finally get it.
Although that isn't why I'm posting it here and now. I am posting it here and now with a question: What does it mean to you? To anyone and everyone who has ever enjoyed the classic sci-fi first person shooter, the crowbar is a symbol of our beloved Half Life. However, it seems that people, usually older adults, who see the symbol see it differently.
Several times during the Convention when I wore the shirt, people would give me odd looks and ask what it meant, or what it represented. Me, being the Half Life geek that I am, explained that it is from "A popular sci-fi Video game, Half Life, in which the crowbar is a prominent tool and weapon". The individuals who made the inquiry would then say something along the lines of "Ah" and wander off, but if they stayed long enough for me to ask what they thought it meant, they would slightly stammer for a moment before replying "I don't know".
Recently, I ran into a situation similar to this with my mom, who asked me what it was, and had the similar "Oh, that's what it means" expression as I explained it. I became suspicious and asked her what she thought it meant, to which she gave the answer "Maybe a theif or something, using a crowbar to break into places" after a moment of thinking. Knowing my mom as well as I do, I knew she wasn't being honest with her answer, and I knew she had something else in mind. She solidified my hunch by going on to say "It's hard to think of what a big, red bent crowbar could mean". First, I had to explain to her that crowbars have always been bent the way they are, before what she had said started settling into my mind.
Taking the encounters from the Comicon and the discussion with my mom, I've come to the conclusion that adults seem to have their minds in the gutter more than I thought and are taking the crowbar as a phallic symbol. There is no other meaning or symbol that would cause full grown adults to stutter and pause to think of a cover-up answer to a question like this.
So now I'm curious as to what you think of the situations, of the evidence, and if you were an adult who had never heard of Half Life, what the crowbar would mean to you. Some of you are adults, so you merely have to think if you had never played the game and seen some random guy walking down the street or through the department store with a 'big red crowbar' on his shirt.
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