Greetings! 

This is a blog about video games! But first, bear with me for a sec:

In 2024, I believe it is now occasionally standard etiquette for us wireless villagers to pretend to have seen a TV show or two. 

There’s simply a practical limit on how many new hit shows, movies, mini-series and live premiers from the various platforms any one person can firehose into their eyes. Thus the average reader is inevitably destined to encounter a situation where all of their friends are excited about a show which they have never heard of. 

If you are like me, reluctant to be excluded from the conversation but equally reluctant to invest 30+ hours and an Amazon Prime subscription into Rings of Power, the hyperactive digital ecosystem which gave rise to this dilemma also presents a solution: absorbing cultural moments through osmosis. 

Instead of going on sabbatical to catch up on something called Outlander, you can Sparknotes the experience secondhand through a consolidated mix of review shorts, fancams, video essays and react memes. Sometimes the coral-reef of zero contact media that sprouts off of a show or movie is even more interesting than its substrate (see: the hilarity surrounding Madame Web, 2024).

Image credit: @wednesdaypull on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/wednesdaypull/p/C3k7nRUP7tv/

For about 3 years of art school, I used this mode of secondhand media-osmosis to cheat my way through video game culture. In our 3D program, the Venn Diagram between video game pop culture and student culture was very nearly a circle.

 If you wanted to make friends quickly, it was pretty helpful to have backhand familiarity with the ins and outs of the cult of Stardew Valley, the ongoing launch and subsequent crash of Cyberpunk 2077, and any number of in-jokes and memes from famous games. But if you aren’t caught up on the full backlog of relevant games, a full playthrough of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is hardly a ‘quick’ way of source-tracing the phrase ‘press ‘F’ to pay respects.’

That's where this blog comes in.

 All jokes aside, gaming has become an institutional part of popular culture over the last few years, thanks to the rise of accessible consoles like the Nintendo Switch, the global spike in PC game playership during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the predominance of game content on popular streaming platforms. It remains a revolutionary art form with a troubled development industry and a hugely diverse and complicated community of players and fans. The interconnected gaming landscape has developed its own histories, its own cultural languages, and a ton of interesting stories and references you may not even know started with video games if you find the actual hobby inaccessible.        

I would like to understand this.

Image credit: r/Metroid

https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/comments/q5l0j9/i_always_knew_the_wii_u_was_an_awesome_console/

 For those who haven’t the spare time, graphics card/console budget or interest to take up gaming themselves, this blog may serve as a helpful, non-gamers field-guide to the ins and outs of popular video games and their cultural relevance.