Some people live and die by their engagement. Every day, they find the most enduring trends to try to break through the algorithm and be seen by a larger audience. In the world of content creation, it is quite difficult to be noticed otherwise. People fractured into different platforms, the incessant push for banal chatbots, and the increasing disillusionment with the internet itself make going viral the only way to be truly noticed. I would suggest that, arguably, this is not a healthy way to live, not just because of the self-inflicted psychological damage of “not being enough” if a post flops, but because some of these trends are genuinely damaging to society at large.
Case in point, this video of a woman lamenting the days when she was happy during the pandemic. Granted, it is unfair to single out this one creator, as this is a sentiment shared online by many, especially those who picked up gaming for the first time or after many years of dropping the hobby. I understand why it is popular. Seemingly endless hours of free time, a surplus of money in some situations, and no better way to spend the time than hanging out with friends, trying to find out who the killer is.
The clip detonated something in me that had been brewing for a while now, but I felt like this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Now I know, I know. Someone will read this and say, “Andres, it’s not that deep.” And I get that these types of low-effort engagement posts are commonplace in social media. Longing for a time when almost everyone was gaming online sounds like a fun time. But it was because it was the responsible thing to do. This trend gives me a feeling of Stockholm syndrome that I can’t shake off.
I don’t think talking about the death toll of that period relieves anyone’s suffering because the word itself evokes instant trauma, and for that, I apologize. The gaming industry itself is still reeling from the consequences of the unfettered spending seen in those days, to the point that we see massive layoffs every week. To that end, things will never be the way they were. Thankfully. The best part? They can and will be better.
Just this past month, silly online co-op climbing game PEAK took the world by storm. Thousands of videos flooded the internet of friends laughing at the expense of each other. Battlefield 6 recently broke the record of both Call of Duty and Among Us as the most concurrent players on Steam. These are but a few examples of modern games confirming that gaming with friends was never a fad. While some moved on, others found joy in it and explored what it has to offer further, yet this kind of content persists.
When inspiration doesn’t strike, it is much easier to fall back on well-known tropes that will bring us much-needed validation from our online peers. But in this particular case, I cannot help but fight back against this trend. Romanticizing the pandemic as a beautiful time when, quite literally, people were fighting for their lives is insensitive at best and dangerous at worst. Showing your peers that yearning for a time when your privileged life experience equated to something beautiful when the world was on fire is not cute. It’s a fallacy.
And of course, the culprit who started all of this: videogames. I appreciate people who think of them as having nostalgia for them, harkening back to a better time. But to use them as a scapegoat, of all things, to a global outbreak gives the impression that people do not actually have a love for the medium. Gaming is a wonderful way to connect with others, from making new friends to finding your own voice through streaming. But just because your friends have moved on from Among Us, that doesn’t mean that the excitement is not there anymore. Finally, using Sword of the Sea, a recently released game that is decidedly one of the coolest games to come out lately is undeserving.
Well all yearn for a time when we were happier now and then, one when we didn’t have responsibilities, and it didn’t feel like everything was consistently getting worse all the time. Videogames are a beautiful thing that should not be relegated to something you used to do when you had the time. I know setting up a gaming session, especially nowadays when we are all busy, is harder. But just as people remember “the good old days”, which they absolutely were not, maybe they should try to create new memories. For all intents and purposes, the best time for gaming is now. Maybe you just need a new group of friends to play with.
