mossy

Mossy

@mossy

looking like a new thing

scratcher of GMless ttrpgs

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mossy
@mossy
vin
@vin
bloodmachine
@bloodmachine

the longer i live the more convinced i am that 'i enjoy [fiction] to escape reality' is like a completely manufactured attitude brought on by a broader global lie that 'escape' is possible at all and/or that escape is synonymous w 'having fun for a period of time'

mossy
@mossy

this has been weighing on my mind recently. games as a delimited space we have control of. we build cities of light and air, and to what end? Gamer Brain reflexively coils in on itself, conflating consumption with praxis and rejecting the oscar winner who was glad to have had instruments put in his hands

we escape into fiction to ameliorate the pain of being--comfort and anesthetization--even as we otherwise shelter in and take advantage of the benefits of the imperial core. setting capital as the log line around which our society orients itself has hollowed out our infrastructure, institutions, and ideas

to what degree do we manufacture the circuses by which (along with bread) the rolling, compounding series of atrocities that is the output of our society is enabled?

what does creative work look like, that undermines the hegemonic project. to what end do we ply our efforts: assimilation or transformation?

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in reply to @bloodmachine's post:

phantasmaCora
@phantasmaCora

do you mean this like "people should spend less time on fiction because it makes false promises of escape," or like "people should feel less ashamed/uncomfortable/etc. about enjoying fiction because it's not truly an 'escapist' behavior in the negative sense that's used," or some other way?
apologies if this is scanning for more meaning / complexity than you meant the post to have, feel free to tell me honestly if so

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bloodmachine
@bloodmachine

no need to apologize!! the post isnt super clear lol partly bc im still working through my own thoughts on it. with that said what i have been thinking abt is that in the US at least often ppl talk about enjoying mainstream media as a means to 'escape reality'. i think this is usually bc USian culture has designated the function of fiction as being escapist. like come home & turn your brain off and enjoy pure fluff!! and its like ok....enjoying pure fluff is not escaping reality thats just called "having fun". and the extent to which fiction is transportative is arguably not escapist imho — unless by 'escapist' people mean they just want the freedom to enjoy (for example) a story about princesses and knights and whatever without having to think abt the grim implications of monarchic power and a cruel feudal system which like. i would argue that 'enjoying stuff free of real-life consequences because it's made up' is not escapist, its just one way that ppl have fun. no one describes rollercoasters as "escapist" just because you dont hit the ground and die at the bottom of the big drop.

i think stories often get framed this way in the US bc it is easier to sell things to audiences when you pretend to be on their side (ex: "we know life is so hard. come enjoy the magical world that is disney with us") without acknowledging that the people doing the selling are usually participating in what makes life hard in the first place. you could see this come to a head imo with things like the WGA writers strike where some (probably a minority of) consumers were complaining that the writers striking was depriving them of their access to an escape from the hardships of the world. and its just like....i think this is entirely the wrong framework for understanding why books, games, movies, tv, etc exist. i dont know that theres any one easy to pin down reason for why people enjoy telling or listening to or participating in stories but i think the idea of escapism is not one of them. or at the very least it occludes our ability to introspect abt all the different things fiction can do bc it's mostly a marketing tool.

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TessSynthetic
@TessSynthetic

It seems hard to argue that escape isn't possible at all without denying the experience of a huge number of individuals? And I'm not sure what evidence exists that could justify such a claim. Unless I misunderstand how you are using the term.

Certainly in my own experience, it is definitely possible to have a meaningful experience based on what amounts to a time of (potentially assisted, often directed) daydreaming. As in allowing yourself to experience a distant world-that-could-be within your imagination as a reprieve from everyday life.

I don't personally think escapism is an inherently negative thing.

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