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We’re living in strange days. Most Americans seem oblivious, content to rant occasionally on social media but mostly going about their business as if there isn’t much to see here. Many Americans are stuck in a tribal, dysfunctional, inexplicable political world that seems to be breaking apart the fabric of American governance. Meanwhile, a good chunk of Americans are waiting for the next battle bus to launch.
I’ve lived through most of the evolution of video games. I played Pong as a young child, enjoyed Super Mario Bros. and their ilk before graduating to Doom in my late teens. Between Madden and Call of Duty, I didn’t get to see much in gaming innovation other than the incremental improvements in these two classic series for nearly two decades. By that time, I was an adult. Gaming was an occasional distraction to play with my kids.
Today, there are”battle royal” games dominating the screen-time for millions of Americans ranging from 5th graders to adult celebrities. Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) are the leaders in this genre that has taken over the collective gaming experiences of the masses. Both have become cultural phenomenons of sorts with PUBG being the original, but Fortnite has stolen much of its predecessor’s thunder.
The basic concept of battle royale games is that you’re dropped on an island and must collect resources, weapons, and equipment while trying to survive. The battle arena shrinks over time, bringing surviving players closer and closer until one remains alive and is declared the winner. There are other variations that include duos, squads, and large team battles. Sometimes there are goals that aren’t purely surrounding survival.
Each player has different ways of decorating themselves with clothes, special gear, and “emotes” that have become cultural phenomenons of their own.
As a metaphor, Fortnite fits nicely with our current political atmosphere. There are large groups that work together in certain situations much like the political parties. There are smaller groups that can work together as well, like the various camps and caucuses that drive decision-making on Capitol Hill. But at the end of the day, you have a bunch of players doing what’s best for them so they can survive longer.
They decorate themselves in Fortnite just as modern politicians build their public personas through social media.
Fortnite is Washington DC.
This should be alarming whether you buy into this clunky analogy or not. The reality of our political situation is we have a bunch of people doing what’s best for their own political survival. They sometimes work as teams but for the most part they’re taking whatever resources are best for them to move up the leaderboard and make it alive to the next shrinking of the map.
All of this has caused a very strange shift in the sentiment of the nation. I’m not referring to polls or predictions about the general consensus. Contrary to popular belief, the “average people” who drive real sentiment in our nation are the ones who generate a following on social media, through their websites, or out in the streets rallying the people. These are the Ben Shapiros, Louis Farrakhans, and Jim Acostas of the world. They’re the influencers who have gone beyond the good ol’ days of popular journalists and community leaders. Today, their followers are almost as cult-like as the followers of politicians like President Trump or Representative Ocasio-Cortez.
Just as a gaming streamer known as Ninja broke Twitch records by playing with Drake, Travis Scott, Kim DotCom, and JuJu Smith-Schuster, so too can the political tastemakers make as much of a stir as actual politicians. This should be a good thing, but unfortunately for every Shapiro there are a dozen Acostas. The tastemakers are taking the important aspects of the nation’s collective consciousness in the wrong direction.
We can learn a lot about the idiocy in DC by looking at the way Fortnite has captivated the masses. It’s every person for themselves in both worlds, and only the one left standing at the end gets anything other than pride for lasting through it all.
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Great Article. Will find a way to post link on my favorite gaming forums.