Re: Video games, art and noise

Finding a voice between pop and counter-culture.

4+ years ago, when I first launched TheStarrList.com as a Tumblr blog, I sought to explain underground and often dismissed media to the average reader. I donned the blog’s subtitle with “Making Sense of the Media Around You” and filled it with weekly album reviews, DVD to Blu-ray comparisons, and “best of” lists.

I poured my energy into a Top 100 Albums of the 2000s post filled with 100 mini album reviews; ripped and analyzed The Sound of Music Blu-ray vs. DVD, projecting the comparison to an audience more concerned with post-hardcore music and Star Wars (though, I compared that too). There were even experiments with video game reviews from Uncharted 3 to Limbo and micro-movie reviews during Oscar season.

In 2012, I switched from Tumblr to WordPress format to focus on longer-form writing with a bit more structure and professionalism. To my surprise, the blog saw incredible growth, at least by my standards. TheStarrList.com was now a much richer and dynamic experience.

Two years later, I find myself wondering what its primary theme is as it’s beginning to feel like a catch-all for my scattered thoughts.

Art and Noise

Required reading: Video games, art and noise | The Guardian

“It matters to me that on Monday morning, seven million Today listeners heard games being dismissed on the basis of a tiny minority of the annual output. It matters how consensus develops around new artistic forms.” – Keith Stuart, The Guardian

When I woke to The Gaurdian’s “Video games, art and noise” by Keith Stuart, a lightbulb switched on. Stuart’s arguments about loud yet uninformed “minority output” broadcasting to millions, discounting entire mediums and genres had my memory zipping back to my Tumblr blog.

Even with grand-scale digital publishing and hashtag/retweet filtration, there still remains a large population not savvy to the cultural trends of millennials and their collective, connected views of technology’s impression on art. Suddenly it became clear why I had written pieces on Blu-ray remasters of classic films and a defensive for Skrillex.

In my line of work, a sliver of my time is spent curating niche content and broadcasting it to a large audience. Though popular consensus informs us that heavy-hitters will continue to rise to the top, I find more validity in the little guy. Generations will always include masses discounting change and evolution (queue Patton Oswalt on home birth), unwilling to invest the time and effort to understand what makes WhatsApp a worthy investment or dismissing replay rules in professional sports. Cultural relevance is the reason I continue to educate myself on topics I don’t fully understand (and hopefully never will). I fear the day I will fail to understand my children.

“You would never debate the artistic potential of cinema by focusing solely on mainstream Hollywood films.” – Keith Stuart, The Guardian

In defense of Sarah Kent, I understand backlash when taking a hard stance on something I have either strong bias for and/or ignorance of. (See my discourse with @ryanruppe regarding Salon writer Jeff Bryant’s “Common Core propaganda fails“) Hopefully Keith’s piece sparks re-evaluation of video games as art; with outreach to millions, simply writing-off an entire medium/stance/genre is extremely damaging. Raise questions. Avoid absolutes.

My Voice

All told, when I read Keith’s piece, I found my voice. I simultaneously felt his passion for a discounted and controversial medium that is globally enjoyed by hundreds of millions (potentially billions) and understood why I feel the need to disperse nuggets of pop culture into pieces about demographically discounted art. (Queue Glenn Close’s “Devil Wears Prada” cerulean sweater monologue)

“The education system is starting to realize, we feel like we’re competing with this barrage of entertainment that’s around kids, nonstop, all the time. I think initially that was shocking to them. TV is the enemy. Heavy metal is the enemy. Video games are the enemy. They’re starting to ask, what if we could harness that instead of making it the enemy? So it’s actually a parallel maturation.” - Erin Hoffman, GlassLab

It should go without saying that today’s technology is ripe to educate on topics previously left abandoned in generational gaps succinctly. However, we are shown time and time again that there is need to challenge generational qualms and societal push-back. It is these generational gaps that keep me finely tuned to the video game industry and passionate about explaining its impact and relevance in the pop culture space.

At an early age, unlike sports or academics, I learn that I could best my parents at video games. It was a participatory and wondrous medium imbued with both technology and art that empowered me to level adult vs. child, teacher vs. student playing field. With that, I sign off referencing links to my reviews and opinions on games that may have been overlooked by the larger audience yet are critical to popular culture; the solitary theme that runs through my blog.

Thanks to Keith for opening my eyes to my writing through-line.

Humanity in Hearthstone: How Blizzard is changing the diversity game.

Monument Valley – A Review: The beauty of brevity. The pleasure of paradox.

1985: Burst and Bloom (formerly “Why Game?“): An ode to the impact of early console gaming.

Journey: 1 Year Later: Celebrating this generation’s most important work of art.

Originally posted on TheStarrList.com