Myth / Community – Hackers / Gamers

gamer-gaming

Myth / Community – Hackers / Gamers

Just a couple of quick notes stemmed from our everyday netsurfing, about two revived and growing figures. Welcome to our new babablog.

The discrete charm of the anti-hero

Some may find figures such as Prince Charming or the Endangered Lady still attractive. But most of us today rather prefer: Badasses. 2015 controversial US series #MrRobot brought back the figure of the hacker under the spotlight: the guy in the shadow who, thanks to his/her expertise, manages to sabotage “the system”, revealing the truth, saving the world – Just think of #theMatrix.

#Hackers have fascinating, archetypical features: “hacker” means the leader, the rebel, the masked one, the sage, the thief – The mercenary, sometimes. Today’s buzzwords are definitely #bigdata and #privacy: and they do lie at the heart of hacking. Hackers have become the new warlords, both good and bad, of our times – Haven’t they?

Playing as a dead serious deal

#Games. They help us living our lives both within and outside – that’s what we now call #gamification – the “magic circle” (Huizinga). They both need and make much more money than a Hollywood blockbuster (#Destiny’s budget was 500 million, #JurassicWorld 150). Their users are a growing community (whose economical and political influence is growing too).

Since the very first utopian manifestos of #electronicliterature, up to the pioneering Mark America’s “flash aesthetics”, it has been crystal clear that cinema was the new literature. And that videogames were the new cinema. It was not only a matter of technological gimmicks, of special effects, and #CGI, but of the quality of the immersive experience designers started producing and #gamers started getting (and requiring). Just like comics, with graphic novels, games stopped being labelled as something childish and entered the realm of pop(ular) culture in every respect.

Comments (0)

Comments are closed here.