"It's okay," I tell myself as I install Doki Doki Literature Club Plus. "Not every game has to be streamed. You're not going to run out of games to stream. Heck, you could never buy another game and probably not run out of games to stream for the rest of your life."
I've decided to simply enjoy the game on my day off, for myself, and it scares me how unnatural that feels now when it's how I spent most of my childhood. I suppose even writing this blog entry is, in a way, justifying myself - If I write an article about my experience not caring about being productive, it paradoxically makes the act productive. The irony is not lost on me, and yet I'm still typing.
I love how easy it is to find communities around the stories I enjoy, thanks to the modern internet, but sometimes that same ease makes me feel compelled to share my media consumption - it's just one little extra thing to use a book tracking app to count my progress towards an annual reading goal, or record a TikTok after I get out of a movie, or hit the "stream button" in OBS, I tell myself, even though deep down I know all of those actions are social, and socializing does require energy, actually. I work in customer service and have the occasional day where I have to socialize so much that I come home nonverbal - the primary thing I am usually recharging on my day off is my social energy. Not everything I do has to be in front of an audience, or recorded into the endless bytes of internet records that churn out recommendations and review averages.
Deep down, I know this, but anxiety is a bitch, and anxiety tells me things like:
- But what if I forget I already read this? (Then apparently I could stand to read it again, or I'll quickly remember why it was so forgettable the first time.)
- But what if I end up having something thoughtful to say about this movie? (Then it will probably stick with you long after the movie ends and you can decide to write about it later, even if you don't spend the whole time mentally planning a review.)
- But what if I have a really great moment playing a game that I could have gotten on camera? (So what? My gaming channel is going to be defined by the content I make, not the content I miss, and it's not like I have a set amount of funny gaming moments to spend.)
And so I feel like I'm doing something wrong, something sinfully luxurious and indulgent, not taking the little extra step to make my consumption productive, like I swiped an extra square of chocolate from the bag I brought to share with the class, and like that's just awful and horrible and selfish of me, even though the entire bag of chocolate was mine to begin with and there's more than enough to go around regardless.
(I know, that metaphor kinda falls apart, but if one person gets the general vibe of what I mean, I'll consider this post a success.)
But I'm getting a bit off topic by bringing up movies and books here. Games. What I really want to talk about is games, and how public the act of playing games has gotten. You don't have to stream for this to be true - communities around games share screenshots, steam publicly lists your playtime and achievements unless you actively tell it not to. These days, it almost takes more effort to make gaming a private act.
And yet, playing a game in the void; with nobody watching and no worrying about someone judging your actions or skill or that achievement you got because, woops, you didn't think the game would actually LET you kill that adorable alien creature, you were just shooting at it as a joke!; is such a different experience than playing socially. It's quiet and intimate and relaxed, and some games are more enjoyable when played in a vacuum.
Naturally, the point of all this music is my trying to explain why I liked Sonic Forces.
Not because I thought it was any good - no, the gameplay was mediocre as sin and I don't think I'll ever return to it now that I've beaten it - but because the ridiculous self-insert story it told was so in line with the sort of thing fledgling fan fiction writers in the Sonic fandom make. Someone wanted to make a love letter to fandom OCs and they knew exactly what they were doing. Despite Sonic Forces' flaws, I was ultimately charmed by its sincerity and had a good time. I would not have had that experience if I'd been streaming. I would have felt pressured to be cynical, because everyone is cynical about Sonic Forces, and because being cynical is funny. This probably says as much about my confidence ad-libbing (I enjoy streaming but will be the first to admit I like how I sound far more when I write things down before hand) as streaming culture, but I digress.
All of that without even touching monetization. The older I get, the more expenses I have, the less valued I am by this late-stage capitalism hellscape, the more deeply I crave escaping into a professional creative role, or at least making a few extra bucks on the side to buy new games with. Because of that, choosing not to stream doesn't just feel indulgent socially - it legitmately feels like pulling money out of my own pocket, even if it's only a few cents. "Time is money" has never felt more real - more tempting - than on the modern internet. It's a big part of why the modern internet is so awful, but that's another post for another day.
"It's okay," I remind myself as I boot up the game. "Enjoying a game for its own sake is self care."
And I really do believe that.