The Electric Why
Letter From the Editor – OCGM#2
The electric question – “Why?” – has been snapping around the synapses of my brain like lightning bolts lately. I can hear the question not only in my mind’s voice, but in the little squeaks and squibbles you hear up there in your head when everything is real quiet. It’s vexing, to say the least. Why do I do this? Why do I write so much? Why do I make this magazine? Why do I hide away from my friends and family to do all this despite making no money and having very few fans? Why do the articles masquerade as “video game journalism” when they are only tangentially related to the games themselves, focusing instead on vaguely-related fiction, personal stories, and half-baked critiques of modern society? Why does it seem like I have a particular disdain for video-game culture yet still participate in that same culture? Why does it seem like this publication hates itself? It’s clear that I want to write literature to be taken seriously, but if my goal is to write literature, then why am I writing it to an audience of people who are (largely) more concerned with how many pixels can fit on a screen rather than ever reading a single word in print or otherwise? Am I trying to impart some grand wisdom on the reader? Am I trying to convince someone of something? Am I writing this for others – or myself?
“Nothing sounds as good as, ‘I remember that.’ Like a bolt out from the blue, did you feel it too?” – Prefab Sprout. “I Remember That.” From Langley Park to Memphis. 1988.
I’ve told myself before that I publish so much material because I want to be remembered. My daughter is eleven years old now; as of writing this, she mostly cares about makeup and doing her hair and video chatting with her friends until way past her bedtime. But maybe one day she will ask, “What was my father really like underneath that parenting facade that I used to take so seriously?” The same goes for my son, who is only a single year old at the time of writing this. Maybe one day they will both ask, “What were the contents of our father’s soul?” And when those questions start snapping around the synapses of their brains like bolts of lightning, they will be able to pick up this issue of On Computer Games Monthly and start to piece together the puzzle that is their father’s soul: “So this is what father was doing all the time in that little office shed?” Maybe they will find that they think a lot like their old man, or maybe they will think the opposite: that I was a hopeless fool who wasted years of his life typing pretentious drivel to an audience of literally no one and that everything I wrote failed to make a goddamn difference to anyone at all – but it will make a difference to them. They will remember me by the words that I have written. (Among other things too, one would hope.)
But is this the only reason why I write?
“Everywhere that you go, I'm with you now.” – Guided By Voices. “Unspirited.” Isolation Drills. 2001.
But that is not the full story. There is a part of me that wants to be loved. There is a part of me that wants a cult of personality. I want to be told that I’m a good writer. I want to be told that I make very good points, that I am really-really smart, and that I am also super cool and know so much about the totally-important world of pop culture, literature, music, and computer games. I want to be adored. Even the “I want my children to know and remember me” excuse comes from an egocentric place of wanting to be adored. I want to be adored by my family; I want to be adored by literary critics; I want to be adored by random people online; I want to be adored by your mom and dad, and your aunt and uncle too; I even want to be adored by the people who would much sooner hate me than read anything I’ve written. I tell myself that this is a natural desire. I tell myself that any artist who puts themselves out there is doing it – at least partially – from a place of vanity. There is a certain hubris to the act of creation, with the baked-in assumption that anything you create is worth being considered by anyone at all. Some artists say they do it for fun or for self-improvement – and there may be some of that mixed into my work as well. And some say they do it to make some sort of political message, but this implies that you believe your political message is righteous and worth considering, and this implies hubris. I am guilty of all of these things, and I freely admit to it, and I use this willingness-to-admit as a badge of honor to deflect criticism – but here I am, still doing it. I tell myself that everyone is like this and that most just won’t admit to it; those people are not true to themselves, I say. I tell myself that everyone just wants to be loved; and this makes me feel a little better.
Is this the true reason why I write? There must be something more.
“I am human and I need to be loved – just like everybody else does.” – The Smiths. “How Soon Is Now?” Hatful of Hollow. 1984.
I am a bundle of contradictions, so, of course: I undermine my own desires. I am standoffish, quiet, and cold when clearly people would like me more if I was the opposite of those things. I believe my work should speak for itself and if you don’t like it then you just don’t get it. I'm too proud to boast, and I see self-promotion as a low-key form of boasting; so my capacity for self-promotion is close to none. I will post the link to this magazine on a few online forums, but anything beyond that makes my stomach turn. Despite my vanity, copious self-promotion feels just a little bit too forward, a little too confident, a little too capitalistic, a little too revealing of one’s intent. You may think this contradicts my claim that I am vain – “If you’re vain, then certainly you would advertise your stuff to everyone everywhere in an effort to amass that cult of personality you so desire!” – but I assure you, dear reader, that this anti-desire to self-promote also comes from a place of vanity; because I don’t want people to know how vain I am.
“But surely by admitting how vain you are, it proves that you don't care if people know how vain you are!”
Wrong again – because I’m banking on no one reading this to begin with.
And we are no closer to answering the electric why…