Voodoo Time Dot Com

I went out and bought The Sims – Deluxe Edition a couple days ago for my PC. I figured I already have enough fighting and killing games, so something a bit more pacifistic in nature might be a nice change of pace. If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s basically about making a little virtual person (called, appropriately enough, a “sim”), giving him/her somewhere to live, and micromanaging his/her life. You control when your little virtual people eat, sleep, bathe, and even go to the bathroom. You wake them up for work in the morning and make sure they aren’t late for the carpool. You make them clean their house. You can buy them new furniture or redecorate their house. You can even control their social calendar and bring other little virtual people over for virtual dinner parties.

About two hours into this, I realized I had been suckered. I was sitting at the computer playing a game in which I had to do all the things I hate doing in real life! I was making a little computer person make his bed, take out the trash, water plants, and wash dishes. How is this fun? What is there about this to enjoy? In fact, a full Sim day lasts about 15 minutes of real time. So in two hours, I had already done some eight days worth of housework. In real life, it takes me well over eight days to do eight days worth of housework.

This whole idea has become so odd to me, that I’ve come up with my own term for it – retroescapism. Escapism is a sort of pejorative term for that attraction we sometimes have towards the romantic, the fantastic, the extraordinary. As we enter our third “TV Generation”, escapism is more a part of daily life than ever before. There seems to be a neo-escapist movement – retroescapism – attempting to escape traditional escapism. Instead of reverting back to reality, retroescapists end up simulating reality instead.

Evidence of this irony is all over. AOL’s biggest hit was the instant chat. Though by no means exclusive to AOL, they were able to get people to pay over $20 per month to sit around at home alone and talk to other people over the Internet. If you just step outside once in a while you could do this for free. And what of reality TV? Somehow, watching people interact on TV has become more entertaining than interacting with people in one’s own home. Even more ironically, it has become fashionable to invite people over just to sit and watch these shows together.

And, lest you think these are fringe movements, let me share the numbers. Reality television programs consistently rate very high. “Survivor” was #1 during both of its first two seasons. “Big Brother” continues to be a phenomenon all across Europe. AOL, with advertisements emphasizing its online “chat” features, is the number one Internet service provider (ISP) in the world. The Sims is the number one best-selling computer game of all time.

Speaking of The Sims, we are mere months away from an online, multiplayer version of the game. In The Sims Online a player will be able to make his/her own little sim and live online with other people’s sims. It’s going to be great! I mean, you could talk to other sims, invite other sims over for dinner, have friendships and love affairs. It’ll be totally like real life! The critics are ecstatic.

They say we’ve never seen anything like this before.

First I laughed. Then I thought they just might be right.

Bye for now.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 26th, 2002 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.