Every great once in a while, the internet provides me with so much entertainment that it’s impossible to thank the source enough. That has happened again, my friends. I give to you - The New Yorker on Fortnite.
It has EVERYTHING! It has Tom Wolfe quotes, Birchbox Men, The Beatles, and, to top it all off, Tide Pods!!
tl;dr: “man doesn’t understand something, thinks its for kids”
The New Yorker must pay by the word I guess.
I mean, it’s The New Yorker. A certain amount of old-man navel-gazing is to be expected.
I do still miss my sub. Maybe someday when I’m feeling less poor.
We’re talking about a publication which still puts diacritics on “cooperate” and “noone” and “naive”.
I think is a correct and good way to write about games. With a “stranger in a strange land” tone. A traveler that found a land where the natives do crazy things.
Sure, there’s a bit of “look at this wacky youth thing” in the New Yorker piece, but I think the it also captured the breathtaking speed with which Fortnite became a schoolyard phenomenon. The game went from nothing to the new hotness that every child in America had to play in a matter of weeks. That’s stunning to people in the industry and us, let alone some parent that wasn’t really paying attention to their kids videogames.
Parents need to start monitoring how their kids threat teammates.
Something I see, is kids don’t understand sportsmanship or threat other people like persons.
Fortnite had to disable friendly fire for this reason, because teammates where killing other teammates for lols, or to access better weapons.
Thats what has a society need to talk about. That a game is a success is not all that surprising… or important.
Also, I am scared how kids give that much importance to status. Kids are laser focused to getting a gold scar, has if is the only thing that matter. Working hard, having a good time, laughing, relaxing, cooperating… these things are much more important than getting a gold scar. If you insult your friends because your friend got a gold scar and you not… thats another thing parents need to pay attention.
Or maybe I am a old person. Sorry my rant.
I thought that was a great article that harkened back to the “New Games Journalism” days. Also, I’m more likely to try Fortnite now.
At the risk of being snarky, vast majority of kids are playing Fortnite because they are not monitored. It is in the least a baby-sitting activity. Kudos to the rare parent (usually an avid gamer) that plays with their child in this way. The fact that they are unmonitored is parlty why the worst of them can come out. They are still learning. And complete monitoring is neither possible nor healthy. But the gaming parent leads by example.
I think you can substitute “kids” with “humans”, as acceptance and popularity are basic human nature needs psychologically…
Again, it is the parent showing the correct behavior is the key as the child sees how it should be done even though they then do not always follow that when alone.
But definitely many parents are not interested in leading by example. That may even just be a human nature thing.
It would take me too long to go through and post my thoughts on why this is a horrible article, but on top of the ludicrous prose, maybe the New Yorker shouldn’t give so much page time to scam artists and scumbags. Here’s a fun fact - this guy:
Jamin Warren? He RAN a site that shuttered and is now an aggregator. He also took down everyones work that wrote for the site and didn’t pay a lot of people. Some of those people work with me at Unwinnable. I’m not the only one that notices stuff like this.
https://twitter.com/NickCapozzoli/status/996444541745016833
which leads to this next tweet (which is a thread)
And you may say “what does that have to do with the content?” Well, if you can’t be bothered to source your quotes, it certainly puts a lot of other stuff into question.
At the end of the day, I don’t like the writing style, but if you do, that’s cool. What I really take issue with is what I wrote above. Of course, I didn’t mention that when I posted it originally, so that’s my bad.
So there’s at least one publication doing it right.
Also, I plan to name my heavy metal band Diaëresis.
They’re focusing on what is publicized as being the only way to be successful, even though that’s how we got the social-economic and political nonsense the whole world is in (you can fit whatever public figure you want here, it’s irrelevant). Parent’s can’t change the need to drag others down, at best they can delay it.
Only partially. I recall with painful clarity feeling very left out/inferior at age 13 and 14 and 15 in PE classes, because my shorts and shoes were bog standard (perfectly serviceable, I mean, PE at school was not hard) and didn’t have Nike or Reebok written on them.
Now that I can afford to have Nike all over my walls if i chose to, I find myself…using bog standard and cheap stuff that, oddly, gets the job done.
Fuck Nike etc.
I am also 33 now. 20 years makes a difference?
So I can totally get the angst caused by not being cool enough as a kid,
To a functioning adult, yes.
Not to a kid or teenager.
Heh, when I was a kid I browbeat my parents into buying me new Nike sneakers at least twice a year. I remember they cost over a hundred dollars, and this was in the early 90s. These days I wear $60 new balance sneakers until the soles literally wear through, as in whenever it rains my feet get wet, and even after that I take months to replace them.
I had a jacket where one of the pockets tore out on a doorknob, the zipper was just hanging there. Rather than buying a new jacket I just cut off the zipper and when it got cold, stuck my hand in the lining of the coat. I used that same jacket for years after that, until recent ridicule caused me to buy a new one.
I’m not destitute, either, I have plenty of money. It’s the difference between spending someone else’s money and your own.
So that article where he talks about the game but never plays it… that was meant to be taken seriously? I can’t even tell anymore.
