“In Another Life” sits at the exact intersection of pop song and ambient meditation record. It’s 24 straight minutes of placid, smiling chord progressions spotted by round little video game ornaments, in which Sandro Perri, back from a 7-year hiatus, imparts on us everything he’s learned in his time off: ego and attachment have no place here. And when you listen to that message spin over and over itself for nearly half an hour, you start to internalize its cadence, pulsing along with its infinite progress. Happy first-full-week-of-January Friday, everyone.
Has anyone noticed that video games are starting to be considered a sport? A few universities are granting scholarships to especially skilled players, and Nike is sponsoring gamers and outfitting them with custom duds, even going so far as to label them ‘athletes.’ From a business perspective, this makes total sense: there are as many people watching Twitch as there are living in Mexico, which, for reference, is higher than the number of people watching CNN. (Twitch being, of course, the platform where you watch other people play video games.) So why not capture that audience, right? Practically, of course, athletic gear made for an activity largely known to take place in the sedentary darkness of a parent’s basement is silly. But if there’s clothing to be slung, then sling away. (Plus, the sponsored players are likely to be out and about– they have teammates and practice, after all.)
If the above (or the word ‘Fortnite’) tells you anything, it’s that gaming has gone mainstream (that is, if you didn’t consider it mainstream before). And if that’s new for you, I recommend listening to this episode of On The Media for context on Twitch and the world it contains. Conversely, if you feel like gaming is old news, perhaps avoid this episode in which old people make an ethnography of your everyday life. Your pick.
