I'm very much in your same boat and it's kind of a weird one to be in. I have friends who keep the TV on all the time. They watch everything. They complain about it but they keep watching it. Then they all sit and complain about the same vapid shows. Meanwhile I'm over here dying to talk to anybody about BioShock Infinite, or the latest Final Fantasy 14 expansion, or even the unexpected gut punches lurking in the latest Sonic game. I have to go hunt down people who play those games (usually on Tumblr) and we talk lore and toss around theories. It's way more interesting than a TV show. What's endlessly fascinating to me about FFXIV is that everyone plays the same game, but everyone has completely unique experiences. Nobody I've ever talked to has had my same playthrough. Everyone is different. You don't get that with a TV show.
MMOs are another thing because they have the power to be social. Watching TV in the presence of another person is not a particularly social activity, but an online game is really a social experience of a story - not only "the" story, but "your" story. Even modern WoW is full of shared human experiences. FF14 has given me tons of cool social moments, including just sitting down in a city and playing music with other people at random. Talking lore while we do a dungeon or raid. A movie can't give me that!
The passivity of TV is borne out by the classic boomer phenomenon of constantly complaining how there's nothing good on TV, yet still watching it compulsively, for hours every day.
I encounter this every time I visit my parents. They truly switch off their analytical faculties when the TV is on. When they're not watching it they can realize it's crap and reruns, and complain. But once it's on, they go to 100% reception mode. Pretty scary.
At the moment Hollywood is in kind of a weird place where they are really pushing nostalgia far too much on so much of what they are doing right now that they are not taking the risks they should be to allow new talent to make new stories, which I honestly think is quite sad when you consider how safe Hollywood has become as of late.
Video games I would definitely say is a better alternative because they've been able to push the importance of storytelling and how they communicate with the audience a little bit better than what modern cinema is doing right now, even more so with television which is interesting considering we've seen the Golden Age come and go and now because so much as being made it's surpassing much more than what modern cinema is able to achieve right now.
But video games I would still consider a huge step up beyond that because of what that's able to achieve compared to what film and TV can do and what they're able to get away with.
Much of what you wrote here is uncanny in that your descriptions of the differences between the mediums are almost exactly how I'd define the differences between them, even though my preferences are the opposite of yours in this instance.
"Passive visual media is a shallow, often overwhelming approach to communication where all control is given to the movie maker and not to the consumer. Actors speak at a certain pace. Visuals are shown from a specific angle for a specific amount of time. The story progresses in a specific, set way, and the entire thing takes a set amount of time."
This is a big part of why I prefer static media like books, movies, television, radio shows, etc, over video games: they remain the same. A book always has the same number of words and a movie the same number of frames, regardless of the number of re-reads or re-watches. Each creative choice is deliberate and permanent. The voice or vision on page or screen is that of someone else putting it out for you to surrender to it and take it in. I enjoy that surrender, that experience of getting out of my own imagination and into someone else's, of in a sense forgetting myself and becoming absorbed in the story.
"We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)" - C. S. Lewis, "An Experiment in Criticism," Chapter 3.
"Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap
Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat
Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,
And Sabra in the forest with St. George!
The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap
One precious gain, that he forgets himself." - William Wordsworth, "The Prelude," Book 5
There's something about movies in particular that I think are very conducive to this type of surrender. For me, whenever I think of what I consider the ultimate cinematic experience, "Metropolis" (1927) is what comes to mind, for the reasons I explained in this brief review I wrote on a forum six years ago:
"It's a perfect example of why silent film is a valid and underappreciated medium. The combination of the gorgeous, ultra-evocative, symbolism-laced imagery and Gottfried Huppertz's masterful original score lulls the viewer into a quasi-hypnotic state in which the story is conveyed almost as pure emotion, nearly free of the necessity for conscious thought, and yet, the story and themes conveyed thereby remain substantive and thought-provoking. Audible dialogue would break the spell."
Part of what I wrote toward the end touches on an important aspect: surrendering to the author or director's vision and story does not require losing one's ability to think or be critical, and even a movie like "Metropolis" that has an almost hypnotic effect can still provoke thought and reflection rather than providing some sort of "brainwashing experience" (for lack of a better term). It's possible to surrender to receiving the experience and the messages in the way that the director intended, and yet also retain the ability to think about and be analytical of the story and the messaging (or other aspects of the movie, for that matter).
Of course, some bad storytelling or creative decisions or some types of propaganda or bad messaging can have the effect of instantly "snapping me out" of the experience. Many recent movies have these issues to such a degree that I can't "surrender" to them for their entire runtime, and sometimes not at all. It could be described as a mental contract: when I start watching, my agreement with the creator is essentially, "I'm on board to receive this experience you've created, unless you break the contract with poor quality or something egregious with your messaging. Do any of that, and I snap out of it."
Video games are designed to offer a feeling of achievement. This can be fun, but for me, there's something almost uncomfortable about it, because it's not a real accomplishment. If I'm reading a book or watching a movie and the hero wins a fight, I'm happy for the hero and view the victory as his and only his. But if I am playing as that same hero in a video game and win the same fight, there's the temptation to view the hero's victory as mine, since I guided him to it through the game's controls.
Rooting for the hero to win and being happy when he does (or sad when he doesn't) is an entirely different type of experience and impulse than controlling the hero and in a sense feeling any of his victories and defeats as one's own. In both cases, the characters and their victories or defeats are fictional and illusory, but only in the latter case is a real person (you) being presented as part of the fake story.
This is also less emotionally immersive, in the sense that if one views a character as a person with agency, feelings, strengths, weaknesses, etc (as one does with a static story), one can understand and sympathize with that character's experiences on a deeper emotional level, and also care more deeply about what happens to the character. If one is controlling the character (as one does in a video game) at least part of the illusion of this character being a real person separate from the player is broken, as the character is at least partially an avatar for the player.
One way to put it is that a book or movie character is entirely outside one's ego, while a video game character is at least partially within it. I suppose that for some, this can feel more immersive rather than less (in the sense that they have "skin in the game") but it significantly diminishes the ability to care about the character as a person outside of oneself.
"This is contra to the boomer belief that kids’ attention spans are wrecked by games or their neurons are burned out by overstimulation."
Video games can take up more time, so in that sense they can require more patience. But patience isn't just about time. Video games also involve interactivity, which is generally easier to handle for people with less patience (and especially those who have or trend toward ADHD). If you look at a classroom of students watching a long lecture, some will probably be fidgeting. This fidgeting is a physical manifestation of their inward desire to do something as opposed to sitting there and focusing on the lecture. The same principle applies in general: it takes more patience and focus to sit still and pay attention to someone or something than to do something oneself. Interactivity works as an emotional release valve of sorts that makes a longer amount of time feel shorter.
In my own case, the main purpose for which I play video games is as this type of release valve while listening to something like a podcast or a long (talking-based) YouTube video, so I don't get bored and fidgety. In a weird way, it actually helps me keep my mind from wandering away from the audio I'm listening to. I rarely play video games on their own, both because they don't interest me as much as static stories, and because I'm afraid of what could happen if I allowed myself to get too involved in playing them (I have the feeling that they could become somewhat addictive in my case).
I love your point about work being best when it is fulfilling and addictive. I've been viewing the world through the lens of primitivism recently, and it seems clear that most of our ancestors got to live days filled with meaning and purpose, since the things they did had direct ramifications upon their survival and happiness. What a joy it must have been to live amongst friends and family in perpetuity and face challenges together. What we do now seems very soulless in comparison, and I agree with you that this is probably why gaming is an appealing surrogate avenue of satisfying this need for humans (perhaps especially men) to face meaningful, diverse challenges and to build social groups to face the challenge.
I'm very much in your same boat and it's kind of a weird one to be in. I have friends who keep the TV on all the time. They watch everything. They complain about it but they keep watching it. Then they all sit and complain about the same vapid shows. Meanwhile I'm over here dying to talk to anybody about BioShock Infinite, or the latest Final Fantasy 14 expansion, or even the unexpected gut punches lurking in the latest Sonic game. I have to go hunt down people who play those games (usually on Tumblr) and we talk lore and toss around theories. It's way more interesting than a TV show. What's endlessly fascinating to me about FFXIV is that everyone plays the same game, but everyone has completely unique experiences. Nobody I've ever talked to has had my same playthrough. Everyone is different. You don't get that with a TV show.
MMOs are another thing because they have the power to be social. Watching TV in the presence of another person is not a particularly social activity, but an online game is really a social experience of a story - not only "the" story, but "your" story. Even modern WoW is full of shared human experiences. FF14 has given me tons of cool social moments, including just sitting down in a city and playing music with other people at random. Talking lore while we do a dungeon or raid. A movie can't give me that!
Needed to be said! Excellent article.
The passivity of TV is borne out by the classic boomer phenomenon of constantly complaining how there's nothing good on TV, yet still watching it compulsively, for hours every day.
I encounter this every time I visit my parents. They truly switch off their analytical faculties when the TV is on. When they're not watching it they can realize it's crap and reruns, and complain. But once it's on, they go to 100% reception mode. Pretty scary.
I have a lot of relatives that have the TV on the entire time they are home. No break from the noise at all.
Good summation of cool media's relative advantages over hot media. McLuhan don't miss.
At the moment Hollywood is in kind of a weird place where they are really pushing nostalgia far too much on so much of what they are doing right now that they are not taking the risks they should be to allow new talent to make new stories, which I honestly think is quite sad when you consider how safe Hollywood has become as of late.
Video games I would definitely say is a better alternative because they've been able to push the importance of storytelling and how they communicate with the audience a little bit better than what modern cinema is doing right now, even more so with television which is interesting considering we've seen the Golden Age come and go and now because so much as being made it's surpassing much more than what modern cinema is able to achieve right now.
But video games I would still consider a huge step up beyond that because of what that's able to achieve compared to what film and TV can do and what they're able to get away with.
Much of what you wrote here is uncanny in that your descriptions of the differences between the mediums are almost exactly how I'd define the differences between them, even though my preferences are the opposite of yours in this instance.
"Passive visual media is a shallow, often overwhelming approach to communication where all control is given to the movie maker and not to the consumer. Actors speak at a certain pace. Visuals are shown from a specific angle for a specific amount of time. The story progresses in a specific, set way, and the entire thing takes a set amount of time."
This is a big part of why I prefer static media like books, movies, television, radio shows, etc, over video games: they remain the same. A book always has the same number of words and a movie the same number of frames, regardless of the number of re-reads or re-watches. Each creative choice is deliberate and permanent. The voice or vision on page or screen is that of someone else putting it out for you to surrender to it and take it in. I enjoy that surrender, that experience of getting out of my own imagination and into someone else's, of in a sense forgetting myself and becoming absorbed in the story.
"We sit down before the picture in order to have something done to us, not that we may do things with it. The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)" - C. S. Lewis, "An Experiment in Criticism," Chapter 3.
"Oh! give us once again the wishing-cap
Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat
Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,
And Sabra in the forest with St. George!
The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap
One precious gain, that he forgets himself." - William Wordsworth, "The Prelude," Book 5
There's something about movies in particular that I think are very conducive to this type of surrender. For me, whenever I think of what I consider the ultimate cinematic experience, "Metropolis" (1927) is what comes to mind, for the reasons I explained in this brief review I wrote on a forum six years ago:
"It's a perfect example of why silent film is a valid and underappreciated medium. The combination of the gorgeous, ultra-evocative, symbolism-laced imagery and Gottfried Huppertz's masterful original score lulls the viewer into a quasi-hypnotic state in which the story is conveyed almost as pure emotion, nearly free of the necessity for conscious thought, and yet, the story and themes conveyed thereby remain substantive and thought-provoking. Audible dialogue would break the spell."
Part of what I wrote toward the end touches on an important aspect: surrendering to the author or director's vision and story does not require losing one's ability to think or be critical, and even a movie like "Metropolis" that has an almost hypnotic effect can still provoke thought and reflection rather than providing some sort of "brainwashing experience" (for lack of a better term). It's possible to surrender to receiving the experience and the messages in the way that the director intended, and yet also retain the ability to think about and be analytical of the story and the messaging (or other aspects of the movie, for that matter).
Of course, some bad storytelling or creative decisions or some types of propaganda or bad messaging can have the effect of instantly "snapping me out" of the experience. Many recent movies have these issues to such a degree that I can't "surrender" to them for their entire runtime, and sometimes not at all. It could be described as a mental contract: when I start watching, my agreement with the creator is essentially, "I'm on board to receive this experience you've created, unless you break the contract with poor quality or something egregious with your messaging. Do any of that, and I snap out of it."
Video games are designed to offer a feeling of achievement. This can be fun, but for me, there's something almost uncomfortable about it, because it's not a real accomplishment. If I'm reading a book or watching a movie and the hero wins a fight, I'm happy for the hero and view the victory as his and only his. But if I am playing as that same hero in a video game and win the same fight, there's the temptation to view the hero's victory as mine, since I guided him to it through the game's controls.
Rooting for the hero to win and being happy when he does (or sad when he doesn't) is an entirely different type of experience and impulse than controlling the hero and in a sense feeling any of his victories and defeats as one's own. In both cases, the characters and their victories or defeats are fictional and illusory, but only in the latter case is a real person (you) being presented as part of the fake story.
This is also less emotionally immersive, in the sense that if one views a character as a person with agency, feelings, strengths, weaknesses, etc (as one does with a static story), one can understand and sympathize with that character's experiences on a deeper emotional level, and also care more deeply about what happens to the character. If one is controlling the character (as one does in a video game) at least part of the illusion of this character being a real person separate from the player is broken, as the character is at least partially an avatar for the player.
One way to put it is that a book or movie character is entirely outside one's ego, while a video game character is at least partially within it. I suppose that for some, this can feel more immersive rather than less (in the sense that they have "skin in the game") but it significantly diminishes the ability to care about the character as a person outside of oneself.
"This is contra to the boomer belief that kids’ attention spans are wrecked by games or their neurons are burned out by overstimulation."
Video games can take up more time, so in that sense they can require more patience. But patience isn't just about time. Video games also involve interactivity, which is generally easier to handle for people with less patience (and especially those who have or trend toward ADHD). If you look at a classroom of students watching a long lecture, some will probably be fidgeting. This fidgeting is a physical manifestation of their inward desire to do something as opposed to sitting there and focusing on the lecture. The same principle applies in general: it takes more patience and focus to sit still and pay attention to someone or something than to do something oneself. Interactivity works as an emotional release valve of sorts that makes a longer amount of time feel shorter.
In my own case, the main purpose for which I play video games is as this type of release valve while listening to something like a podcast or a long (talking-based) YouTube video, so I don't get bored and fidgety. In a weird way, it actually helps me keep my mind from wandering away from the audio I'm listening to. I rarely play video games on their own, both because they don't interest me as much as static stories, and because I'm afraid of what could happen if I allowed myself to get too involved in playing them (I have the feeling that they could become somewhat addictive in my case).
I love your point about work being best when it is fulfilling and addictive. I've been viewing the world through the lens of primitivism recently, and it seems clear that most of our ancestors got to live days filled with meaning and purpose, since the things they did had direct ramifications upon their survival and happiness. What a joy it must have been to live amongst friends and family in perpetuity and face challenges together. What we do now seems very soulless in comparison, and I agree with you that this is probably why gaming is an appealing surrogate avenue of satisfying this need for humans (perhaps especially men) to face meaningful, diverse challenges and to build social groups to face the challenge.