Gaming Memories Helping to Heal Katrina Wounds

waterlogged writes "Lara Crigger writes a compelling account of the effects of hurricane Katrina on a person's sense of videogames in The Escapist. From the article: 'Hurricanes destroy more than just property; they destroy the sense of property, as well. They smash that universal belief that objects intrinsically carry some emotional gravity or weight. Acts of destruction remind us that physical substances are only equal to the exact sum of their parts: Plastic and cotton, metal or wood. What's left over is a painful buoyancy, an unbearable absence of feeling; you mourn not just your lost PS2 games or your Xbox controllers but also the fact that these once precious things have been proven completely meaningless. Even if they do remain intact after the storm (like the Samus poster), the only entity that really survives is you.'"

Comments

Katrina's influence on gaming

[amightywind]

you mourn not just your lost PS2 games or your Xbox controllers but also the fact that these once precious things have been proven completely meaningless.

Deep. It makes me think that the lawless, gangbanging aftermath of Katrina in New orleans would make a compelling Grand Theft Auto scenario.

wow

[crabpeople]

This article is so melodramatic its insane.

Hanging close to a window now smashed in by Katrina is a limited edition poster of Samus Aran, circa Super Metroid era. Gleaming in her Varia Suit, she kneels among sand and rocks, with her smoking arm cannon raised upward and the lonely Zebian desert reflected in her visor. Only 2,000 were ever made, and he has #1,968. But it is more than some collector's item; this poster is a tintype of the first girl to ever steal his heart. Like every man (and most women) of his generation, part of him still loves Samus Aran. She is his adolescence, his coming-of-age, a symbol of permanence and power and invincibility. What would it mean if she had been destroyed?

That people still live here, that some of the evacuees have returned to their homes, that must mean something. But what home can stand firm on a foundation of mold and tears?

The whole article is like that!!!

But as we clean, I can't help but feel something indistinct and odd has transpired. I notice he avoids looking Samus' direction. Even as he carefully packs away the poster to be sent by mail to our apartment up north, he does not look too closely at her, and he does not idle in his task. Briefly, I wonder if he might blame her somehow for surviving the hurricane. Or, in light of his subtle detachment, if she had really survived at all.

wow. seriously someone should tell this chick that not everything is an emotional rollercoaster. I get it, hes stoic marble man and your the sensitive girl that brings out his soft side, while probing his mysterious ways. just wow. This puts some of those homoerotic slashdot trolls to shame.

ph

[u-238]

isn't that the whole point? having a good time with friends?

i remember realizing this some time during my ROM collecting phase -- it didn't take long before i realized that it wasn't the gameplay i craved but the memories of that time of life (childhood).

tell me how one's fond recollections of videogame playing--with brothers, sisters, neighborhood friends--are different from your grandparent's stories of fort building and crayfish hunting?

Re:Awakening

[JavaBrain]

Mod parent up -- this is pure Buddhism and also appropriate to the thread -- the whole discussion really belongs in a Buddhist forum rather than videogaming. The idea that "things" have a fundamental value (as opposed to assigned values) with regard to mind, is what this addressing. The "self" (which the parent points out isn't real) is another created object of the mind. Self is really handy for locational reference (in time and space) and lets you navigate around your world, come up with schedules, etc. -- however it can be muted, so it's not unavoidable, and thus not fundamental -- it's created by mind.