“interpellation occurs when a person connects with a media text: when we enjoy a magazine or TV show, for example, this uncritical consumption means that the text has interpellated us into a certain set of assumptions, and caused us to tacitly accept a particular approach to the world.” (Gauntlett, 2002: 27)

This is going to come of as supremely ironic given the nature of my final project, but frankly, fuck you interpellation. Fuck you and your MMOs and all the other shit that goes with it.

I’m glad people like Wilde Cunningham can find some solace through games like Second Life. Don’t get me wrong. I see the value in it. However, and forgive me for my bias coming out, in their case, there is a trained professional there to help them mediate the amount of time they spend there, and frankly, maybe the slow connection speed they endured wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

My mother was disabled, physically – she had emotional problems as well, but she was intelligent and wonderful and acutely aware of the world around her. She had fallen at work when I was a kid, and after a long recovery (where doctors repeatedly told her she had to move more than she was), she remained unable to return to work and remained on disability for the remainder of her life.

She’d always been a fan of fandom things, anime and cartoons and every nerdy thing you can think of honestly. After all, she met my father at a convention in the early 80’s, with him in a rudimentary cosplay and all. So it was no wonder she fell into those things hard. Even if sometimes it got to be a little awkward, as a young teen, generally my mom and I liked the same things (although her smut ruined Snape for me forever).

Then I made the ill-fated mistake of trying World of Warcraft for a week. The second day or so, innocently, I told my mom she should give it a try, it was sort of neat. I got bored by the end of my free trial. It was too repetitive for me, and I was more fond of something that had a plot and an ending than something that went on forever.

My mother, on the other hand, played it more or less until she died in 2014. Obsessively. At all hours of the day and night. All of her friends were online. She stopped even trying to take care of herself, wearing the same bathrobe for weeks at a time. She lost any and all concept of time, and didn’t seem to realize when I was or wasn’t in the apartment. She started smoking again for the first time in years, packs a day, and coupled with the black mold she didn’t realize was growing in her closet, she developed cystic fibrosis so potent, she needed a lung transplant she was too weak to receive.

I was a teenager, and a teenager that ended up having to strike out on my own because I was incapable of parenting my parent. I did not have the capacity, and I should never have been put in that position. I am still angry, and I’m sorry, but even to read a “heartfelt” story like this leaves a bitter taste on my tongue. I played Animal Crossing as an escape during a hard time, but that never left me incapable of listening to my fiancee. That never kept me from hugging my cat, or reaching out to my friends. There are not enough protections to keep vulnerable people from passively accepting this world as their normal, and nothing can convince me otherwise.

This is more personal than analytical, probably. Still, it felt important for me to say.