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Button mashing

Now that video games are becoming part of mainstream culture, you frequently see TV shows and movies where the characters are playing games and talking. It’s a brilliant device, because so many dramatically complex things going on: The characters are interacting with the game, interacting with each other, and interacting with each other about the game. (When my friend Greg and I play Smuggler’s Run, we’ll frequently scream at each other stuff like “Hey! Those are my drugs! GIVE ME BACK MY DRUGS.”) It’s no wonder Hollywood has discovered this lovely new staging ground for human emotion.

But there’s one problem: The buttons.

If you look closely at how the characters are manipulating the joysticks, it makes no sense at all. They’re usually twitching and spasming away, randomly twiddling the joysticks in a manner that less resembles actual game playing than a crystal-meth trip gone horribly, horribly awry. Over at Game Girl Advance, Kyle Herbert became so incensed at this trend that he wrote a hilarious attack on the surrealism of Hollywood gaming:

Even shows starring actors young enough to play video games on a regular basis fail miserably at depicting game playing correctly. Nearly once an episode on Fox’s The OCtwo of the main characters, Seth and Ryan (played by Adam Brody, 23, and Benjamin McKenzie, 25, respectively) can be seen playing what appears to be a PS2. These two actors undoubtedly grew up gaming, and have been playing games long enough to know the proper way of maneuvering a character in a game environment. Even from these two though we see the same tragic button mashing that would only result in a quick loss of lives and continues.

In gamer circles, “button mashing” is actually a cultural term: It stands for the sort of random hammering of the joystick that you see when a newbie picks up a game for the first time and doesn’t know what he or she is doing. But there is, of course, a good reason why Hollywood mashes so heavily. TV always draws life in broad strokes, amplifying activities to make them seem more exciting. Remember all those 50s shows where someone’s driving a car purportedly down a straight highway, while nonetheless psychotically swerving the wheel back and forth?


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I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.

Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!

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The “Milky Way Transit Authority” map

Should automobile software be open-sourced?

My Bookforum review of Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget”

Molecular secrets of the “iron-plated snail”

Garry Kasparov, cyborg

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a bunch of stuff

January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are al­ready dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a mis­ery, then, be­cause an evil?
A. Cer­tain­ly.
M. Then those who have al­ready died, and those who have still got to die, are both mis­er­able?
A. So it ap­pears to me.
M. Then all are mis­er­able?
A. Ev­ery one.

January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM

One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009

)

January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM

BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.

January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM

“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)

January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM

I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.

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