1. By saying that “something is,” one refers to some parts of a thing to affirm that it is. This affirmation is always true when parts refer to the same parts, that is to say “something is something.” It is to affirm a whole thing as truth. Shouting “Fire!” accompanied…

If we consider videogames as a series of signs, then what does the health bar signify? This trope takes the form of a scale that increases and decreases during play. In Doom from 1993, this scale is expressed in numbers, which may increase or decrease towards infinity. Once it goes…

To offer a view on something, one must look at it repeatedly, then repeat this process on this view before offering it as such. This process of repetition culminates to a view, views and reviews. Notions preceding these views aren’t questioned, but offered after going through this process. It is…

In Connel & Messerschmidt’s reformulation of hegemonic masculinities, they describe the plurality and hierarchy of masculinities as a “fundamental feature of the concept” where verticality displays a pattern of hegemony. Power and value retain a similar ordering role in post-structuralist thinkers, like in Foucault’s work with the former and in…

1. Reference stems from pointing, expressed by words such as this and that. These words carry implications and explications, that is to say what this refers to by pointing is unclear unless specified. This is true to any word and series of words that makes referring ambiguous. 2. Consider a…

“This is it” affirms that what is pointed at as this is like that other thing, it. “This is a tree” associates a thing with a category to affirm that it belongs to it without disclosing its kindness. This object at the end of the figurative finger may be the…

Videogame glitches tend to be characterized as disruptive and alienating. Disruptive in a sense that they break linear narrative, and alienating in revealing the cogs of a narrative machine. These descriptors carry negative connotations that stand in opposition to beauty. To affirm beauty is to allude to a context where…

Opinion followed by a colon refers to editorials in newspaper headlines. This information cannot be known without familiarity with newspaper reportage categories. One may use this word followed by a colon to distinguish their opinion from text that isn’t. Quotation marks render this use moot as the distinction refers to…

A Kill Screen editorial from 2016 titled, “Burn in hell, Yarny” remains one of the more comprehensible polemics against videogame commodification despite being a byproduct of this commodification in combining twee social media speech and marketing malarkey typical of reflections about videogame culture from people being deeply submerged in it…