sometimes i think about how videogame writing can feel like a performance, not in the cynical sense, like we’re just rattling off the tropes we know will hit, but more like we’re standing on a stage, desperately trying to summon the ghost of art into being. there’s this theatricality to it—a kind of nervous, shimmering energy, like we’re afraid if we stop talking, the whole idea of “games as art” might evaporate. sometimes it feels deeply earnest, other times a little smug, but it’s always trying to say something—to plant a flag, or start a revolution, or at least justify why this particular game is worth spilling thousands of words over.
and i get it. because we’re still haunted by this older, review-centric model of writing about games—the metrics, the star ratings, the checklist of pros and cons. art reduced to a product, an object to be consumed. nobody wants to be the guy who writes, “good graphics, 8/10,” anymore. that guy’s dead, buried under mountains of steam sales and metacritic aggregates. and so we get this new thing: games writing as memoir, games writing as poetry, games writing as therapy. instead of asking whether a game is good or bad, we ask what it means, or how it feels, or what it reveals about ourselves. instead of treating games like amazon products, we treat them like mirrors, endlessly reflecting and refracting our own lives back at us. it’s about how the game connects to you, specifically, in ways that only you could articulate. and if you squint, you can almost see the lineage: games criticism as autobiography, or maybe autobiography as games criticism. you could call it new games journalism, if you were feeling particularly nostalgic—or particularly unkind.
and it’s not just in the writing. you see it in the games themselves—the indie darlings and personal projects, the bite-sized narratives and essayistic pieces. games that are designed, it seems, to make you feel seen. games that say, “here is my trauma; do you recognize it in yourself?” or, “here is my joy; isn’t it beautiful?”, and the art becomes this kind of mirror—not just any mirror, but the kind you see in a museum gift shop, with a little plaque underneath that says, “handcrafted, ethically sourced, made just for you.” it’s personal. it’s meaningful. but it’s also… limited. it doesn’t do much beyond show you what’s already there.
this is where i think the emphasis on relatability becomes a problem. it’s not that relatability is bad—it’s just that it flattens everything into the same shape. it makes art legible, digestible, easy to engage with. we say we love contradiction, but only if it comes with synthesis. we say we love the intangible, but only if it’s wrapped up in a neat little bow. and so we end up with this strange, flattened version of meaning, where everything is about relatability, or authenticity, or some vague notion of sincerity.
but what is sincerity, anyway? what is authenticity? is sonic 2006 authentic? is it truthful? does it matter? we use these words like they mean something, but half the time they’re just shorthand for “i liked this” or “this made me feel something.” and that’s fine, as far as it goes. but it doesn’t go very far. because art isn’t just about how it makes you feel, or what you think about it. it’s about that AND everything else—the history, the context, the form, the stuff that doesn’t fit neatly into our personal narratives.
take, for example, this term that’s been going around lately: “adult swim anime.” it’s the perfect shorthand for a certain kind of aesthetic—lo-fi, surreal, nostalgic in a way that’s hard to pin down. it evokes a specific era of late-night TV, where american cartoons collided with japanese animation, creating this strange hybrid culture that felt both global and intensely local. and for some people, that aesthetic is deeply meaningful. it’s a reminder of a particular time and place, a cultural moment that shaped how they see the world.
but if you didn’t grow up in that moment and place—if you’re not part of the specific anglosphere demographic that grew up in that very specific time in which the the aesthetic of the “adult swim anime” came to be—then it’s just noise. it’s an in-joke you’re not in on, a nostalgia that doesn’t belong to you. and this is where the idea of relatability starts to break down. because what does it mean to relate to something that’s so hyper-specific, so tied to a particular cultural context? is it still meaningful, or does it become a kind of exclusion, a barrier to entry? and if the work itself doesn’t offer anything beyond that aesthetic—if it’s just a series of references, a mood board with a soundtrack—then what are we really talking about? are we celebrating the work, or are we just celebrating our own ability to recognize it, to recognize ourselves?
wouldn’t it be more generous—to ourselves and others—to try to articulate what those intangibles mean, to locate them in context and history? because art’s power isn’t in resolving tensions; it’s in sustaining them. it shouldn’t just reflect us back to ourselves. it should destabilize, confuse, provoke, or do nothing at all. it’s there, in the triangulation of form, history, and interpretation (sorry, sontag) that meaning can emerge.
edit: wrote all this half-asleep and i’m not entirely sure how it connects to hello charlotte ep. 3, but it feels tied to the way etherane explores the relationship between audience and creator. there’s this constant push and pull, a shared desire for connection and recognition that ends up feeling selfish on both sides. we crave identification, something that reflects our own experiences. when that doesn’t happen, when the mirror doesn’t align perfectly, it’s easy to feel disappointed, even betrayed, as if the fiction owes us something.
etherane doesn’t shy away from this. she gives us everything we think we want—trauma, inevitability, pain—but in a way that feels pointed and uncomfortable, like she’s asking, “is this enough?” the game feels like it’s digging into what it means to create under those expectations, caught in a space where fiction is both a performance of vulnerability and a demand for it. it’s all wrapped in this specific aesthetic, one tied to a fandom that thrives on emotional intensity and identification, which makes it even harder to separate the art from the expectations surrounding it.
the mental illness exhibit: it’s voyeuristic, inviting you to look at these conditions like objects in a gallery, both grotesque and fascinating. at the same time, it critiques the very act of looking, implicating the audience in the spectacle. it reminded me of dubuffet’s idea of art brut—the romanticized notion of the prisoner, the child, or the “mad” artist as someone creating from a raw, unfiltered place. this idea frames their work as “authentic” because it’s seen as unmediated by culture or language, a kind of contemporary equivalent to the “noble savage.” but it’s deeply condescending, treating their value as something primitive and untouched rather than complex or historical.
despite all the cruelty and nihilism, the ending feels strangely tender. in the credits, etherane steps forward as herself. not as a character or a symbolic extension of the story, but simply her. it’s not about separating herself from the work—it’s clear how personal it is—but it refuses to reduce her to it. it feels like an act of care, both for herself and the world she’s created, a way of saying, “this is part of me, but it’s not all of me.” it’s a small gesture, but generous. it steps away from the spiral of autofiction while holding onto its weight.
