CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (21)

By: Ronald Wimberly
August 31, 2023

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of reconsidered passions, reassessed hates, and reversed feelings everywhere in-between. Series edited by Adam McGovern.

NEON BIBLE

An elven figure plummeted through a blue sky towards a verdant field. He was so high you could see the planet curve behind him. I forgot where I saw it first, maybe one of my friends sent it to me, the trailer for the latest Zelda game from Nintendo. Before long it was everywhere in my social media feeds, from ads to chat groups; podcasts … PBS NewsHour. It all provoked in me something between disinterest and mild anxiety.

I was scrolling. I landed on a movie of a hand sliding Legend of Zelda into a Famicom. The first notes of the Zelda theme played. Goosebumps marched up my arms. It felt spiritual. Like I’d heard a hymn. I remembered the first time I watched my cousins boot up The Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo our uncle likely stole for them for Christmas. What had happened; where’d this feeling go?

I’m from the tail end of the arcade generation. I started with Space Invaders, Ms. Pac-Man… I queued my quarter on the top of the Street Fighter II turbo cabinet. I remember “Barlog.” In high school, for a couple of years, I even worked in an arcade. I was there for the explosion of home gaming. I’d play Zelda on Game Boy, Super Nintendo, GameCube — for me Wind Waker was the first fully realized Zelda experience. I played one more after that. When I finished Twilight Princess, I knew I’d most likely never play another. It felt empty. It was the last of several games where I realized too late that the penultimate of a long running franchise would be the last I enjoyed. Shortly after, I stopped playing games altogether.

I was raised Christian. My folks are evangelical. I’ve sat through many a service … been pushed on the forehead till I fell, waiting on my back, wondering if I’d been struck by the Holy Ghost, but mostly pondering the scent of church carpet, until the music cued my return to the pew. I was pretty devout until I was 16. That’s when I lost my virginity to [redacted] in the passenger seat of my mother’s white Honda Civic. Something about an orgasm dimmed the plausibility of the immaculate conception. From then on, I’d split my quarters between Street Fighter and the condom machine at the local pool hall.

I downloaded the Tinder app with everybody else when it first dropped. I got to swiping back and forth. Matching triggered dopamine like the chime of Link solving a puzzle. Ten years later, it seems we are seeing the results on society; the results of a social experiment wherein the formal conventions of home gaming were applied to sex and relationships. Select your character. Customize. Quit. Start a new game. Have we always been like this? I think I’ve logged more hours on these apps than any game I’ve ever played, and I hate it.

…I lost the thread. — Oh! So I quit! I’m planning on getting back into gaming and getting off of dating apps. It’s a last ditch attempt to separate these things in my life; rewire my synapses. Maybe I’ll even visit an arcade. I heard that Chinatown Fair is open again.

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MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (21)

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