Vicarious identity, video game essays, and our (declining) sense of self

Tap, scroll, consume: indefinite to-do lists, more information than the Library of Alexandria in your pocket, as well as every friend you’ll ever have. In a modern world defined by one word: overwhelmed, as touted by the Guardian, as well as it’s undesirable sibling, burnout; it is increasingly rare that we get to indulge in our favourite pastimes. According to the Financial Times, daily leisure time is dropping globally to such an extent that there’s even a word for the phenomenon: ‘time wealth’, or, as researchers Laura Giurge and Ashley Whillans for Nature Human Behaviour now suggest, ‘time poverty’. Even when we do manage to put our feet up and do something purely recreational, like loading up our favourite game, it is often with a spectre of guilt. As The Boar’s esteemed Games Editor remarked in her ‘Meet the Exec’ post in response to the question, ‘What are you most excited about in your role?’, we often have to find rationales to make gaming “guilt-free [sic]”.  

A consequence of this modern time crunch can be seen in the concept of vicarious identity, defined as “the appropriation of an other’s identity, experiences, and actions as if they were one’s own” (said by Christopher Browning, Pertti Joenniemi, and Brent Steel in their book Vicarious Identity in International Relations: Self, Security, and Status on the Global Stage) 

An everyday practice, it is most often visible in politics and sports, according to Joseph Haigh in an article for Political Quarterly, such as when a candidate brings up the experiences of family members to invoke relatability, or when someone equates themself as a genuine part of a football team they’ve never played for, referring to said team with the royal ‘we’. The rise of video game essays (simply, video essays, hereafter) is another example.  

Amid the copious tosh on YouTube, occasionally you’ll find someone who pours their heart and soul into exploring a game’s underlying narrative, or their love, or hatred, for the game as a whole. Being a big fan of horror, and having written lots on horror video games, I was recently captivated by Mikey Lee’s video essay on the meta card game Inscryption.  

 Although I had never played it, I’d gladly converse about it, relishing its idiosyncrasies while simultaneously adding it to the bottom of my ever-expanding backlog. Perhaps this is because, as gaming becomes a process of vicarious identification, I feel less need to spend my limited time (and money) on the experience? Lee’s love for the game has, whether either of us intended it, become an experience of my own.  

You’ll find someone who pours their heart and soul into exploring a game’s underlying narrative, or their love, or hatred, for the game as a whole.

Gaming is unique because, unlike other recreational media, it’s interactive. TV and film exist whether you watch them or not. With games, you are the driver as opposed to the passenger. But a well-crafted video essay can evoke the same emotions as if you were playing it yourself, while often making gaming’s disorienting experiences more cogent (looking at you, Silent Hill 2).  

Despite how often others and I sing the praises of Undertale and Deltarune, it feels like more people have watched others dissect it than played it themselves, with troves of mind-bogglingly intricate theory-based video essays published online. And while the concept of the ‘let’s play’ is nothing new, there is more of an onus to experience games yourself when you’ve merely seen a casual play-through, rather than after watching a creator’s months of work delving into every narrative thread with a fine-tooth comb.  

There are two different ways to view this widespread change in our relationship with games. On the bright side, it is highly doubtful that some titles would have been as popular as they are had it not been for video essays. My House is a Doom II mod, though it is so expansive that to call it such feels like a massive understatement.

If not for video essays delving into its psychological cacophony, it’s doubtful many players would have ever heard of it, given that the game it’s based on was released in 1994. Plus, isn’t spending less time learning about a game better than not engaging in home-based interactive recreation at all? Just as Marie Le Conte has suggested in The New Statesman: speedruns can be the solution to modernity, so perhaps video essays can be the antidote to our time crunch.   

However, the point of gaming is to be the one in the aforementioned driving seat. To accommodate time poverty, we may risk subsuming gaming further into the TV and film domain, while accepting the situation wherein we must settle for the shorter, edited experiences of others rather than to develop our own. Do we run the risk of living too vicariously and losing increments of ourselves in the process? Could the loss of gaming be but another casualty in our war against burnout?  

If not for video essays delving into its psychological cacophony, it’s doubtful many players would have ever heard of it, given that the game it’s based on was released in 1994.

This isn’t to say you can’t enjoy video essays, far from it; it’s just that they shouldn’t replace the medium entirely, just as other forms of vicarious living, such as rallying around a sports team, shouldn’t replace the sport itself. They are but supporting roles to the main event, and although high-quality examples always have their place, it’s important to prioritise your experiences and actions over those of talented people on the internet.  

While this piece isn’t intended to upend anyone’s day-to-day media consumption, the next time you watch a video essay on something you know nothing about, hopefully it serves some food for thought as to what might have compelled you to do so.