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My dissertation on the post-ironic turn in contemporary indie video games is now available at dx.doi.org/10.17613/5sje-w447. This is a thread on how I came to write it and some of the parts that I'm particularly pleased with.Permalink On Internet Archive
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It compares the use of New Sincerity and the Weird in cinema/television and in video games. Here's the abstract.Permalink On Internet Archive
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In the introduction, I discuss the cultural irony embedded in video game culture and gesture towards how this is weaponised by the far-right. It was important to me to politically situate this work and indeed video game culture.On Internet Archive
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This part on irony poisoning and the actual harm that irony leads to cites Piia Varis and Rosalind Gill.Permalink On Internet Archive
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For my definition of New Sincerity, I reject the pre-ironic conception of David Foster Wallace (who nonetheless is a strong influence on the dissertation) and opt for a dialectical sense of blending irony and sincerity (informed by @JesseThorn).Permalink On Internet Archive
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The definition of the Weird is substantially based on Mark Fisher's work and his focus on the blurring of conceptual boundaries in this subgenre.Permalink On Internet Archive
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The first chapter looks at Braid (2008) and Twin Peaks (1990–1991) focusing on postmodernist parody: Braid as a parody of Super Mario Bros. (1989) and Peaks of American soap opera. I was pleased to focus on Invitation to Love and Peaks' parody as I feel that's undertheorised.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Celeste (2018) feels a little shoe-horned in here but I wanted to cite as many of my favourite indie games as I could in this.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Chapter two covers @HelloCakebread's The Beginner's Guide (2015) and Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg (2007) focusing on these texts' metafictional registers. This lets me look at how both use cages, prisons, or mazes as metaphors for irony.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Finally, chapter three compares @cardboardcompy's Kentucky Route Zero (2013–2020) to David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997). In this chapter, I gesture to broader concerns about late capitalism and how cultural irony is in some sense a symptom of late capitalism.Permalink On Internet Archive
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Key to this reading is Nicholas Rombes' theorisation of Lynch's sincerity-in-irony. Wallace gets Lynch wrong: Lynch is not pre-ironic but offers a complex post-postmodern view of irony entangled with sincerity. I argue this is expressed through Fred / Pete in Lost Highway.Permalink On Internet Archive
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I specifically compare Fred / Pete's transformation to Conway's tragic transformation in KRZ and how this is expressed through both weirdness and irony.Permalink On Internet Archive
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These thoughts on the conclusion of KRZ are truncated for word limit but I could definitely say more about how sincerity is tied to community organising and anti-capitalism in the game's final act.Permalink On Internet Archive
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In the conclusion, I sum up by writing about how contemporary indie video games challenge the cultural irony of mainstream video games culture and how their post-ironic turn may prove foundational for video game development over the next decade.Permalink On Internet Archive
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I've been hugely influenced by David Foster Wallace's treatment of irony and sincerity and so it was something of a surprise how much of this dissertation was spent refuting him and arguing that his interpretations of e.g. Lynch are wrong on this score.Permalink On Internet Archive