"So the game I keep coming back to, for well over a decade now, is the one that gives me ultimate control over every little detail of my virtual life: The Sims....I picked a neighborhood and moved all the prepackaged Sims out. I moved my Sim family and Sim friends in. I have to be around Sims that I want to be happy, after all. No Republicans are allowed in my game. I’ve even deleted the files of prepackaged Sims that give me any kind of Republican vibe.... The friends I do put in the game are people I really like in real life, people I’m happy to be reminded of as my Sim-self jogs through town... My world is much browner and, well, gayer than what I started with. That’s just what happens when you let Sims flirt with whomever they want and marry people who share their interests. But I do occasionally have to add a family I don’t personally know just to decrease the chances of inbreeding: So, the Obamas are in my game. Sasha grew up and married my grandson. I’m buried in their backyard. Frankly, I couldn’t write a better utopian postscript for myself: a founding member of a brown, gay, rainless world that banished Republicans who is buried under the kiddie swing of his progeny.... Sometimes, I just need the terrible world to leave me alone with my doll."
Writes Elie Mystal in "In My Own Private Utopia, There Is No Rain—or Republicans/In The Sims, one of my favorite video games, my goal is for everyone to be as happy as possible" (The Nation).
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11 comments:
Amadeus 48 writes:
"That Elie Mystal is a sad puppy—maybe that is why he buried himself in the Obamas’ back yard. Is Bo planted there, too?
"I don’t need the Sims game to have a perfect life. I am living it. My world is full of good books, great friends of all political persuasions, wonderful music (I am a classical music fan with a strong dose of Motown on the side), and a view of the Chicago Loop from my back window and of Lincoln Park and Lake Michigan from my front. I worked hard for 40 years and saved enough to support my interests in retirement. I have a beautiful wife that I met in college over 50 years ago. There are challenges of all kinds to keep life interesting. I have as much liberty as the state allows and freedom to speak my mind.
"And best of all, Elie Mystal is not in my world."
JamesL writes:
"“ … my goal is for everyone to be as happy as possible.” Except the Republicans.
"The world without Republicans (or any other group) would be as barren as a world without rain."
Iain writes:
"What a pathetic vision is held by this person I've never heard of. Happiness constitutes being surrounded by people just like you, and your life's ambition is to be buried in Barack Obama's child's back yard. You can't bear to be with anyone who doesn't think just like you, and there's no rain, rather begging the question of where your food comes from. I suppose his food comes from Whole Foods by magic, just like it does now. He probably drives an electric car too, fueled by "clean" electricity that magically comes out of the wall. Dreary, pathetic, boring, and once again demonstrating that all utopias are, in fact, utterly dystopian."
MJB Wolf writes:
"My first reaction to the strange rant of Mr. Mystal was to wonder how he can tell who is and isn’t Republican in real life. We don’t all look or act it even vote the same, making us harder to treat as a homologous group. This is a weird worldview to have, but one we see evident in the way Biden talks about Black people: “you ain’t Black if you don’t vote for me.”
"Given the higher turnout of Black and brown voters who pushed Trump to victory in say Florida last Fall, how can making his Sim world “browner” ensure Mr. Mystal is Republican free? Does he not think it might sound like “Judenfrei” to the reader? Don’t Progressives like him hear themselves? And finally is “eliminationist rhetoric” now back in fashion because Mystal sounds fairly genocidal to me."
Sean writes:
"Elie Mystal serves in his utopia as the progressive embodiment of the super villain Thanos from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He snaps his fingers and half the population of the Universe ceases to exist. Except Elie is, shall we say, a bit more prescriptive in his use of ultimate power. Instead of it being random he personally ensures that only Republicans are vaporized. Totally not creepy."
K writes:
"This person is burning out. I can remember times when activism and its problems began to overwhelm me and the sign was that I would go to a special store in Philly and get a "New York Cream soda" - ice cream, heavy cream, cream soda, whipped cream, cherry. For energy. On the way home I passed a store window filled with mannequins standing frozen in the midst of lifelike actions in bedrooms and living rooms. I ached to join them. No talking. No action. I would hide under the bed by day, raid the department store kitchins by night and then, at night, stand in a stiff mannequin posture, doing nothing in silence for six hours.
"A side effect of propaganda news is that a true blue Dem can never read anything non-political and never read anything critical of their own side. And yet Joe Biden's decline? The Laughing Hyena? Iran about to get the bomb? More people dying in Milwaukee than the Mid-East? Inner city schools closed - their own childrens' schools open? Oh, even if you get all the Republicans out Milwaukee wouldn't be Paradise. And would the Bucks win?"
Mary Beth writes: "What does he call his version, "Sims: The Final Solution"?"
Roger writes:
"After all, those who give off a Republican vibe are vermin, untermenschen who don't deserve to live.
"Diversity is good but you can't take it too far."
Tom writes:
"The great curse of the internet is that it allows people to share any detail of their lives with the whole world, no matter how unwisely. Even among ideologically aligned readers of the Nation, I suspect that most of his audience will find this item embarrassing.
"It's hard not to feel sad for Mystal. Certainly, his hatred and his racism are appalling, but they're so theatrical that they verge on mental illness. He comes across as desperately lonely -- in his own fantasy world, he's dead and buried, in the backyard of a stranger. Most of all, he's lacking anyone in his real life who might have told him that posting this item was a bad idea."
Tom writes:
"The great curse of the internet is that it allows people to share any detail of their lives with the whole world, no matter how unwisely. Even among ideologically aligned readers of the Nation, I suspect that most of his audience will find this item embarrassing.
"It's hard not to feel sad for Mystal. Certainly, his hatred and his racism are appalling, but they're so theatrical that they verge on mental illness. He comes across as desperately lonely -- in his own fantasy world, he's dead and buried, in the backyard of a stranger. Most of all, he's lacking anyone in his real life who might have told him that posting this item was a bad idea."
Kirk writes:
"The authors of The Sims have a lot to answer for, putting the idea into millions of impressionable young minds (and not-young ones like Mystal's) that if you get the parameters right, society just hums along perfectly with no issues, turbulence, speed bumps .... The Sims is certainly the game for control freaks everywhere."
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