ellaguro - Tumblr blog

[ellaguro]

spiked

[ellaguro]

wormies

[ellaguro]

spaceship

[ellaguro]

i have a new song out! it's called "Terrible Town" and it's the first preview to my album "Saint Elizabeth" coming in 2024

you can also listen to it on youtube here, if you prefer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua0EAF25K6c

and you can hit the follow button on my bandcamp page for more updates about the album here: ellaguro.bandcamp.com

[ellaguro]

today is the 6 year release anniversary of my album "LP ZERO"! a sincere thank you to all the people who have listened and said kind things about my music over the years. i know some of you are out there, lol

also: a new album is coming from me probably early next year and i will be posting tracks from it around very soon.

[ellaguro]

this is a new bi-montly (a couple episodes a month) podcast that i’m co-hosting with a friend!! it’s a sort of an anti-nostalgic look at the indie music of the 00′s and everyone’s favorite music website they love to hate, pitchfork media via an album an episode.

[ellaguro]

hey! today is Bandcamp Friday, which means artists get 100% of the revenue share in sales on Bandcamp. it’s also the day i’ve put out a new EP - this is the soundtrack music i made for the Cis Penance project, an interactive collection of interviews representing the trans experience in the UK (organized by Zoyander Street, with graphics by June Hornby). enjoy!

[ellaguro]

“...Virtual spaces, in entertainment and on the internet, have taken an ever-growing burden of providing us with some sense of meaning and purpose amongst the purposelessness. But they often just as easily fall into their own cookie-cutter molds too. The processes behind the creation of larger scale media becomes streamlined much in the same way that design of most large-scale buildings are as well. It’s rare that we ever get to have a truly authentic experience of something genuinely unexpected, in life or in fantasy. And even if we did ever get to have this kind of singular authentic experience, how would we know that we’d be ready for would come out of it?

Thief: The Dark Project, re-released later as Thief Gold, is a computer game that doesn't provide escape in its virtual spaces so much as a sense of curiosity mixed with eerie discomfort. Thief is mostly a fun action videogame. But sometimes it gets a little too close for comfort to hitting on something deeper. Some of its fantasy spaces feel a little too familiar in ways they probably shouldn't. Constantine’s infamous mansion from the mission “The Sword” is one of those spaces...”

[ellaguro]

[ellaguro]

hi! i wrote this!

[ellaguro]

Here's A List of Some Videogame Youtubers Who Aren't Terrible

It shouldn't be too crazy to say that videogames have a lot of problems right now. For a variety of different reasons and factors, a lot of shitty people with shitty opinions have taken refuge in the videogame space, and have become very popular doing so. And as youtube establishes itself as the premiere land of video punditry for far-right reactionaries and more and more popular game youtubers to air their sexist/racist/homo/transphobic/etc opinions and help people harass anyone who gets on their shitlist (including game devs), it can be hard to want to go anywhere near the world of videogame youtube. But I think this is precisely what is to be avoided, as our favorite problematic Marxist troll Slavoj Zizek says! I think there's still a lot of potential for really interesting video content about games. And part of the reason my opinion about this subject has changed over time is I have spent some time immersing myself in the youtube trenches and found a handful of channels I actually legitimately like. This is a post to share these channels with you all!

Please note that these are by no means the only interesting or non-shitty channels on youtube - they're just personal favorites. I also wouldn't say any of these channels are exactly perfect. Both online video content and especially video content about videogames are things that haven't really been figured out. It's a new format. And even the good stuff you're liable to find tends to still stick to some tropes or cliches to survive in the current landscape.

So maybe it's instead better to look at them as the beginning of something rather than the end-all-be-all of video content about games. And maybe it will spur more of you all to action to get involved, and do something new and interesting in this space that is often so dominated by reactionary ideologues, clickbait, and the same old boring and toxic conventional "gamer" wisdom. It's definitely a toxic space that's hard to exist on, especially if you're trying to do something new and different. But maybe it can still be done, and maybe - like a few of these channels do - it can reach a bigger audience than you might think. So go forth and embrace the new flesh, fellow comrade!

You can view this list either on my Patreon or on My blog. thank you!

[ellaguro]

thoughts on revisionist history and fascist narratives in videogame commentary

hey, so i wanted to get down some things i’ve been thinking about a lot lately real quickly. these are inspired by a tweet thread made by @rainworlds on twitter: https://twitter.com/rainworlds/status/932350899720253440 i think it’s pretty safe to say that commentary about games (both writing and in video format) is driven by novelty. it’s hard to trace any sort of through-line or establish a solid conversation in talk about games. instead, talk about games tends to function as a vessel for personality on the part of the commenter and a narrative about their own personal experience. because of this, there tend to be so many different game writers/commentators who think they're the first to come up with an idea - either because they’re simply not aware someone else has come up with that idea, or they don’t care. why would they not care? well, research isn’t really encouraged or necessary at all, because the personal experience of the game is the default language for the culture. and so it's hard to trace any context. we know little about who made games, and what we do know tends to just be the same gamer platitudes that get repeated over and over again. and there is no real pressure to challenge that.

basically, the game commentary landscape tends to be just a bunch of people playing to their own disparate audiences. and it's often a survival of the fittest - where those who know how best to play to an audience consistently talk over (whether or not they get that this is what they're doing) people who might actually understand the context and have something new and insightful to add. youtubers who might have something insightful to say have a fraction of the following that someone who repeats the party line about games. the culture is defined by what’s new, and it’s defined by signifiers and personal gamer cred instead of trying to a need to find some sort of deeper insight inside the experience. gaming is presented another kind of lifestyle brand - that aggressively tries to argue for itself as more than just a lifestyle brand. this is especially ironic when people who present themselves as “outsiders” and normal people e.g. Penny Arcade, PewDiePie, TotalBiscuit, etc have a tremendous amount more power in that landscape that anyone else. 

the games landscape is also huge. it’s spread across so many different outlets and avenues. and there tends to be very little interest, both from institutions and from audiences, in trying to bring those conversations together and draw a larger picture. 

why is this? well, games academia tends to be very new, and driven by the demands of what’s already popular. because of this, most games academics and people more seriously engaged with games don’t want to risk alienating the kids who are coming into their programs by challenging the notions of the media that those kids identify with. they want to be a part of that culture, not against that. and because of that, they are pretty content to just let the wisdom of the market decide what commentary is generated about games. there’s no real way for them to challenge that, because there’s no resources or institutions interested in talking about games that aren’t highly market-driven.

this just means that any gaming personality who can speak the right language and market themselves in the right way has a tremendous amount of power and advantage in driving the conversation about games. of course, they can hide behind the lens of personal experience, or their gamer cred as a way to justify it. and that will usually be enough - even if they are being challenged by factual claims, games are a realm of fantasy. people don’t care much about who actually made them, or all the things that went behind them. they’re a vessel to talk over. 

this one of the things that fan culture and a cultural landscape of games built so much around personal consumer choice has wrought. something outside your sphere of interest might as well not exist, and there's no reason to engage with it if it doesn't check your boxes, and it might as well not be made by real people with real experiences and feelings.

i shouldn’t have to say that this is a VERY BAD THING and i wish more people like, understood that and tried to do anything to bring it to light and acknowledge it. it's a big reason why we have loud, ignorant mediocrity gaining so much of a platform in game culture. most people who seriously follow games have some awareness of this now, but there seems to be a larger attitude of powerlessness about trying to change any of it.

if you want to fight against your medium being used as a way to recruit fascists, you have to fight for establishing a solid, consistent narrative that is based in truth against all the strains of revisionist history that dominate the commentary sphere around games. you have to fight for all the voices that have gone unrecognized and crushed by corporations and media outlets that serve as mouthpieces for those corporations. you can’t let the conventional gamer wisdom decide when the conventional wisdom is highly toxic.

the fact of the matter is game culture is NOT okay. it's really fucked up. and something better needs to be fought for. if you look at something like gamergate and trace its role in our current political climate - and pretend that there still isn't a disease at the heart of games culture, i’m sorry, but you’re out of your mind. we can’t let what’s popular decide the culture, especially when what is popular is so toxic. we have to fight for what is right, and complicate that narrative in any way we can. it’s not even that people aren’t doing that too! i’ve found so many interesting and unusual games have come out this year alone that challenge the usual game conventional wisdom - particularly in the indie space, but even outside of that to some extent. hopefully i will have a chance to talk more about that in the future. the point is that it seems like the culture has a potential to shift in a different direction. but it won’t do anything if there isn’t a consistent, strong, and powerful effort put behind bringing these conversations together. like listening to the people who actually worked on games and giving them a voice. and challenging the gamer conventional wisdom of pro-corporate revisionist history with something better and more factual, that can’t be used as a venue for reactionary right-wing ideologies.

[ellaguro]

A Digital Abyss and The Digital Void are now up on youtube (with the tracklist forthcoming)! enjoy! =)

[ellaguro]

my new album LP ZERO - out NOW!

my new album LP ZERO, a pseudo-narrative of melodic experimental electronic music, is out NOW

https://ellaguro.bandcamp.com/album/lp-zero

some influences: Aphex Twin, Björk, The Knife, Burial, obscure videogame soundtracks

this is an extended version of my earlier released EP YEAR ZERO, presented in its ideal and final form. please share on here & twitter: https://twitter.com/ellaguro/status/913674811385069568

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ellaguro/posts/1703188103025069

and elsewhere!

YT streaming link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H82g2Yxm9ZY

also subscribers to my Patreon (www.patreon.com/ellaguro) will get a free download code of this album to show my appreciation for their support!

i’m really excited for everyone to hear this now. i’m so proud of all of this material and i hope you will be too! please share far and wide!

[ellaguro]

crows

[ellaguro]

spades

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obscured static