#it's an old fish finder so the label makes sense

[fightmeyeats]

ACNH: Colonial Desires in the Context of Quarantine

Since finishing up my undergraduate studies in June, one of the major things I've been doing with my free time is playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons (please don't @ me but I've already logged something like 400 hours). As much fun as the game is, one of the things that's really stood out to me is how much AC:NH depends on and reifies colonial logics, and how important it is to unpack this in the context of the game's popularity and the ongoing pandemic.

One of the first ways I want to address colonialism in AC:NH this is through the way I was first introduced to it, namely through its connection to my thesis and what I refer to as the "terraforming imaginary". Before I started playing or had even decided to buy the game, I was working on my thesis "Constructing New Worlds: An Investigation of Climate Change and the Terraforming Imaginary" (which, shameless self plug but if you're interested you can check out my 10 minute video presentation for symposium at Johns Hopkins University here). During this time I was talking about my thesis pretty non-stop with anyone who would listen and as a result probably about half of my friends independently sent me this meme

[ID: meme from @animalcrossingmemes which shows two children; the one on the left is smiling and looking off into the distance with the label "daydreaming about terraforming" while the child on the right looks stressed and upset with the label "actually terraforming". Beneath this meme is text from @kaijuno which reads "I realize this is an animal crossing meme but as an astrophysicist I was really excited for a second that someone was finally seeing the light on how fricking difficult an a huge waste of time it would be to try to terraform Mars". Beneath this text is another meme with four hands gripping each other's wrists to make a circle. In the center is the initial animalcrossingmemes image and each arm is labeled, respectively, "Minecraft Players," "Sims Players," "Animal Crossing Players," and "Astrophysicists apparently"]

Although my thesis addresses terraforming in the context of space exploration/colonization, AC:NH's engagement with "terraforming" (alongside other aspects of colonial practices and desires) helps to expand on the stakes of this. The reason I put "terraforming" in scare-quotes is because…technically, there isn't any terraforming in AC:NH, given that terraforming is "the operation consisting of rendering other stellar bodies—mainly planets and eventually asteroids—appropriate for human life" (Frédéric Neyrat, 46). While I'm all down for an interpretation of the Animal Crossing world as a non-Earth planet and the villagers as aliens, the island is already suitable for human life and the use of "terraforming" in the game is generally more readily identifiable as geoconstructivism: players redesign and restructure their islands, shaping waterways and topography to create idealistic spaces (as opposed to making the island literally livable). Either way, it speaks to the terraforming imaginary—the underlying set of logics and desires conducive to the imagining and desiring of “terraforming”, ie the logics and desires of colonization. Even though AC:NH's terraforming isn't technically terraforming, it is an embodiment of the terraforming imaginary, centering desires for the "civilizing"/"cultivating" of a space into an orderly, colonized ideal. On even a very surface level it is useful to think about this through the island rating system: islands are ranked out of five stars, with deductions made for things such as having "too many" weeds or not "cleaning up" by leaving items lying around rather than placed with intention. 

Another, perhaps more obvious, way in which AC:NH embodies colonial logics is through the "Nook Miles Tickets". Players trade in Nook Miles (an achievement based currency) for tickets which they can take to the airport and use to visit other, uninhabited islands which they can destroy to extract all of the resources slash-and-burn style. Players also have an increased likelihood of catching rare insects, fish, and sea animals to display to their own island museum or sell. As Wilbur, a dodo pilot, explains about this process: "we run the 'finders keepers' protocol here. Lumber, fruit, fish, whatever? Yours if you can carry it", going on to emphasize the importance of not leaving anything behind as there will be no returning; they "burn the flight plans" after each flight.

Although the rampantly destructive extraction of resources is the most apparent embodiment of colonial logics, the centrality of the museum and the imperative to complete each wing by finding and identifying all of the bugs, fish/sea creatures, fossils, and artworks in the game is an equally significant connection to colonialism. Benedict Anderson argues in Imagined Communities that the museum, along with the census and the map, "shaped the way in which the colonial state imagined its dominion—the nature of the human beings it ruled, the geography of its domain, and the legitimacy of its ancestry" (164). The specifics Anderson goes into differ of course, because he's talking about actual colonial states while AC:NH has the fluidity of embodying the underpinning desires which colonialism as process requires to function, but what holds true is that these specific forms of producing, organizing, and displaying knowledge which produced "a totalizing classificatory grid, which could be applied with endless flexibility...to be able to say of anything that it was this, not that; it belonged here, not there" (Anderson 184). Essentially, in AC:NH part of a player's ownership of the island occurs through a player's ability to classify and collect artefacts for the museum. Furthermore, this imperative to collect and preserve fossils, art work, bugs, fish, and sea creatures is part of the way the player's island is positioned as a place of value. 

The museum also implicitly functions to reify positions of authority, legitimizing a kind of monopoly of knowledge. In AC:NH, this primarily means the positions of the museum curator (Blathers) and, to a degree, Tom Nook (who selected and invited Blathers) are secured as the authorities on knowledge. When Tom Nook tells the player that the island(s) are deserted, we must take this as truth...yet fishing both on the player's island and the Nook Miles islands can turn up trash items like old tires, tin cans, and boots. Colonial logics depend on a management of who counts as "people" and what counts as "inhabited" and the myth of empty lands; Tom Nook's instance that these islands are all deserted is haunted by these lingering traces of some other inhabitation prior to the game's start. 

Okay, so you might be asking what does this all mean and why should we care? Let's talk about both the game's popularity and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which contextualized its release (and continues to shape daily life). Animal Crossing: New Horizons has not only received overwhelmingly positive critical reception, but is one of the best selling games both for the Switch console and the Animal Crossing series. According to freelance journalist Imad Khan's New York Times article "Why Animal Crossing Is the Game for the Coronavirus Moment," the game's appeal centers in its function as an escape to an "island paradise where bags of money fall out of trees and a talking raccoon can approve you for a mortgage". Khan quotes Dr. Ramzan (a professor of game narrative at Glasgow Caledonian University) who refers to it as "the universe you’ve always wanted, but can’t get." Given the significantly decreased mobility and connection that has accompanied social distancing, as well as the increased stress and heightened inequality which have accompanied COVID-19, this probably isn’t particularly surprising. It makes sense that a cute, low-stress video game would be a valuable form of escapism.

Mobility is a particularly fraught discourse in this context: on the one hand, concerns surrounding containment/immobility are heightened in the context of neoliberalism and within colonial societies, which depend upon discourses of individualism and independence to demarcate the “freedom” which comes from capitalist economies. At the same time, the desire for things like connection/community, movement, and spatial autonomy/sovereignty are not inherently colonial, even as colonialist logics frequently position colonial/capitalist/neoliberal expansion as the solution. Animal Crossing is heavily situated within this entanglement, simultaneously offering a very real form of connection (and even protest) for many people while also implicitly speaking to latent beliefs that colonization is a legitimate form of mobility and escapism. To say that AC:NH is the universe we’ve always wanted but can’t get is to refuse to engage with the inherent contradictions of neoliberalism and reafirm the notion that colonial capitalist worlds are worth wanting; that the fantasy of individual wealth and success through destructive extraction and market freedom, when obtainable, is good.

None of this is to say that playing AC:NH is the same as colonization, because of course it isn't. However, the colonial undertones of the game reflect the pervasiveness of colonial logics and desires in our daily lives, subsequently further normalizing them. Journalist Kazuma Hashimoto, for example, emphasizes the importance of contextualizing AC:NH's colonial undertones within Japanese Colonialism in "Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Japanese Colonialism". As Hashimoto argues, "I am only asking that people familiarize themselves with Japanese colonialism and why something as innocuous as discovering a deserted island can be read as colonialism — especially within the context of a Japanese game".

Inattentiveness to the more subdued, invisibilized manifestations of violence facilitates their internalization and acceptance; educating ourselves and paying attention to and challenging places where we feel comfortable with these kinds of escapist fantasies is an important exercise in critical thinking which can help us to continue to refuse their real life manifestations. 

[durandtm]

TIMOTHEE CHALOMET, 19, NONBINARY, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, CAMPBELL “CAMP” DURAND! according to their records, they’re a SECOND YEAR, specializing in ADVANCED ENCRYPTION and DRIVER’S ED; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (dark circles under eyes, the scent of eucalyptus, running late, looking disinterested or confused, constantly writing). when it’s the (aquarius)’s birthday on FEBRUARY 18, they always request FRIED PICKLES from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. ⌿ kara, 26, she/her, pst ⍀

HIS STORY.

+ Home is on the southwestern side of France where the scenery consisted of salt farms and old windmills. Many of the village's buildings were whitewashed, and some, even the farmhouses, had ornamental towers reminiscent of the 16th century. Their town of Ars-en-Ré was a commune on the Île de Ré in the Charente-Maritime. Whitewashed buildings there would often accent their buildings with grayish blues and whatever flowers they could grow. + Campbell Durand lived with his mother, Camila, and father, Hal, in a quaint guesthouse belonging to a fish and lobster farmer. + Boats went in and out of the harbor all day via a long channel between the marshes, and that was where you could find Hal from dusk to dawn. + A distinct feature of the town was its strange black and white church steeple. It had been a useful mariner's way-finder for centuries. Camila Durand would often go out to the steeple. She enjoyed the quiet walk over, the feel of the water’s breeze against her skin, and proudly overlooked her boys at work. Campbell would wave violently toward her, smile brightening his face, stomach rumbling for dinner, as she silently guided them home. + If Campbell was not in school, he was in and out of the harbor with his father. He would do at least one run in the morning before school and two after. On days with higher run expectancies or days when men would not show up due to poor weather conditions, Campbell would miss school, much to his and his mother’s dismay, to work with his father. + “Camp,” he began to be called. It was easier to shout one syllable than two over the deafening sound of the waters and men working. + The boy’s scent was slightly fishy, mixed with saltwater and sweat. Regardless of whether or not his peers’ families were in the same industries or higher middle class, this was unique to him and often kept him from experiencing close friendships.   + Once a year at most, Camila Durand went into the city. The trip’s purpose was to collect necessities, and despite her desire to take her son, Hal insisted Camp remain in Ars-en-Ré. + When Camila was pregnant with their second child, Camp was finally allowed to accompany his mother to the city to carry things for her. He stopped at a street vendor whose wooden display was covered with beautiful flowers and bottles filled with perfumes and oils. When the smell of eucalyptus grabbed his attention, Camila smiled; eucalyptus grew plentifully in Southern France and was the base note of her everyday perfume, a luxury item she was able to pick out for her wedding. She bought the eucalyptus oil for her son, a secret to be kept from Hal. Camp would use it when he got to school and hoped it wore off by the time he left. + Camp’s hair was a hectic mess of curls. His mother liked to wrap them around her index finger mindlessly, creating a sensitivity and exclusivity around the act. While he had an affinity for it and could often be found with a hand in his hair, he would never let anyone but his mother touch it, remaining true even into young adulthood. + Eventually, Camp’s curls grew long and people would tell his parents that he was such a “pretty girl.”  Camila tucked his long curls behind his ears like she did her own for as long as she could, but eventually, his father’s ego got the best of him. It was like Campbell’s masculinity was meant to be a reflection of his own. If Campbell was not masculine enough, Hal felt it meant he wasn’t masculine enough. + This led to the desire, manipulation, and force-of-hand Hal had in having another son. + Getting pregnant again was a long, hard road for Camila. Her first miscarriage was found out by Campbell climbing into her bed to find a mess of blood. Hal reprimanded Camp for screaming, even though it was the sounding alarm that saved her life at the time. Hal rushed out the door with Camila in his arms, slamming the door shut behind them. Things were never explained to Campbell, leaving him confused. When his mother arrived home safely, he quickly held to the relief and asked no questions. It wasn’t until she began to show, two pregnancies and one miscarriage later, that he found out his parents were still trying. + When it was time for the baby to come, delivery was even more difficult than the act of getting pregnant. The complications took her life. + After his mother had passed, there was nothing tying Campbell and Hal together. He fell into a quiet, depressive state and spent his entire earnings at the harbor on a laptop like the ones all of the kids at school had. + Camp barely tried at school, though he succeeded with flying colors. + When he got home, he would remain tucked away in his room, playing video games, coding, learning and unlearning algorithms, and the like. He often would stay up all night, sleep becoming less and less of a priority as his eyes remained glued to the blue light of his screen. + His father began drinking when he got home. The two sat at the dinner table together. They didn’t talk. If anything was to be said, it was Hal, telling Camp that he would waste his life away on that computer and never make anything of himself. + Camp began hacking. It started out as a result of having beaten all of his video games and having no money to buy more. It became his own sort of game. It started small, the computers of classmates, then teachers, then strangers, then businesses, then local government, then banks, and eventually, secret intelligence branches. + The boy had no ambitions, no goals, no ulterior motive, no end game. He was told that there would be very serious consequences for his actions, but the agency was in America, a country in which he was not legally adult, and he felt untouchable. His 18th birthday wasn’t far so they did with him what they would have done with any juvenile delinquent in his position and offered him a “bright future” that started with Gallagher Academy. The Fall semester would begin in September of 2019, and along with it, would begin Camp’s new life. + He packed his bags, gave his father a reluctant hug, ignoring his proud ramblings of how he would make something of himself after all and that his mother would be so proud, and was on his way. He would wake up and go to sleep missing the quiet safety of the home his mother had once occupied. He would miss the certainty of his father’s mundane routines and joining him for quiet dinners of cabbage and meat stew when he got home.

HIS PERSONALITY.

(insightful, patient, weird, rebelling, lone wolf, great listener, always running late, 1000 moods, needs space)

+ Kaiju films are they’re favorite (Kaiju is a Japenese genre of films featuring giant monsters that are usually attacking major cities) + Also loves Ghostbusters + Always has a movie they want you to watch + Barely sleeps, leaving dark circles permanently under their eyes + Computer is so old it glitches. + Dreams of a car with a neon under-glow, though they don’t know where they’d drive it + Included a major of driver’s ed because they have never driven a car, nor has their family ever owned one, and driving fast sounds cool + Ends up using it as a coping mechanism. some people punch things when they’re mad, others cry, he drives. fast. dangerously. recklessly. but it’s okay because technically they’re studying + Drinks absinthe as a way of remaining close to their father, who they think they’re destined to be regardless of what fancy school invited them to the states and thinks they’re “talented” and “genius” + Listens to Mariana’s Trench in the background of whatever they’re doing + Has tattoo ideas, but no tattoos: UFO, bermuda triangle, third eye, a mask, illuminati symbol + Talks to you for hours about conspiracy theories + Writes poetry + Likes feeling the breeze with their eyes closed (it reminds them of their mother doing the same at the church steeple, looking over them at the harbor) + Keeps a notebook separate from their poetry, meant for deep thoughts, connecting thoughts and ideas, and inspiration + Photoshopped your head on a meme and sent it to you at 3am + Gets heartbroken 30 times a week by falling for people they look at + Has trust issues + Often unmotivated and disinterested + Feels like they have to adapt to every person they meet to be liked, so they’re often silent at first, figuring out how to mold themselves into the kind of person they need to be around you + Labeled themselves as nonbinary as soon as they were no longer under the strict rule of masculinity presented by their father + Wants to use they/them pronouns, but is too scared to ask. Feels like it’s a “burden” to ask people to go through the trouble of being thoughtful. They don’t want people thinking about them at all + Figuring things out takes them a little longer + Only comes out of their shell around people that are gentle and easy-going + They are tolerant and composed to balance their intense energy when it gets to be too much and needs people to do the same + Can not flirt if their life depended on it + Can be social but born a lone wolf + Only clingy when having the time of  their lives with you, trust you with their heart and soul, or realize they can help you drastically with something and wish to focus on their effort to help you + Need people to sense and feel where the lines between “seeming” and “being” blur and that can figure out who the person is behind the anonymous mask + There’s always some kind of mask to see through + Cognitive AF + Come across emotionless because it is hard to allow themselves to be seen as vulnerable by other people + They hide from their own self + Highly selective and self-aware + They find it hard to ask for help + It’s not all fun and laughs + They adore someone who will inspire confidence in them and the courage to be in the moment and embody their own complexities. Someone who takes them seriously enough but will also keep the conversation light and free-flowing. They will only crush their own walls if you literally allow them to go ahead and ask for the help they deserve + They want people who can allow them to escape and be an actual human anchor for their souls + They do not like to be forced when it comes to sharing what is important to them. They will only do that on their own time or not at all + They know the difference between who is a friend vs. who is a best friend vs. who is a mere acquaintance vs. who is a person they view romantically. These lines do not blur or cross + Once on that level, it’s like having a secret language of communication + Harsh with their words. They are not polite because their words happen outside of emotions + How they communicate with others often has nothing to do with how they’re feeling on the inside + Come across as senseless and illogical and absolutely nuts + Likes to say “I told you so” + Get in their head while you’re talking, so they sometimes have to pretend that they understood