Gamers on TV

TikTok Ban

I didn’t think our current do-nothing Congress could pull it off, but they’ve managed to pass a TikTok ban—well, an “if BytdeDance doesn’t divest it in time” ban. So now we start the clock to see what Bytedance does regarding divestment and legal challenges to the law. Not gonna lie, though; I’d be okay with the ban going through. But only if it also includes banning Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, then we can all go back to a time before everyone twisted their product roadmaps into knots trying to build their one version of TikTok. 

Missing Element of Analysis 

Listening to Slate’s Culture Gabfest this week talk about Fallout left me slightly frustrated. Not just because I loved the new Amazon show based on the popular video game franchise but because I felt like they were missing a critical tool for analyzing what the show is doing. The hosts aren’t gamers, and I agree with them that for the show to be successful, it can’t just appeal to fans of the Fallout games. However, gaming is now huge. More TV consumers than ever have some experience playing video games, which means they’ll be able to recognize, or appreciate a critic recognizing, one of the key elements of Fallout’s adaptation to TV even if they’ve never played a Fallout game: translating what a gameplay experience feels like. 

The juxtaposition of post-apocalyptic melancholy, retro-futurist camp, and violence ranging from cartoonish to downright terrifying is central to what playing Fallout feels like. Because the game’s sprawling open world is packed full of major and minor story hooks, your trek across the wasteland meanders through a surprising patchwork of those seemingly disjointed tones. The show really gets that. Even little things like making the Brotherhood of Steel lackeys carry gigantic bags calls back to the in-game experience of making your companion carry all of your extra stuff to avoid a carry-weight penalty. 

The Fallout team deserves major kudos for thinking about how that experience of playing the game can come to life as the story moves to a new medium. The rhythm of gameplay loops, the sense of satisfaction completing objectives, the frustration with buggy mechanics, these are all elements of how you experience a game. They are a formal element that create meaning for the player, just like plot, character, music, theme, and spectacle. Knowing how to identify and describe what gameplay does to make meaning in a game, and how a less interactive adaptation of a game’s story works around the loss of that formal element is central to producing good analysis of any media that pulls from games as a reference point. 

Anyway, I think Walton Goggin’s The Ghoul said it best.

Platform Updates

Instagram & Threads

• Threads Launches Live Test of Auto Post Archiving

• Threads launches custom mute filters, teases controls for quote posts

The Rest of Meta 

• Meta Opens Up VR Operating System to Third-Party Hardware Makers

• Meta Announces Updates for its Ray-Ban Smart Glasses, Including AI Elements

TikTok

• Biden signs TikTok ‘ban’ bill into law, starting the clock for ByteDance to divest it

Reddit

• Reddit Adds Dynamic Product Ads To Help Brands Reach Shoppers in Discovery Phase

• Reddit Rolls Out Mobile UI Updates To Streamline Interaction

Misc Recommendations 

📺 - Dead Boy Detectives 

🎥 - Monkey Man 

🎧- “This Conversation Made Me a Sharper Editor” from The Ezra Klein Show

Culture Movers 

Pipes & Tubes 

• FCC votes to restore net neutrality

Film & TV

• ‘A Knight’s Tale’ Director Reveals Axed Sequel Ideas and Says ‘Netflix Tested’ One Idea but ‘Indicated It Would Not Be Successful’ 

• You Can Now Download and Watch Over 9,200 Short Vintage Films for Free

Publishing 

• The Onion Sold to Founder of Twilio, Who Taps Ex-NBC News Reporter Ben Collins to Lead Satire Site as CEO 

Creator Economy 

• Watcher Responds to Fan Backlash Over Subscription Service by Saying New Content Will Be Free on YouTube After One Month: ‘We Messed Up’

Wierd Vibes 

• Runaway horses gallop through central London, blazing a path of mayhem and injuries

Scams

• Saudi Arabia's Sci-Fi Megacity in the Desert Isn't Going Well 

Brief Hiatus 

I’m gonna take a couple weeks off from the newsletter. I wanna take a step back to reshuffle the approach here and to be totally candid, need a little mental health break. The social media and news consumption habits I ask of myself to fuel Kinda Brief can sometimes tiptoe into a less productive doom-scrolling mode. And I definitely hit that wall this week. So I’m going to step back, refocus, and see y’all again in a few weeks.  

*I’m very dyslexic, and this is a largely free project/hobby. I do not set aside the same time for proofreading that I do for other professional work. If you spot a typo that would cause a communication error, please reach out to gently let me know.