Netflix’s Kiss Me First has an unusually personal take on gamer culture
Ready Player One is the most egregious example of a mainstream story homogenizing gamer culture, but it’s hardly alone. The gaming industry generated $108.4 billion in 2017, and the Entertainment Software Association’s 2016 annual report showed that 41 percent of regular gamers are women, and that the average player age is 35 for men or 44 for women. But most gamers are still depicted as being cut from the same mold: smart kids and young men who are obsessed with science fiction, fantasy, comics, and the internet, and don’t like leaving the house. They don’t have many real-world friends, and they play games because they’re good at them, which makes them feel special.
Watch the trailer for Netflix’s Kiss Me First, and you might think the show, which was originally broadcast in the U.K. in April, was a queer, female-driven remake of Ready Player One. It shares some of the sleek virtual-world look of Spielberg’s film, right down to the elfin player avatars. But they’re actually about as different as two pieces of entertainment about players of a popular VR game can be. In Kiss Me First, the writers’ only reference to nerd culture comes from the protagonist, Leila (Tallulah Haddon), who names her character in the game Azana Shadowfax, after Gandalf’s horse in Lord of the Rings. When she discovers a hidden pocket of Azana, it has nothing to do with her significant game skills, or a need to protect the virtual world from some outside existential threat. She just finds a community of very lonely people in need of help.
See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/29/17518760/netflix-kiss-me-first-gamer-culture-virtual-reality-ready-player-one-matrix