Bedtime for Bogost

(Image courtesy Georgia Tech University)

It's been up less than a day but already I've removed someone from the blog-roll out of sheer anger.

I wanted to ask the very intelligent Ian Bogost a question about Will Wright's recent video interview posted on the Chronicle of Higher Education.  The most direct mechanism by which I know how to do this quickly and efficiently--albeit with forced brevity--is Twitter.  I'm not extremely fond of Twitter, as it is undeniably a platform for self-promotion first and foremost (hence the preponderance of celebrity navel gazing), but to that extent, it seems to serve its purpose:  It lets people with a marketable message (even if that message is about oneself) communicate that message to others and allows others to respond or submit inquiries.  It lacks the utility or seeming intimacy of, say, Facebook, but it wasn't designed as a virtual Rolodex so much as an abbreviated blog.  It's very good for people who want to get the word out (even about one's vacillating mood) with maximum speed.

Unfortunately, before I got around to asking my question, I found this pearl on Bogost's Twitter page:

Is there anything more interesting than all those "New blog post" tweets? Look at me, look at me, look at me!

Bogost is an undeniable philosophical talent; he is one of the true forces of intellectual might backing game studies today.  But rarely does one see someone so smart write something so very, very stupid.  Without sifting through the list, I can only imagine that many of Bogost's followers (I count myself among his former followers) are students, educators, and game bloggers who announce new web posts in such a manner.  Bogost himself announces blog posts for Bogost.com on Twitter; he simply doesn't put the three words "New blog post" in front of them.  Apparently, excising those three commonsensical words is the hallmark of integrity.

And this from a man who only recently wrote in defense of the idea of Googling oneself.  "Look at me!"

Normally I tolerate the erudition and smugness with which Bogost trumpets his own thoughts because he has something to say, and despite the highfalutin manner in which he says it, it's obvious that he's a top-notch thinker.  And let's face it:  Game studies doesn't have many academic stars.  If there's going to be someone out there drawing people to the "cause," Bogost might as well be it. 

But I think we may want to take the idea of a game studies "celebrity" less seriously.  I met the man once in person (at last year's Meaningful Play conference); he had just finished giving a keynote speech that he seemed to think went rather poorly (it wasn't exactly as coherent as it was interesting), and I asked follow-up questions.  I and another attendee were quickly given the brush-off as he gave a blithely succinct response and darted for the elevators. 

Now, I'm not saying he didn't have a very good reason for darting for those elevators, or even for not wanting to speak to two students of his theories.  I'm sure he is deluged with questions after every speech.  I find the fault in this event, not with Bogost, but rather with myself:  I excused Bogost's brush-off as the act of someone "famous," and the norm for the manner in which one who has achieved success dismisses a plebe.

The problem is, success is relative.  Academically and professionally, Bogost is a resounding success; he has achieved the kind of disciplinary ubiquity for which I can only pray using my far inferior intellect (and I will readily admit that I am not as smart a human being, much less smarter than your average blogger).

This says little, however, about how Bogost may be a success as a human being, or even as a champion for the progress of our hybrid, splintered discipline if he continues to speak out in such a manner.  The last thing game studies--literally, a discipline devoted to all the informality and unapologetic lack of pretension that goes along with video games--needs is self-imposed tiers. 

I may not have the credibility of an Ian Bogost or a famous game designer (hell, this blog has been up less than a month!), but does that mean I have nothing to add to the conversation?  Perhaps Bogost has forgotten how difficult it is just to get oneself in a position where others actually consider them a bonafied interlocutor.  When I'm not busy leading my own life, working, or engaging in my own research, I have to work like hell to promote this blog in any way I can just to get it off the ground.

And if that means announcing posts on Twitter, what is it to someone like Bogost?  No need for the snark and dismissal.  I may be asking for people to "look at me" but it's not out of arrogance.  My self deprecating tone employed here at the blog should be enough proof of that.  I simply have to do what I must to validate myself as a worthy entrant into a dialogue that Bogost practically runs.  Sure, he's in that position due to his own hard work and inestimable number of hours in front of philosophy books and a word processor; he has earned his place atop the ant hill.  Just try not to step on all of us down here.

Someone on Twitter (speak of the devil!) alerted me to the fact that Bogost was suffering the sweltering Georgia heat without a working air conditioner when he wrote the above.  I suppose that's a valid excuse for a lapse in judgment.  Who knows how many bridges I've burned when I've felt offended by so much hot air...?

Comments

[brenda brathwaite]

I replied to Ian's comment on twitter, actually. I questioned him on it and so did many others. What he was lamenting, if I understand correctly, is people who only post these updates and don't engage in the larger conversation and dynamic of the medium. It could be viewed as an invitation moreso than a dismissal.

I encourage you to rethink your position. You're misinterpreting a couple small signals as something much larger, and that something is not characteristic of him at all.

[Matthew G Kaplan]

Thank you for your insight and for taking the time to comment, Brenda. You'll have to excuse me; I'm not aware of anyone else's responses to Ian on the matter aside from a few mild-mannered tweets on his page, and if I am indeed misinterpreting his comments, then I'm wrong, plain and simple.

That said, I believe you are giving him a whopping benefit of the doubt by claiming it as an invitation rather than a dismissal. The tone of something like "Look at me! Look at me!" is undeniably and inexcusably mocking, if not altogether meanspirited. I'm not sure what kind of invitation for discussion such a comment invokes. It seems to me from your interpretation that Ian may have done some tactful backtracking and explaining of his tactlessness, but anything short of an apology to his Twitter followers would be purely rhetorical, in my opinion.

As to what is or is not characteristic of Ian Bogost, I can only speak for my one experience meeting him and my impressions of his writing. I would agree that it seems uncharacteristic of someone so intelligent; that is why I wrote this post in response. He could be truly penitent for writing something while in a bad mood, but the fact of the matter is that when we write something and put it out there for everyone else to see, we must take responsibility for those words and account for the reactions thereto.

[Eric Marcoullier]

Matthew, as a long-time friend of Ian (as is Brenda) I can honestly say you're overthinking this. You're making assumptions based upon two very constrained situations (neither Twitter nor the time immediately following a keynote allow for elaborate conversation). Go on, send that tweet, see what happens.

(That said, Ian can be an insufferable prat, but that's almost only with his closest friends. And I love him for it.)

[Matthew G Kaplan]

Eric, thank you for the comment. Ian is obviously very lucky to have such earnest friends ready to defend his character.

If I am making incorrect assumptions based on what was written, again, I'd be happy to admit it. Relieved, in fact. Because if that were the case, I could have saved myself the trouble of having been offended in the first place.

While I appreciate the rebuttal and that both sides of this disagreement are represented for all to examine, I feel compelled to reiterate what I said in my response to Brenda above: Ian's comment speaks for itself, and a writer must stand by his/her words, no matter the extenuating circumstances.

It's not that I wish to see Ian somehow "punished" or even overly contrite (did he ever apologize to his blogging Twitter followers? I don't even know). Nor do I wish there to be a black mark against him for something as seemingly minor as a Twitter comment. As I said in the main post, he is an intellectual force and for the most part I'm happy to have him represent the burgeoning field of game studies.

Does that mean that I will continue to follow his "tweets"? Probably not; I feel now that I should probably stick to reading Ian's more polished writings lest I become disappointed once again. But that's just me. I don't advocate that anyone else abandon the man's works or chide him.

Nonetheless, I wrote this post because I felt it needed to be said that criticizing modest efforts to engage in conversation are counter-productive. It's not that every little "tweet" has to be productive, really, but with a large number of people reading one's words there comes a certain responsibility to at least take their perspectives into account. I stand by the opinion that what he wrote was a lapse in judgment.

Trust me, if I didn't admire a great deal about Ian Bogost, there would have been no impetus to write what I did. I get no happiness or satisfaction in thinking I might have the magical power to "take him down a notch." Moreover, I cannot accomplish any such thing. Rather, I am exercising my right to respond to that which is written for others to see. I just happened to react very poorly. I'm sure many of Ian's friends and fans laughed when he wrote it.

As they say, however, one man's jibe is another man's insult. In the future, additional care with one's words would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for taking the time to post the above and for presenting another side to the story.

[Roger Travis]

Quibus lusoribus bono? even.

(I bring up this contre-temps that's so 2008 only because I thought Ian and I both managed to make our viewpoints clear, and because it seemed like we were actually getting somewhere towards the end, when of course, like all conversations that are going somewhere on the internet, the dialogue abruptly died.)

[Matthew G Kaplan]

Roger, thank you for taking the time to comment.

Oddly enough, I had never read your piece nor heard mention of Bogost's responses thereto. I just went through your article, Bogost's blog response, and the subsequent comments on his blog. I have to say, thank you for calling this to my attention (or at the very least, giving it a passing reference)! It's definitely one of the more interesting exchanges I've seen in the "What is Game Studies (and What Should it Be)?" debate. May sound like a cop-out, but I came out of the whole thing agreeing with both of you. Your article makes outstanding points, and Ian is right to defend his specific brand of academic approach as understanding interdisciplinarity and the commingling of author/player rather than (as Murray suggests) a forced, pedantic melding of the two.

In reference to the topic at hand, however, I'm not sure my minor issue with Bogost's words and the extrapolations therefrom can begin to compare to the actual substance of your disagreement. :)

[Alice Robison]

I have a ridiculous amount of things to say about this, all of which I would rather say in person over a pitcher of beer. But suffice to say I give you major props for going completely balls out on this.

And, as someone who studies how people write and learn to write, let me say that of all the Twitter events like this one that I've witnessed, I've never seen anyone zip the whole thing up as coherently as you do here.

Genuinely and sincerely,

Alice, who remains a not-so-famous game scholar ;)

[Matthew G Kaplan]

Thank you for the very kind words, Alice... even if you did think I was someone else for awhile there. ;)

[Mark J. Nelson]

A bit late on this, but I have a hard time seeing Bogost as a creator or defender of any sort of academic caste system. Are you sure you aren't reading something into this that isn't there, ascribing a looking-down-at-little-people motivation to a snide comment when it's really just that Bogost directs snide comments at important and unimportant people alike?

The general worry is a sensible one. There are many in academia who put too much weight on status and positions and such, with the Distinguished Professor looking down his nose at the Nobody. But I find it really hard to square what I know of Bogost with that variety of professor. If anything, he comes across as the exact opposite, someone who would prefer to talk to an interesting nobody rather than a boring Distinguished Professor, given the choice.

You don't have to go too far through his extensive online posting to find snide comments directed at important people and their work on the one hand, and positive comments directed towards little-known people and their work on the other. And he extensively engages in blog comment repartee with little-known commenters, if they happen to post arguments he finds interesting and worth responding to. That doesn't really read to me like the highfalutin professor who can't be bothered with little people. I've certainly never sensed sentiment of that sort in my interactions, despite being rather unimportant in the field.