The words we use on the internet have more meaning than their definition. Phrases, buzzwords, viscera from years old memes, material strewn across our tweets and DMs —all evidence of how we identify and the circles we inhabit. When a leftist on Twitter calls someone a “lib” they mean something specific that is not what most people mean when they say “liberal.”When a gamer on Twitter jokes that someone got “norted,” I laugh and acknowledge the reference despite not having touched a Kingdom Hearts game since 2006. Each is part of the vernacular of the given subculture.
If you connect with this sentiment, if it makes you conjure images of shitposts and maybe gives you just a little anxiety about social media, then we probably picture the same thing when I invoke the term Boomer. We know a Boomer when we see one in the wild. The phrase began as a shorthand for the Baby Boomer generation but has evolved, as language often does. What started colloquially on the left as a derogatory term for old crusty white conservatives blew up when the “ok, Boomer” meme pissed off some Boomers enough for them to declare it hate speech.
Some of the most common warning signs of Boomer activity online are as follows:
- Constant references to the good old days
- Thinks millennials are still the youth and not the majority of the population
- An entitlement to feeling like they have to participate in every conversation and bring their perspective, even when it clearly isn’t needed
- Loves to share the most remarkably unfunny memes
- Subcategory: Minions
- A tendency to call strangers “buddy”, “pal”, or “friend”
- A clear and profound lack of technological prowess
- Only shares most unflattering photos of self, typically includes sunglasses
It is some of these specificities that I felt when I was playing Hypnospace Outlaw, a game that truly feels like it understands how Boomers act online, even though the game is set in the internet of alternate universe 1999, mere weeks before the turn of the century. Merchantsoft, named by its founder Dylan Merchant, is no run-of-the-mill tech company. They have gone full on hyper-capitalist, selling sleepwear headsets so users can maximize their sleep time on their brand new world wide web: Hypnospace.
Hypnospace Outlaw casts you as a HypnOS Enforcer, the equivalent of an Internet mall cop. You surf the net through a hilariously clunky interface to find the worst copyright offenders and foul mouthed teens of 1999. It is celebrating and parodying an Internet many, myself included, never lived. Hypnospace depicts stupid kids and incompenent boomers, but it also celebrates them as humans. it’s never a satire that punches down.
The first Hypnospace Zone you explore as Enforcer is GoodTime Valley. Its motto is the epitome of wholesome, American values: “For those who remember the way things used to be.”
The absurdity of using “Remember the good old days? The great music, home-cooked food, and respectful youth? Relive it all here!” as the enticing preview bio should not be lost on players.
It is extremely silly to think a virtual sleepytime Internet could offer these comforts. The very idea is ignorant to the ways Hypnospace, a headset designed to maximize brain efficiency while your body rests, is a main contributor to nefarious ways the world is changing.
Once change begins it accelerates, eventually leaving those who can’t keep up in the dust. And once people are old enough to no longer comprehend the technology, they begin to be primed as victims to it. Hypnospace Outlaw understands this.
AbbyWrites58 is a school teacher and writer from Hollywood, Florida. Abby loves her students. Maybe her outpouring of love comes from the loss of her daughter and husband. She starts a Hypnospace page dedicated to the loved ones we’ve lost. She uses her experiences with loss to share positivity. Abby is 58 years old.
MrOldFashioned is the appointed community leader of Good Time Valley. His name is Scotty and he is from Lake Wales, Florida. Scotty loves music. Not much else is known about Scotty. He isn’t around much. Scotty is 54 years old.
Citizen0556332 doesn’t know how to set up their Hypnospace page. They don’t know how to fix all the errors that keep on popping up. They make friends on Hypnospace and get help with their page. Citizen0556332’s name is Mavis and she is 77 years old.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t put these clues together until I was digging back through the Hypnospace wiki to find examples backing up my thesis for this piece. Hypnospace Outlaw contains a plenitude of information and identifying these trends is not top of mind for most players, but the ages and the locations all allude to a certain type of person: Southern, old… white.
And so the game leans into stereotypes. So what? The portrayal of these characters capture an aspect of real life I’ve never felt a game touch on before. It does so in a way that feels like it really gets it, sure, but to what end?
I think it’s to show us these people aren’t the villains of the story.
Like all the other residents of Hypnospace, the Boomers are lied to, manipulated, and taken advantage of by Merchantsoft. They are victims as much as a young woman, whose page you encounter later, who is looking to join a local DSA chapter. They are victims in the way we are all victims in a world where corporations hold infinitely more power than the people: a world where capitalism has run rampant. A world where capitalism is working as intended.
Your first case as an Enforcer asks you to remove all images of Gumshoe Gooper from Good Time Valley. The estate of one W.E. Briggs, creator of the crime-solving cartoon fish in question, insists these images break copyright law. Merchantsoft complies and you are one who has to get your hands dirty for the sake of this company’s IP defense.
It turns out the images were mostly contained to one page: Abby’s page. Abby has proudly been posting her first grade class’s drawings of Gooper. Some are so bad the high-tech image detection software doesn’t even recognize the scribbles as a violation. But you do your job and you feel bad about it. Because Hypnospace Outlaw is a video game. You must complete the task you’ve been given.
It’s not a unique trick for a game to pull. Many games retroactively re-contextualize actions to make players feel emotions, usually guilt. Rarely does it feel as real and grounded as it does here. It’s not a matter of life and death. In Modern Warfare’s condemnation of shooting a baby, it exposes itself as cynical and hollow. The intended reaction comes and you are left to feel stupid, like the game got you for a split second – but of course it did, when it was trying so hard. Hypnospace works because you aren’t revealed to be just some generic bad guy or some morally complex anti-hero. You are an agent of capital. Your job is to protect the powers that be.
You meet these characters early on, but as the game unfolds you see how Merchantsoft has screwed them. Scotty is an absentee leader, chosen by Merchantsoft for this very reason. He wields no power, but exists as a symbol for Merchantsoft to point to when communities start decrying their lack of autonomy. He is a prop.
Mavis has it the worst. On New Years Eve there is a bug, one Dylan Merchant knew was coming but did nothing about. The Y2K of Hypnospace. The Mindcrash. Unlike Y2K The Mindcrash is real, yet no one sees it coming. People die. Mavis doesn’t make it.
The main plot ends up focusing on Dylan’s faults as an individual, his penance, whether or not he even deserves forgiveness, and his role in the Mindcrash. His true role in the accident isn’t revealed for years. Whether or not he’s lived with that as guilt isn’t especially clear. His letters to those lost in the Mindcrash are short. Distant. He didn’t really know these people. He didn’t really care to. Were they even people to him?
Donald Trump will not carry the responsibility of over 200,000 deaths on his shoulders, no matter how much money the Democrats spend to try and make him. He doesn’t see them as people worth feeling guilty about. He sees them as, simply put, the Diers.
It’s always been silly to me when people pretend the Internet and Real Life are different things. People find their identity online. People start and end their careers online. People get hurt online. People hurt other people online. It’s as real as it fucking gets.
Abby doesn’t stop existing when you delete her kids’ drawings. She starts a movement, “I Stand With Gooper,” and gets others to share it and believe in it. The movement is a punchline. It’s a silly moment, but the fact of the matter is in her own way Abby begins to organize. She begins to fight back. Your actions radicalized her, but not in the way you radicalize NPCs in Fallout or The Elder Scrolls by being a paragon of purity and goodness. You radicalized her by doing your shitty job. It is here that Hypnospace Outlaw speaks to me loudest of all. These people have it in them to fight, the game says, if we can just unite them against the true enemy.
Thank you to Bryn Gelbart for contributing this piece on Hypnospace Outlaw! His contribution was made possible by you, our lovely readers!
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