S1E2 - Introduction

Transcript

Welcome

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Radical Visual Podcast. I am your host, Radu Stochita, and this week we bring you an introduction into our world. We are here to discuss video games, films, graphic novels and analyse them critically by using Marxist and Anarchist theories. We bring as well into use visual, film and games studies theory in order to promote a cross-disciplinary approach to studying media.

We are comprised of one person at this moment, Radu Stochita, an international student from Romania, at Bowdoin College in ME, USA. If you want to stay up to date, subscribe to our show on all available podcast platforms, visit our website at radicalvisuals.noblogs.org and follow Radu on Twitter at @stochita_radu and on Instagram at @stochita.radu
We hope you will enjoy this episode! Have a great day!

Introduction of the author

I remember playing video games since a very early age. My father bought my first computer when I was three. It was second-hand, one of those bulky ones that take up a big amount of space on one’s desk. I remember playing Tomb Raider and Zuma, without giving much thought to what I was doing.
It felt fun and a good escape from everyday’s life. I was an introvert child for a big part of my early years, often finding refuge in stories or video games. As I grew older, so did my experience with the visual world. I became accustomed to Call of Duty, Battlefield, Borderlands, Mortal Kombat.
Those were the universes in which I would escape after a long day at school in which I did not manage to achieve much. I was not a bad student, but my curiosity at that time was not very much developed. School did not encourage asking questions, as much as it did the mere reproduction of whatever the teacher would tell us. To fulfil the need for curiosity, I turned more heavily to video games with a strong desire of tip-toeing through those virtual worlds.

I remember walking through forests in Ukraine, as I was on a mission of assassinating an enemy. I remember going through mountainous areas, filled with beasts and monsters, where I would clench my fists and yell out loud: Let’s go, boys! Let’s go! I was all by myself, a hero in those games, freeing the world from the danger of the Russians, or from the Zergs in Starcraft.
After hours of playtime a day, I would get into my bedsheets, thinking of how much greatness I produced today. I was happy for saving the world and it felt empowering that everyone else trusted me to do so, a kid in the boots of a soldier holding an M16.

It took me a long time to start looking critically at games. No one around me was talking about them in a critical manner. My friends would discuss the quality of the rifles in the latest Call of Duty or the enjoyment of killing some NAZIs in Wolfenstein. When we talked about the storyline, we often focused on ideas on enjoyment.

We did not ask questions and we were not encouraged to do so. Our parents did not know what those mediums presented and the powers that they held upon us. They were more afraid that we would become violent beasts once taken away from the computer screen, but none of my friends did so, even if we had hundreds of hours spent on shooters.

The first time when a critical thought rushed through my mind was when replaying Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. At the beginning of the game, there is this mission in which you are disguised as a Russian terrorist, having to shoot up an airport. It was a massacre, you would shoot innocent people just not to be recognised as an intruder which might compromise the mission. You were the chosen one, the one to self-sacrifice, to kill those terrorists and to free the world from the Russian threat. I stopped after this mission, I felt a gut in my throat, starting to question why did I press the trigger. I tried not to, but the game said that I failed. I had to and in a hurry of getting this done, out of my mind, finishing it quickly, to move into killing the bad guys, I was massacring an entire airport - innocent people that were trying to run away from my gun, as it was ravaging their bodies.

I took a break and reflected. Why did this game make me do this? Why should I kill those innocent people when for so long I was the good guy doing the right thing?

Those questions were to be left unanswered for many years. After revisiting the game during a winter-break from college, I felt the need of providing some answers to those questions. I picked up the game, booted it up, and played the mission without a blink. I massacred the airport again, killing everyone in my sight, but this time I was prepared to offer more questions to the previous one and even some more answers. I became critical about the self-sacrifice aspect of the US Army, of the individualism that dominated all of those titles that I enjoyed playing as a child. I became disgusted of how much of a superhero I was becoming when the game would start, something that has affected me throughout my upbringing. It led me believe that we are all just individuals, in an individualist world. Better hunt than become hunted.

This is my story of how video games have changed me throughout the years. It is only a part of what I am to uncover in those upcoming episodes. Radical Visuals podcast aims at looking at video games, films, graphic novels, and mediums as such, while analysing them through a Marxist and Anarchist perspective. I will provide commentary as I am playing the games, taking breaks between missions to record my thoughts and interpretations. Those reflections will be accompanied by theory, originating from a variety of Marxist, Anarchist texts. On top of this, I will offer more reflection on my upbringing with video games and how it has impacted me.

We do not aim to become dogmatic, but rather a critical environment where questions are encouraged. Join us in the revolution of deconstructing video games and becoming critical of them. A gamers’ revolution is about to start. Hop on, raise your fists and become critical of this establishment.
It is not enough to think of something as fun.

It is not enough to think of games as refuge from the capitalist world.

It is not enough to think of games as apolitical mechanisms.

Production process

We want to be very transparent about how we produce this podcast. We play video games almost on a daily basis and when we do so, we hold another computer in front of us, connected to a USB microphone. Every thirty minutes, when we take a break to lift ourselves from the chair, we joint down some notes and record some commentary.

We will then pair this commentary with additional one, after the game has finished and our memory of it is still fresh. We will add theory that we studied during this week and in the past as well. We will include theory from books, journal articles, articles and videos, citing appropriately the authors.

The episodes are comprised of impromptu reflection on the game and essay-like presentation of the theory and its relationship to the game. We promote theory across disciplines and will not be afraid of taking geography, history and sociology ideas.

We will do all the editing. Adding the music, inserting the breaks and promotional material if we will ever reach that point. For the moment we do not make any money out of the podcast, but rather use our own personal expenses coming from scholarships and work money to support this podcast.

If we will reach the point of monetisation, we will do it as ethically as possible, advertising for causes we believe in. We will consult first with our community to understand better a model to do this that will not only benefit the creators, but also the listeners.

We will post weekly, on average an episode a week but you can expect more. Not all episodes will follow the previously pattern, some will be more impromptu, others well more researched.

Values

We will provide a safe space for everyone, rejecting any form of hate speech.
We encourage criticism and believe that to achieve the ideal society, we cannot just ban or cancel some concepts without previously addressing them.

We will abstain from promoting or encouraging consumption of certain substances, such as drugs, alcohol, tobacco. We believe that younger people could watch our shows and could get easily influenced.

We will abstain from using profanities since some people in our audience could be sensitive to those.

If we are to ever make a mistake, regardless of its gravity, we would love to hear from the community on ways to improve it. We are human beings and are learning at the same time as everyone else.

We will adapt our language to reach a wide audience, trying to bring academic concepts to the masses.

We will moderate our community in order to make sure that hate speech will never flourish.

We are internationalists and believe in unity across borders.

We are antifascists, antiracists, anticlassists, antihomophobes and do not promote any exploitative speech.

Ending

Thank you so much for tuning in today. Thank you for all the support you have shown in the past and I hope that you have enjoyed the show. Do not forget to share it with your friends and family, and please leave us a comment.

My name is Radu Stochita and if you want to interact with me, you can find me on Twitter at @stochita_radu or on our website at https://radicalvisuals.noblogs.org.

Until next week, I hope you have a great time and that you take care of one another.

Not me, but us. Not one individual, but a community. A revolution is not made by an individual, but by a community.

Lots of love, down with hatred, down with fascism.

See you!

Social Media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stochita_radu

Instagram: https://instagram.com/stochita.radu

Website: https://radicalvisuals.noblogs.org

Music

Shipping Lanes by Chad Crouch https://freemusicarchive.org/music/ChadCrouch/Arps/ShippingLanes

Negentropy by Chad Crouch https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chad_Crouch/Arps/Negentropy

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