When I was at school, which is a disconcertingly long time ago, there was a period during which all the boys seemed to have a near-identical curtains haircut. I hated it. It was so common that it might as well have been part of the school dress code, and yet, I resisted. I’ve always been pretty good at doing my own thing, not falling into the trap of peer pressure and what I’ve just this second coined as “The trend fallacy”. Just because everyone is doing something, doesn’t mean it’s right for you.
As someone who had hair (let’s not focus too much on the current situation, thanks) and therefore had to make some decisions over what to do with it, I have had two hairstyles in my entire life: a side-parting comb over that I’m sure looked pretty suave on a seven-year-old in the tail end of the 80s, and what you could describe as basic short hair that just sort of sits on my head until there’s too much of it – this, incidentally, is my current chosen style.
Note: I also wore a flat cap in the early 90s for reasons I’m not really clear on. I suspect I saw someone wearing one and thought it looked amazing, in the same way I expected to grow up and own a Vauxhall Calibra, simply because the manager at the Esso at the top of my road used to park his outside the petrol station shop, and to an eight-year-old it looked like the coolest car that would ever be built. I have never owned a Calibra, nor have I ever driven a car. Point being, I had my own ideas of what I wanted, regardless of what was actually popular, and I still do.
Hollow Knight: Silksong, then, arrived last week like a new wave of Pokémon Pogs in 1999 that were also promising to fix the Y2K bug. Hot stuff, and a game everyone should be falling over themselves to play, right? “Don’t miss it,” I’m sure someone will commit to print somewhere. And yet, I never cared for Pokémon, I favoured football stickers to Pogs, and why would I, a child, be interested in finding a solution to the Y2K date problem?
I do have a fondness for certain games loosely in the genre, Axiom Verge and Ori and the Blind Forest to name two, but I had a miserable time with Hollow Knight some five years ago, its own genre tweaks clashing with my sensibilities and likes – I called it and moved on after two hours. I have no desire to waste my precious free time for no other reason than to follow the zeitgeist.
It’s kind of my job to be aware of the mood in the games industry, to know what the hot topics are, and what the feelings are around new releases. It’s not fair to point to people, opening them up to the more hostile and unreasonable portion of the gaming community, but a repeated sentiment around Silksong is one of a kind of embarrassed shame. People have essentially apologised to the rest of the community for not enjoying Team Cherry’s new game, which I find bizarre in the extreme. I’ve seen similar in the reverse when people really vibe with a game the majority of others look down on.
Every game isn’t for everyone. This should be obvious and simple, but if taken in by the video games playing community at large would radically alter the discourse around new releases. It’s not incendiary to not enjoy something. It’s part of being a person with independent thought. I’ve come to realise I’m quite happy to just enjoy what I enjoy, regardless of whether other people “let” me do it or not.
With that, I’m off to brush my hair forward in a way that appears to onlookers as though no effort has been made whatsoever, and perhaps browse eBay for a flat cap. You do you.
