Theory/Praxis

If you read this blog with any semblance of regularity, you've probably picked up on the fact that I'm into video games. I am by no means hard-core, and I'm also in grad school, so the occasions during which I immerse myself in marathon pixel-killing sessions are not as frequent as I'd like them to be. But. I like video games -- playing them, reading about them, and talking about them with people who play them a lot more than I do. And, for the most part, I have no moral quandaries when it comes to their crudity, violence, and general purposelessness. As I've written before, I think gaming nihilism is kind of a lovely thing. However, there is one video game that I love to play, but that I also have significant moral trepidations toward. That game is Rock Band.

Rock Band: A Theoretical Quagmire (or, how theory destroys everything you love)

The problem with talking about Rock Band is that every list of pros that can possibly be generated in favor of the game will also create a list of corresponding, corollary cons, depending on which social theory one holds dear.

Pro: Rock Band allows people who have no musical talent to feel intimately connected to the process of making music.

Con: You're not really making music when you play Rock Band. You're making what Baudrillard would call hyperreal music, exchanging any ounce of actual creativity you might have tapped during your time in front of the TV for an act of (expensive!) media consumption. Instead of the not-always-fun real act of musical creation -- with all its frustrations, disappointments, and knock-down-drag-outs with your bandmates -- you're being spoonfed the soft cream of rock star ego, skimmed of any real substance.

Pro: Rock Band exposes kids to different genres and music time-periods than what's represented on mainstream radio. In this way, it subverts the hegemony of bland pop by sneaking in classic anthems of alienation, sexuality, and violence.

Con: When the proverbial "everybody" started their own band after hearing The Velvet Underground play in the late 60s and early 70s, I'm not sure anyone could have predicted that this act of rock'n'roll bravado would lead more or less directly to six-year-olds belting out "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in the comfort of their suburban living rooms. But it did. The fact is, music has been co-opted and defanged for a long, long time, and it would be silly to pretend otherwise, or to try to go back to a mythical era when the sight of Elvis's gyrating hips was as dangerous as a Soviet missile. Be that as it may, it's still highly problematic that Nirvana songs, Black Flag songs, fucking Dead Kennedys songs¹ appear on Rock Band -- pruned, streamlines, and with lyrics altered to suit the game's family-friendly rating. No less problematic is the fact that, for any contemporary band, the new benchmark of being established is no longer going gold or platinum or selling out a bunch of shows. It's getting a song on the Rock Band soundtrack. When "alternative" (if that label has any meaning left whatsoever) and pop are collapsed into one homogeneous playing field, there can be no question of the former destabilizing or subverting the latter; rather, everything is subsumed under the rubric of "pop," and music becomes a reified commodity whose sole purpose is to shill Nike products and more copies of Rock Band².

Pro: Rock Band is not a monolithic entity. It's customizable, and, as per the "tactics" of Michel de Certeau, it can be modulated to serve the needs of its player. It lets you bond with your friends by creating alternate virtual personae, cooperating instead of competing, and cementing your friendship through catchy, accessible pop music.

Con: Since I just learned it, I guess I'll apply Bourdieu's concept of "habitus" here.³ When you play Rock Band, you're not just playing a more or less neutral game like cards or checkers -- you're internalizing an entire system of values and fun that can't exist without said game, and your social relations will be structured accordingly. Eventually, you will no longer be able to imagine a world where Rock Band isn't an integral part in your socializing. Habitus turns to doxa, and your subjective experience of the game will turn into the objective reality that Rock Band is "just the funnest, so leave me alone and let me play my fun game, stupid theory!" i.e., Desires socially-conditioned! Agency illusory! Story at 10.

I don't have any real solutions to all of these pressing paradoxes. I'll probably still play Rock Band at every chance I get. I can't do anything truly musical to save my life, and I guess I'm okay with false consciousness and bad faith if, for just one night, it makes me feel like a rock star. I'm only human.

¹ Remember that time when we actually cared that a Dead Kennedys song was going to be used in a Levis commercial? ... yeah, that was 20 years ago -- this is now.

² Frank, Thomas. "Alternative To What?" Conclusions slightly dated in today's high-tech world, but still far and away the best article on the alt-rock paradox of the 90s and beyond. See also: Frank, Thomas and Matt Weiland. Commodify Your Dissent.

³ Peer review welcome here. I'm still shaky on my Bourdieu.