Positivity

Those of you who have known me for a while will know that I deal with a few mental health issues — specifically, a delightful cocktail of Aspergers, depression and anxiety.

This lovely combination of things means that I am particularly susceptible to negativity, and an overwhelmingly negative atmosphere can leave me in a seriously deep funk for quite some time, even going so far as to leave me barely functional for hours at a time. It sucks, but I've learned to "cope" with it over the years — and video games have certainly helped with that.

I mention this because I feel like I'm seeing a particularly large amount of negativity across social media and even blogs of late. Ashley fans claiming they want to "murder" Sakurai for not including her as a playable character in Smash Bros. The never-ending arguments over what GamerGate "is". Ridiculous hot takes over a bad joke in the new Doom trailer. And, of course, the ever-present "unpopular opinion" threads and "Top 5 Worst X of Y" articles that always seem to be doing the rounds.

(Unsure of the original source of this image, sorry; it just drifted across my Twitter feed this morning!)

It's sometimes helpful to express negative emotions, and hell, I've been known to do so on more than one occasion. But it's also good to have a "haven" away from that sort of thing — a place where you can go if you just want to enjoy stuff for a change.

I've always attempted to make MoeGamer that kind of place. My key mission for the site is to "find the good" in even games that were poorly received by press and/or public — and while it's important to acknowledge flaws where they exist, it's even more important to judge something on its own merits. If someone derives some enjoyment, satisfaction or even emotional resonance from something there is value there, even if it's popularly regarded as "bad".

That's why I can promise you there will never be "Worst X of Y" articles on MoeGamer, nor will there be articles berating you for your tastes in games, your political opinions or anything completely arbitrary that isn't any of my business. The most negative thing I've written is "13 Reasons Why the Games Industry Needs to Stop Idolising Anita Sarkeesian", which I feel was important to write, but which unfortunately no-one who really needed to listen to… listened to. (In fact, it got me landed on a "GG Trash" Twitter list from one particularly obnoxious individual, despite me never actively participating in anything GamerGate-related. Said individual got promptly blocked, removing me from his stupid list in the process.)

I don't want to see these things, so I don't wish to inflict them on you either. Consider this a "pledge for positivity" of sorts if you like… and if any of the feelings I describe here are familiar, I encourage you to extract yourself from environments like Twitter and Reddit that just encourage this whole cynical cycle of negativity.

Let's make our little corner of the Internet an actually nice place to hang out.