Game Industry Fashion, Style and Drip, I guess
Normally it really takes a while for discourse to annoy me enough that I can’t just tweet something and forget about it, but congratulations everyone, you did it. I’m writing about this. Writing is supposed to be a therapeutic exercise, so I guess we’re exercising some discourse demons today.
From what I can tell it all started with this piece by Alyssa Mercante. (Hi, Alyssa,)
While there are always better ways to phrase things here and there, I don’t actually disagree with the overall summary that if you’re so keen on the Game Awards being a “fuck the Oscars” type of large, prestigious industry event, then maybe you should actually make the effort to frame it as such.
However, I think there are way more interesting and pressing ways to do that, and we landed on fashion because Alyssa is interested in fashion and no one likes to essentially be called a potato sack. Then, as with any argument on twitter, the people who are already interested in fashion just go and say “but I am fashionable, look at me,” and none of the people that we “called out” are bothered in the slightest because they live on an entirely different sphere and could pay someone to send them a customised text telling them how good they look in their unisex t-shirts.
To use a new phrase, I have looked at all the arguments and none of them have convinced me. Actually, can we talk about that phrase for a moment? I’ve seen it crop up a lot recently, especially in regards to AI art discourse, and it makes me feel like I’m on Lion’s Den, or Shark tank, or whatever these things are called — it feels like someone is telling me to bring forth a satisfying argument, stat, like I’m disappointing them for not being enough of a galaxy brain. Not every argument is an opinion, and not every opinion is an argument.
Speaking of not every opinion being an argument, can we maybe not… not do this:
I get it, a lot of women (and I’m saying women because that is the only experience I can relate to, I don’t know about non-binary people) get an incredible rush off the idea that finally someone has turned the lens on men and says that they should adhere to the same societal expectation that women have lived with for as long as they can think. I’ve seen people say that they could never turn up to an awards show like some men do because it would “raise eyebrows” and that shows that how much me celebrate individualism and the right to choose for ourselves, we all have these insecurities and moments of sheer peer pressure that we bow to. However, to me it’s such an odd argument to want someone to suffer as you have suffered, instead of seeing something like fashion for what it is — meaningless until we ascribe meaning to it.
So yes, it is discriminatory to force fashion onto someone, because to shame someone for something that isn’t a moral failing is discrimination. Calling people ugly and tasteless is, surprise surprise, discrimination, no matter how much money they could theoretically spend to change your opinion of them.
I enjoy fashion. Getting to that point was, without exaggeration, a lifelong process, because as a woman, whether or not I enjoyed fashion never entered the equation. When I was a teen, we had teen fashion magazines. I feel like a lot of them don’t exist anymore or have shifted their target groups to people in their mid-twenties who actually have money, and also this was pre-internet, for the most part, or pre commercialised internet, so you couldn’t just get the same info somewhere else — but you know the type of magazine: Teen Vogue, Elle Girl, Seventeen ahead of its big Gen Z political radicalisation.
Every week, I would go to the newsagents, either ahead of school or straight after, and I’d get one of those glossy magazines. It was like looking in on a completely different world. Back then, all the girls in the magazines were white, so I’d look at party hairstyles I couldn’t get, and tips for concealer that didn’t exist in my shade. I didn’t need a diet, we didn’t have any shops in town. I simply wanted to get a glimpse at what I assumed everyone else was interested in, and at some point I stopped, because I realised how oddly frustrating it was to always look at things you couldn’t get — almost like social media, har har har.
The point I’m making is that for a lot of girls, it was very easy to at least imagine that what they saw was attainable. (And if not, they also suffered from terrible dysmorphia, btw.) Sure, it may have been to expensive, but the idea that was firmly sold to white girls was that they could look like this, and all they needed were a few hair rollers and a cherry lip smacker. More importantly, these magazines also told women very clearly who they were making themselves over for on a regular basis. “Men actually like make-up to be more natural, so they can’t tell you’re actually using it” was a normal sentence that’s now rightly called out as terrible misogyny.
I am now in my mid-30s. I started using makeup at 22, and it was NOT in my shade. People like to forget that make-up for POC, widely available and now an expectation of any brand, is a very recent thing. I was 28 when I was at a point that I stepped up to a MAC counter and asked to be matched, and they still didn’t manage it. The person you see on Twitter now, who likes to post selfies of herself, she emerged within the last two years. She now has a skincare routine, knows what she needs from a foundation, and knows what works for her, after more than 20 years.
And I would never, never go and tell people they can achieve that with just rubbing themselves down with a bar of Dove soap and some mascara. Believe me, I’ve tried. But the thing is, I persisted not because someone told me to, but because it was fun. I’m sitting on my bed typing this, and I’ve got makeup on, and sometimes I look up at the mirror across from me and I go “hell yeah, girl” and it’s a boon to my mental health. The first time someone called me good-looking I was 25 years old. I’m not kidding. A part of it is just sheer racism. But the idea that all you need to be pretty be pretty as long as you are, I don’t know, thrifty, comes from people who to me look frightfully good. Who post selfies without makeup on. Who have the confidence and history of good looks to back it up. People who already know what they’re doing.
They have done their learning and none of this seems in any way scary to them. Or like a hassle, which it often is. You try things on. They don’t fit you. You see a tutorial — it looks different on you. It’s not as easy as you imagined. I still get it wrong with clothes, a lot a lot. My style, what works for my body shape, it’s all still a great mystery to me. People say “just go to NEXT” of whatever, but I’m still developing my eye for what works, and every time I get it wrong it costs me money. The thing I enjoy didn’t cost me 20 quid! They didn’t, I’m sorry! Is that the next thing I have to worry about? “People in the gaming industry are so dripless they can’t sew a ballgown out of a 15 quid H&M dress anymore”? You have to be aware that when you write these things, you’re not talking to the Phil Spencers and Mark Zuckerbergs of this world. They couldn’t care less. The people who do feel intimidated are likely people who already have enough to worry about, or think that honestly, we as an industry have bigger problems. We do!
You may have seen me at Develop in a pink suit. I bought it specifically because I wanted people to think I’m stylish. I now own at least four clothing items I only wear for conferences, to be easily recognisable and memorable to people. It worked, but it worked because I attracted you like a carnivorous plant in the forest. You thought “oh, a bright colour” and MUNCH! There I am with my business card. Do you have a narrative job, mate? (It didn’t get me a job.)
I know that these people think they aren’t asking men who speedrun 20 years of learning about skincare and makeup, they just want men to spend money. Because we all know that Giancarlo Esposito employs a stylist, right? Because he has regular public appearances for which this is an expected expenditure? We know that, yes? People just assumed that someone who can spend $600 on a pair of jeans could have spent those coins on an actual good pair of jeans, because apparently it takes nothing to know what works for you and what you feel comfortable in.
Anyone who says “just be fashionable” hasn’t even begun to consider the many pitfalls of dysmorphia, again something women just navigate.
And then we take all of that into account, your body, your knowledge of what style even is, and yes, your money, your will to experiment, we take all of this, and for what? So that we can bind our identity to something that capitalism wants us to bind ourselves to.
Fashion means nothing than what we ascribe to it. It is a way of expression when we make it one, otherwise it’s just something we are sold. Anyone who says that you need to be fashionable is selling you a negative feeling, and we all know from watching ads our entire lives that this actually isn’t how you sell anyone on anything. Look at you, you ugly, dripless fuck, why aren’t you spending your money on looking good? Where’s your respect?
Respect for what, exactly? How did we even think of fashion as a way to turn The Game Awards into a “legitimate” venture? It’s not. We shame people who express their feelings honestly off stage so more ads can run, Keighley begs any millionaire with 5 spare minutes to appear in order to sell an energy drink or a TV show, we watch some trailers. We don’t actually give people the public recognition for their hard work an award should express. Even then, we give awards to people who exploit their workers with endless crunch and harassment. Well done everyone, see you next year. When you dress an asshole up, what you get is a dressed up asshole.
To everyone else, I just want you to feel good. If fashion is something you want to experiment with, no article will need to tell you that. We talk about fashion as a way to express yourself, to have fun and build confidence, and then we shame them for the lack of these skills. You really can’t make it up. An industry obsessed with fun, causing people to fret in any other aspect imaginable.
Ok, I’m okay. I’m good. It’s out of my system now. Phew.