Ready Player One gave me a weird nostalgia trip into the past with a side of depression about our future. Other than a little Pac Man and Space Invaders, I didn’t play video or arcade games. My relationship with 1980’s pop culture is complicated by my having been an unhappy teen during that decade. I disconnected as much as I could from the time and place in which I existed. I loved very early MTV, but abandoned it when it became dominated by arena bands, hair bands, and metal. Though I didn’t get any rosy glow from the constant references to the entertainment of my teen years, it was all familiar and quickly built a world in my head.
Side trip: I was a little disappointed that Cline left out the original Johnny Depp, Adam Ant. OASIS could have used a little Desperate But Not Serious. I guess that’s one of the differences between being a girl in the early 80’s and being a boy. If you want to go down an entertaining rabbit hole, check out this playlist of early MTV videos.
Cline does a great job of creating complicated worlds that don’t get bogged down in details. He creates a good reason for focusing on a decade with which most of us are familiar, and it creates a shortcut for the world of OASIS. His dystopian reality feels like a possible future to our present. But I don’t think our actual dystopian future is going to include anything as good as OASIS that would be available to as many people. Online streaming is as close as I can get to OASIS in our reality, and it’s getting more expensive. A light seasoning of serious issues – poverty, race, disconnect, loneliness, and corporate over reach keep Ready Player One grounded. Wade is playing games and re-enacting movies, but it’s life or death for him.
If you feel tempted to see Pixels this weekend, read Ready Player One instead. The Pixels link is NSFW, but very funny.
Oh! I meant to include this video, which gave me back my warm and fuzzies after I started thinking about the overwhelming challenges facing the world. Schoolhouse Rock was the best.
Schoolhouse Rock was the very best.
I like your thoughts on this book. I read it a few years ago, and when I think about it my strongest memory, outside the dense cultural references, was the sense of loneliness throughout.