Thread by @SethAbramson

(THREAD) This is a very brief thread about the new PROOF series on mobile gaming, about how it ties into my other writing and research, and about how I got into this subject—a relatively recent development. I think some people will be surprised at where this new series is headed.

1/ Readers who know anything about me—see bio below—know I used to review video games at Indiewire; I teach gaming (among many other subjects) at UNH; and I'm a professor of digital culture who's extremely invested in "post-internet" (internet age) theory. sethabramson.net/bio

2/ One thing I was *never* interested in was mobile gaming. And if you're reading this thinking, "Yeah, I am *super* not interested in that topic," please know... that was me. That was me *despite* my background with gaming. That was me up until the pandemic began in March 2020.

3/ My issues with mobile gaming were the issues many people had/have: (1) that's not what I use my phone for; (2) the screen is too small; (3) playing games on your phone isn't healthy; and, most importantly, (4) mobile gaming is simply *bad*—the games are all inartful *garbage*.

4/ But as will surprise no one, because I'm a professional writer and much of my writing is done on social media, (a) I have a short attention span, and (b) I'm on my phone a *lot*. So at some point after the pandemic began, I decided to see if there were any *good* mobile games.

5/ By "good" I mean... art. I mean games that contain beauty, mystery, good music, ingenious gameplay—games that you can *briefly* indulge in to bring some much-needed distraction and joy into your life in the midst of a global pandemic and when you're on your cell phone anyway.

6/ After the pandemic began, I struggled—as we all did. I felt a little lost. And I actually desperately needed something to distract me for brief spurts. I'd gotten to the point at which console gaming didn't work for me because I didn't have the patience to play a 40-hour game.

7/ The first game I really remember discovering was a card game: "Meteorfall." I found it when I looked up an article on whether there were good games to play on your phone. I played this game and it was... incredible. It took my mind off my worries and it was legitimately *fun*.

8/ One thing I teach my UNH students is it takes time to find art that matches your personality/lifestyle. I've encountered so many writers—as peers (e.g. at the Iowa Writers' Workshop) and as students—who *think* they want to be one type of writer but it doesn't make them happy.

9/ So many people trying to be poets would enjoy writing fiction more because it actually fits how they think, write, and live. And vice versa. In the 2010s, I published six books of poetry and *never* read nonfiction. Poetry was my genre. Now I'm a nonfiction writer exclusively.

10/ When my attention span got short after I joined social media, I thought, "Oh, I'm too old for video games now." In fact, console games were just a bad fit for my lifestyle. But mobile games? They just... *fit*. I think that may be true for many people who don't now play them.

11/ Sometimes I write about mobile games and someone you wouldn't think would love them—say a grandma with a very busy life in retirement—will tell me they love one of the now-popular card games (like Threes or Solitairica). They've found a piece of art that fits their lifestyle.

12/ PROOF is a publication about hope—not anxiety. It's about the evidence we have that life can be better than it is. That the world can be more just, more filled with beauty, more filled with sense. I investigative 1/6 not *knowing* justice will be done but *hoping* it will be.

13/ By the same token, when I write about mobile gaming I'm writing about it as a poet, a critic, a curator, a journalist, an editor, a professor, and someone who has at various points desperately searched for ways to bring a little more beauty and fun and optimism into his life.

14/ When the new mobile gaming series launches at PROOF, it'll cover every type of game—including, I promise, games that'd make your life more enjoyable even if you've never played a mobile game. What you/we often think of when we think of mobile games aren't what I'm looking at.

15/ So while underscoring that PROOF subscribers *can* use their account settings to subscribe or unsubscribe to any of the sections at PROOF, I do hope folks—even those who think, as I did, that they dislike mobile games—will give the new series a chance. sethabramson.substack.com

PS/ One of the best things about starting a new series at PROOF is that as the PROOF community grows, the conversations that take place there also grow. When one writes about mobile gaming, it's a great opportunity for a whole community to share/discuss their own favorite games.