Bored Games

Game on, America

Photo by Robert Stump on Unsplash

Monopoly, the board game, is such an incredibly hyper-American phenomenon because we took something that was originally intended to be a lesson on the evils inherent in capitalism, and not only did we turn that lesson on it's ear, we made the game itself into a sort of cultural juggernaut. I mean, think about it, anything that has attained any high level of cultural significance or popularity will eventually have a Monopoly version of it mass produced and marketed to that very specific niche audience. In doing this, not only has the game itself become firmly and irrevocably enmeshed in our collective consciousness, but this spin-room level perversion of that originally well intentioned lesson has permeated every facet of our culture from sci fi geekdom to epic gamer nerdery and every destination in between.

It's a master class in mass social programming at it's finest if you really think about it. They take something that is undoubtedly culturally significant and twist it to serve their own fractured narrative, and then they make the very thing that was originally intended to be a very pointed critique of capitalism into basically a tenet of the All-American Red Blooded religion of hyper-capitalism. Because, let's be honest now, we ALL know that the real God that America really worships can fold up, neat and green and flat. This All-American amalgamation of God can be tucked away sleekly in a slim leather pouch and carried with each individual penitent everywhere they go in the the foulest imaginable mockery of spiritual totemic symbolism. In God We Trust. That's evil fucking genius personified, right there, folks.

But here's the thing, good people…and really think about this when I ask you this question: Is Monopoly, itself, even a very fun game? I mean, in my own personal experience, it's one of those games you don't play very often and maybe you have some youthful fondness or nostalgia for it and it's every-damn-where you look, in a thousand different iterations, so maybe you allow yourself to believe it'll be fun to play or that maybe it used to be fun to play when you were a kid. Then you talk yourself up enough to actually play it, and you swiftly remember that there are a bajillion good fucking reasons that it is a genuinely terrible game and should never be played by decent and civilized people. Stay with me here and I'll explain.

First things first: It takes forever to set the freakin board up properly. The pieces are fidgety, the money is always stuck together and/or in a jumbled ass mess. The size of the bills is decidedly inconvenient for adult hands, in particular. Nobody ever knows what the bank is supposed to be at the start without googling that shit because you know those fucking instruction sheets disappear with the first opening. Then you FINALLY get allll that shit sorted and you realize, after about an hour and a half into play time, that -holy fuck- you had completely forgotten that it takes like five hours to wrap this goddamn game up. And furthermore, you begin to recall that it inevitably ends the same fucking way every goddamned time; with one selfish, greedy and literal luck of the dice motherfucker owning every single frickin property and business, charging everyone else more money than they can afford to stay in a home or a hotel, and slowly bankrupting everybody to death, one unlucky sucker at a time, until they finally conquer the game and find themselves victorious; resting atop the slain bodies of their fellow players, lounging in a pile of plundered wealth like an engorged sloth, and picking their teeth with the dessicated rib bones of that poor little silver fucking dog. Meanwhile, the cops will throw you right the fuck in jail for any petty ass reason simply because of the literal cards you were dealt (!!) and whether you get out or not is, again, a literal roll of the dice thing. Blind luck. Anybody else feel any ick or skeeve at any of this? Just me?

This is not even yet touching on the fact that at least one player, if not more, will become genuinely irritable and pissed off in the course of an average game, and if you're playing with kids, somebody's gonna fucking cry before it's all said and done. There will be hard feelings. Guaranteed. Thrown metal game pieces, possibly. This does not sound like fun to me. It sounds suspiciously like the very same bullshit that's already going on in our everyday, flesh and blood, live-action IRL world. The stuff that's happening daily, right in front of our burned out fucking faces. More to the point, it feels exactly like that same fucked up bullshit, shined up, draped in a fancy niche wrapper, optimized for demographic market capture, and then sold right the fuck back to me at a premium markup. Now I don't know about you, but for me, that's a little too much on the nose realism for my personal taste in recreational activities. I prefer my escapism with a little more surreality and at least a healthy dash of utter absurdity, thank you very much.

In the absence of absurdist surreality, hit me with some Scrabble any time, any day. Words and letters are my friends. They do not seek to grind me into paste in the name of progress. This is something that I deeply appreciate. But, again, this is my own personal take on it, and certainly one that will most likely find it's detractors once it is released into the ether. That's cool too, babydolls. That's American diversity at its finest. I can dig it. 😎 Happy family game night, America. Roll those fucking bones. ☠️

Hello my dear readers, and as always, thank you much for blessing me with your invaluable time and your precious eyeballs. I appreciate every single one of you more than you could know! Keep your eyes on the prize, my beautiful friends. We have our very own real-life Milburn Pennybags style douchebags to take care of, right here and right now. Don't let them paralyze you with dread. Find that anger and resolve down deep in your gut and do whatever it is that you're able to do. Let someone else worry about the rest. Even the smallest things in aggregate can make a difference in this world. We've beat these same basic-bitch unevolved knuckle draggers back into obscurity before and we can do it again! We must. ❤️ Be good to yourself please.

bPNWc😻

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