I remember getting my first Nintendo DS. It was on the island Terschelling. It was my 5th birthday and my parents got me a Nintendo DS with Mario Kart DS. This was my first encounter with a digital game. Without knowing it at the time, this DS would decide my social situation later in my life. In this blog I want to explore how a game console, like the Nintendo DS, could change the social situation of a person.
Firstly I want to state some facts about the DS on the Nintendo wiki: the DS was released in Europe on March 11, 2005, it was noted for having two screens (DS: Dual Screen), it was the first system by Nintendo to use Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and with 150 million units sold is the best-selling Nintendo console.
I think by looking at the facts that almost everybody is familiar with the DS, and for people like me for who the DS was their first console, a whole new world opened up. For example the world of Mario. A character many Nintendo games like Mario Bros and Mario Kart revolve around. This character and his games created a community of people who liked these games and wanted to share the love for these games.
Lindgren, the social, the symbolic and Lacan
Lindgren writes the following in Chapter 1 of Digital Media and Society:
“Instead, they argued, a medium is any symbolic structure, or social environment, that in some way, and under certain circumstances, defines human interaction and the production of culture.”
With “they” Lindgren means McLuhan and Neil Postman. According to them a medium can be a social environment. With the introduction of Nintendo Wi-Fi you could even play with people al around the world, this created that social environment, maybe not with words, but you could play against people you would normally have never played with. The defining of the human interaction and the production of culture is also created by the games and the DS as medium, for example the communication of the love for the DS via reddit. r/NintendoDS is a subreddit created in May 22, 2009. This is a fan-run community for people who like to communicate about the Nintendo DS.
For me it changed my social environment because the friends I made where also kids who played the DS or other games. It was my introduction to gaming and made me someone who would always love to game. In that way it changed the human interaction and my culture because the games on the DS is what I loved and made me become familiar with the gaming culture.
Lindgren also mentions the symbolic level:
“at which every medium is constituted by a certain systematic set of rules and codes in the form of vocabulary, grammar, and other conventions.” (Chapter 1).
An example of “grammar” and “vocabulary” with the DS are the buttons a, b, x, y. These are the buttons on the right side of the DS and you would only know how to use these and where they are located if you use the medium. Another example is Mario Kart DS. If I say “Use the blue shield with L to hit Luigi in first place.” A person who never played Mario Kart DS would be completely mind blown of what is happening, but if you played the game you exactly know what is meant. Its
“about mastering the social rules for when to use them and how to make them mean certain things. As we learn these skills or attitudes, we are at the same time socialised and acculturated into the symbolic environment of the medium. In this sense, a medium is quite similar to a language or a culture that is used to make sense of the world.” (Lindgren, Chapter 1).
If the language is learnt the world of, for example, Mario opens up to you. It’s like you are a baby all over again in the, what Lacan called, mirror phase and transitioning into the symbolic order because you begin to learn the language. In the mirror phase you have the buttons, but you don’t know what they do and when to use them for what, there is only a black mirror starring back at you and only by turning the DS on you can begin to learn. While playing you know what the buttons do and what they are for and when to use them. Now you can make sense of the world of Mario Kart DS and express your knowledge and share it with the people around you who also know the language. This is the symbolic order according to Lacan. Zizek writes multiple examples applying Lacan’s philosophy on films, I used his book How to read Lacan for this example of Lacan and the Nintendo DS.
Because I learnt the language of Mario Kart DS I could communicate and make friends who spoke this same language. You both exactly knew what was going on and thus could play together. This also contributes to the making of a community, because all people in the community speak the same language. For me speaking this language meant feeling part of this community.
The Nintendo DS made me friends, but also made me a Mario fan and to this day I still feel a bit of nostalgia playing for example Mario Kart, or Mario Odyssey on the Nintendo Switch. The vocabulary is now much wider with new mechanics and things added to the games, but the essentials of the time of the DS are al still there. The community also still exist, but now with the name r/NintendoSwitch. The encounter with the DS in my early childhood not only made me friends and part of a community, but also a made me a life long Mario fan (I hope).
Conclusion
To conclude, a game console could change the social situation of a person because you learn a new vocabulary and grammar you can share with people who also speak this language and become part of a community on for example reddit where these people with the same language can communicate.
Bibliography
Lindgren, Simon. Digital Media and Society. SAGE Publications, 2017, Chapter 1.
Mario Kart DS. Nintendo, 2005. Nintendo DS.
Žižek, Slavoj. How to read Lacan. W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.
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