There are a few big franchises out there that make a lot of money. Call of Duty or FIFA soccer bring in big vidya bucks, and regarding Hollywood, Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies used to be big earners, albeit not so much recently. I once thought that people who consume this kind of material are complete bottom-feeders, i.e. whatever kind of slop is popular they flock to, simply because they are so easily controllable and seek the approval of an unknown majority.

A few weeks ago, though, I had a most remarkable encounter. I ended up being stuck in a meeting with a tech bro. He did not just want to flip open his laptop and pretend to work or go through his emails. Instead, he asked me if I liked playing video games. This is a tricky question because I obviously cannot mention any adult VNs or niche Japanese games, so I brought up The Witcher III but also Devil May Cry V. The latter seemed unknown to him, albeit it was not exactly a niche title. Then I asked him which games he likes to play.

I was a bit taken aback when he told me about some triple-A slop. What surprised me most, though, was that he mentioned the upcoming Justice League game — I was not even aware of it. He said he has been looking forward to it as he likes those Batman games and wanted to even upgrade his PC for it. This struck me as remarkable because I thought those people did not really care about what they play. However, beefing up your PC so that you can play the next goyslop game at a higher frame rate means that you make a deliberate decision to play this kind of crap.

My new working hypothesis is not that normie gamers play anything advertising tells them to. Instead, it seems they just completely lack curiosity and are only aware of the most advertised products, of which they eventually chose some. Thus, their horizon is simply extremely limited. While this gives them more credit than viewing them as automata who are devoid of a inner monologue and merely react to external stimuli, it is still quite damning. It is even worse when it comes to movies: Imagine being a genuine fan of the MCU instead of just viewing it as disposable entertainment! Anyway, it could also be the case that this guy was a huge fan of the Rance series or that every MCU fanboy is secretly into arthouse movies, but this does not seem very likely.