Crackdown 3 (Microsoft, 2019)
A Quiet Place (Paramount, 2018)
Most of us exist in the normality of everyday life. We go to work, we see our direct debits come out, we power on. Mediocrity is the general status of our lives. Every now and again, a friend's wedding, a funeral, a birth serves to punctuate what we do, but we endure throughout, nonetheless.
Mediocrity is fine, and it serves to allow us to feel the highs and lows of life. Where mediocrity seems to have no place, however is in criticism. To criticise is to hate, to love, surely?
Where place for someone who shrugs at a film or text because it does not appease nor dislike them?
This piece is to discuss what toxic (and by toxic I mean both pro and con) fandom can do for the mediums. At present, it feels as if culture is determined by the best or the worst in society.
Now, let me not be the first to say that mediocrity can [url=https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1176/mediocrity-of-chinas-films-laid-bare-after-paltry-box-office-takings]hurt[/url] a box office taking, and that the concept of appealing or hitting fans is important. That's not what is being discussed here. The concept here is about saying that calling a title a 'mediocre' or '5/10' seems to hold with it some sort of toxin that requires fans to either adore or despise what has been said.
Mediocrity is fine. By its literal definition.
So, let's move on to titles.
As of writing, I very recently played Crackdown 3, a title I had been awaiting for many many years, specifically because of the way that it was published and [url=https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-06-19-clearing-up-confusion-surrounding-crackdown-3-destruction]marketed[/url] right up until its release. We found it to be such a generic and sagging title.
A Quiet Place also showed up at the same time, having been so highly praised across the board. Yet my wife and I found ourselves giggling throught the course of the film. We didn't care for the main characters who seemed to exist solely for the purpose of falling into every trope we had explored in our lives. When you are literally running the [url=https://medium.com/@TheFilmJournal/updating-the-final-girl-theory-b37ec0b1acf4]final girl theory[/url] you must be aware as to what you aqr making.
This brings me to the crux here. I don't hate either. They're both decent things that will pass time. I wouldn't fight against either. The concern comes from the fact that in our current social media addled landscape, we attach our our identities to games, to films. Because we like them, they represent elements of us. And to a certain extent, this is nothing new, we have always projected ourselves through our media. What concerns now is the attachment of identity to a title. If one despises it, they despise me. There is nothing new about this brand theory, but living in 2019, it has never felt so unhappy. Crackdown 3 is not the best game of the year. A Quiet Place is not the best movie of the year. And that's fine.
