Remember That Joy Is An Act Of Resistance

I’d like to tell you about a particularly juvenile series of events I had lately while playing a game. This will come back to an earnest point about video games and writing eventually, but I seemingly need to do something jokey before I enter earnest mode. I know it’s not super healthy but there will be a point to it.

Recently, I played through Sniper Elite: Resistance, the latest instalment of the long-running WWII shooter series from Rebellion. For those unfamiliar, Sniper Elite combines third-person action with first-person sniping, and is a straight-laced fare, apart from its gory X-ray kill cams. Periodically, time will slow down the insides of the soon-to-be dead Nazi is shown. You see the bullet or explosion shrapnel burst through their head, vital organs, or most infamously, their testicles. It was the right Game Pass game at the right time for me. I wasn’t especially hankering for another Sniper Elite game, but when its January 28 release date came around, I was having an urge to kill virtual Nazis. Who’s to say why, after absorbing the news of the week prior to the game’s release, I would feel this way. A real stumper.

While playing Sniper Elite, I got a song stuck in my head. It was a song I hadn’t thought of in a while. It’s going to take a little explanation but it's easy to see the correlation. You see, back in 2012, a couple of guys recorded a series of cover songs under the name My Dick. They were called this because they replaced most of the lyrics of the songs with the phrase ‘my dick.’ Yes, it’s extremely lowbrow and one-note, but you have to admire the commitment to the bit. And you have to admire their rendition of their rendition of the 1978 Gerry Rafferty classic Baker Street. You may not know the name, but you’ll certainly know the iconic sax riff. In Baker Dick (they’re all named like that, of course), there is the same understated intro then that sax, now accompanied by the singer following along in falsetto quoting Friedrich Nietzsche. Just kidding, he is obviously repeatedly belting out the phrase ‘my dick.’ It’s still funny. Just a great bit of sophomoric humour that has lodged deep inside my brain instead of something more useful.

For an insight into my brain, start the video for Baker Dick above, then start the video below, and revel in the unabashed stupidity.

I think what led me to installing Sniper Elite, turning the difficulty right down, and start acting as a one-man army with a penchant for aiming below the belt, was that I was seeking comfort by doing something silly with my favourite hobby to combat in the ever-increasing mountain of bleak news, whether it be imminent global threats, or something closer to home. When I do feel like that, I go through a bit of a thought cycle in regard to my spare time (and sometimes my life in general, but I’ll save that for therapy). It goes like this:

1. Why am I spending my spare time playing and thinking critically about video games, then occasionally writing about them? Shouldn’t be doing something more capital-I Important? 
2. What could I, the hobbyist who writes comedy and video games criticism, write that is Important?  
3. What’s the point of any of this?
4. Oh yeah, I like it. I think it is fun. That’s the point. Sometimes it’s good to do things you enjoy. 

If you want an example of how this works, I started this article a couple of weeks back and got about halfway through. I was still at step four and had found some time to write, which can be hard as it requires both time and some remaining spoons at the end of the week. Then my mind started the cycle anew, and I didn’t finish it. I’m unlikely to write many pieces this year and this one talks about dicks and balls way too much. Too silly, certainly not important, let alone Important. Then I saw this thread on Bluesky from Rami Ismail, one of the most prominent faces of the indie games scene. I implore you to read it. It’s a beautiful story that touches on the same kind of thing I’m trying to spit out here, but far, far more cogently. Rami has grown to be more than a game dev and consultant, he’s the biggest advocate for Arabic representation and fighting Islamophobia in games. And he also struggles with making silly things against a backdrop of constant tragedies and genocide. 

There’s something else from a band that occasionally rattles through my head. Don’t worry, we’re firmly in the earnest zone. The phrase ‘joy is an act of resistance’ was coined by the Toi Derricotte in the poem The Telly Cycle. It has become a popular phrase in social justice circles. Poetry isn’t where I came across the phrase (surely not a surprise by now), but from the British rock band Idles, who named their second album ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance.’ I’ve got to say, it’s a much better thing to have stuck in my mind than the works of My Dick. It’s a good thing to remember if you’re worried about the frivolity of your pursuits, whether it be gaming, writing, or anything else. The people who are trying to destroy the world for their own benefit and deeply miserable people, and they aim to make everyone so miserable that they can’t fight back. So please, wring some joy out of anything you can, or better yet, provide a source of joy for others. Video games are a reliable source of joy for me, and I’m sure they are for you, too. Rebellion’s goofy insistence on putting graphically violent nut shots in their game was a source of joy for me. As were those two guys who decided over a decade ago to record an entire album of covers with exactly one joke repeated ad nauseam. And I hope you got something out of this, even if it was a laugh and a reduced amount of respect for me after watching those two videos together.