I recently started playing a word game on my phone again. It serves the dual purpose of making me think I am preventing dementia and distracting me from getting my short story finished. It has proven effective doing at least one of those.
The game is Zen Word, and it has its ups and downs. On the plus side, you can skip the ads that periodically pop up by closing the app and reopening it. Unfortunately, you are subjected to bad poetry after finishing 20 rounds. It’s not even good bad poetry, just tepid nonsense about clouds, twigs, or some other nature bullshit.
One feature of the game is a recurring contest where players are ranked by how many rounds they have completed. There are only 50 players in a group so no one need face a big-picture insignificance that might drive them to self-harm.
“Ooh neat, a chance to be somebody,” I said and went at the competition with gusto.
If you know me, this behavior may puzzle you because I have no alpha aspirations so I rarely feel the need to compete. However, I am an attention whore with oodles of immaturity. I like to put a visual in people’s heads and take pleasure in their discomfort. There is no creative genius needed, only the commitment to be at least a little bit icky.
To accomplish this, I chose the user name “Uncut Dwarf.” Regrettably, this meant I was fetishizing little people. It was not my aim to cause offense and I certainly would not want to insult Peter or his Dinklage. I had a desire to present powerful imagery, and that left me no choice but to jettison any pretense of sensitivity.
It was imperative that I put myself at the top of that leaderboard. If I were somewhere in the middle, few people would notice me. In the number one slot, everyone would know that this was Uncut Dwarf’s world and they were just living in it.
Despite what you may think, I am not on some sort of ego trip. This is not about me. I am not an uncut dwarf. A giant with nullification might think I am, but most people with knowledge on the subject would agree that I am neither.
After close to an hour of vigorous gameplay, I began to notice something. I was not moving up any higher than third place. Every time I cleared a round, the two players above me did so as well. Of course, this could have been a simple case of three people playing to win. I have no evidence otherwise, and if I were less given to paranoia, I would leave it at that.
Hear me out. What do the makers of Zen World want? Money, either from me directly or from their advertisers. Since they seem unwilling to fix the hole that allows me to do an end run around watching ads, at least they can keep me playing. If I immediately secure first place, I would declare victory then go waste time somewhere else. If my opponents were truly unbeatable, I would give up.
Their best-case scenario is between the two extremes. A group of human players might accomplish this, but a bunch of bots would be guaranteed. So, what does it matter as long as I am having a good time? It wouldn’t if my goal were simply to give my brain some needed exercise, but that isn’t enough. I want people to see “Uncut Dwarf” and get a mental picture they would rather not have. Bots don’t care. “Uncut Dwarf,” “Taylor Swift,” and “Grumpy Cat” are all the same when it comes to their reaction.
That makes me wonder how much of our online interactions are manufactured to manipulate us. When I play a game, does the game play me? Maybe or maybe not, but there is comfort in giving myself star billing in some unpleasantness rather than think about everything else going on around me.