Many people will debate whether or not video-games are art; however there tends to be a missing aspect to the discussion which is the role of culture and its perceived high and low forms. Art is commonly seen a s a form of high culture or a culture that is appealing to a refined and educated consumer; where popular works are seen as low culture and appealing to masses of consumers.
Essentially a refined and educated consumer will have a particular view of a piece of media (often academically referred to as ‘the text’*) through their knowledge of other related media and analytical training or conditioning. Thus, the refined and educated consumer will have a consumption of media that is consistent with high culture. They will take in and notice subtleties of a media that masses of consumers would not notice, or find confusing, or outright disturbing. It should also be noted that the refined and educated consumer is most likely to provide feedback and influence regarding the media (create additional works of related media or ‘text’).
When the masses of consumers entertain themselves with a particular piece of media it can be said to be ‘popular’. Since these people are not as refined and educated as consumers associated with high culture; it can be implied that they only have a cursory understanding of what is actually being depicted in the media. The creator and the refined and educated consumer with the high cultural understanding of the media are dismayed when their subtleties are misunderstood or ‘the message is lost’. It should also be noted that in contrast to refined and educated consumers, the masses of consumers are not likely to create their own media or create media lacking in the subtleties or are imitations of popular media or don't provide any meaningful feedback or influence.
However there is considerable dissonance in what is culturally valued and what is monetarily valued. Pop culture being enjoyed and consumed, almost by definition, by a large number of people often equates to monetary success. Yet this monetary success often comes at the simplification of the media and sometimes the disdain of refined and educated consumers (leading to the concept of ‘selling out’). In a sort of way the high cultural value of a media scales inversely with its popularity, and often its monetary success.
In my next post, I’ll go over what this means for video games. I’m sure you can already guess that the popularity of video games means less of an acceptance as an ‘Art’ form but there is more to the story than just popularity and acceptance.
* I prefer the term media as opposed to text. The academic definition of ‘the text’ can actually mean books, movies, posters, artistic works, criticisms, video games, blog posts, pictures, reviews, live-streams, music, performance ect. It does not need to be textual (or written as words) to be text.
Essentially a refined and educated consumer will have a particular view of a piece of media (often academically referred to as ‘the text’*) through their knowledge of other related media and analytical training or conditioning. Thus, the refined and educated consumer will have a consumption of media that is consistent with high culture. They will take in and notice subtleties of a media that masses of consumers would not notice, or find confusing, or outright disturbing. It should also be noted that the refined and educated consumer is most likely to provide feedback and influence regarding the media (create additional works of related media or ‘text’).
When the masses of consumers entertain themselves with a particular piece of media it can be said to be ‘popular’. Since these people are not as refined and educated as consumers associated with high culture; it can be implied that they only have a cursory understanding of what is actually being depicted in the media. The creator and the refined and educated consumer with the high cultural understanding of the media are dismayed when their subtleties are misunderstood or ‘the message is lost’. It should also be noted that in contrast to refined and educated consumers, the masses of consumers are not likely to create their own media or create media lacking in the subtleties or are imitations of popular media or don't provide any meaningful feedback or influence.
However there is considerable dissonance in what is culturally valued and what is monetarily valued. Pop culture being enjoyed and consumed, almost by definition, by a large number of people often equates to monetary success. Yet this monetary success often comes at the simplification of the media and sometimes the disdain of refined and educated consumers (leading to the concept of ‘selling out’). In a sort of way the high cultural value of a media scales inversely with its popularity, and often its monetary success.
In my next post, I’ll go over what this means for video games. I’m sure you can already guess that the popularity of video games means less of an acceptance as an ‘Art’ form but there is more to the story than just popularity and acceptance.
* I prefer the term media as opposed to text. The academic definition of ‘the text’ can actually mean books, movies, posters, artistic works, criticisms, video games, blog posts, pictures, reviews, live-streams, music, performance ect. It does not need to be textual (or written as words) to be text.
