Trigger Warnings in Video Games, Alan Wake, and Palestine
For the past couple of weeks, I've been working with game developers, accessibility workers, and mental health providers to help make it easier to know when a video game might have content that could trigger PTSD or another mental health issue.
Today, that went live with ~30 games.
Speaking of, I just played through both Alan Wake Remastered and Alan Wake II. They’re both so good. If you’ve been waiting to see reviews about them before diving in, go for it.
Also, just like any Remedy Entertainment game, the soundtrack is amazing. It’s honestly most of what I’ve been listening to lately.
You might be asking while reading this why I didn’t send out a newsletter over the last two months.
As I began to write something, the situation in Israel and Palestine started to worsen.
For those who don’t know, my undergraduate work was focused on Palestine. I have Lebanese family, too, meaning this region of the world is precious to me. It’s why I learned Arabic and why it hurt so much to end my first run at grad school.
Regardless of my studies, I wasn’t sure how to handle the situation in a newsletter. And, frankly, as time went on, I became incredibly depressed. It’s hard not to be.
What I will say is that what is happening is wrong. People are committing hate crimes against Muslims and Jews here in the US and abroad, something it seems our politicians are more than happy to stir up.
On a bigger level, the US, Israel, and other allied countries have violated international and humanitarian law multiple times. There’s no reason why hospitals, ambulances, or other areas declared off-limits on an international level should be being targeted, bombed, or raided. Period. And, with or without a war, there’s no reason to institute an apartheid or to frame an occupier/occupied dynamic as an even-keeled war.
As Harvey Milk once said,
“It takes no compromise to give people their rights… it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.”
It isn’t rocket science to say that people should be free. I hope we can agree that shouldn’t be a controversial statement.
If you have feedback or anything you’d like to share, feel free to reach out to me on social media or by email (all linked here). Please note that I’m not interested in debating the situation in Israel and Palestine, though. Thanks in advance for respecting that boundary.
Talk to y’all soon!
Grayson