On Coping with Pandemic Stress

I've recently started reflecting on the media I consumed over quarantine, and how it speaks to larger truths about how we use media to cope with stress or anxiety. In the past few months, my cinematic preferences have been all over the place: Queens Gambit; Parasite; Too Hot to Handle; Bridgerton; Animal Crossing. All of these are forms of escapism in their own ways: in Too Hot to Handle, contestants are brought onto an island resort, and, tempted by the fake tans and hourglass figures of the other contestants, they are told not to engage in any sexual activity if they want to win the show; this show, albeit functioning on a very foolish premise, was a playful escape into a tropical universe where their only worldly worry was not having sex.

Perhaps one of my favorite forms of escapism— particularly when it was released in March through the end of summer — was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Growing up, I had played the other Animal Crossing games, so this was a welcome retreat to nostalgia. 

It was also a great escape into a world where I had some semblance of what was going to happen every day and where I could actually interact with other beings (though it's worth considering that those beings are all anthropomorphic animals.) Every day, I would water my island's flowers; tend to my animal neighbors (my favorite neighbor was Sherb— this adorable light blue goat that woke up late and ate tons of food); improve my island with some refreshing, minimalist interior and exterior design; and pay my dues to Tom Nook, the disturbingly realistic capitalism tycoon raccoon that will bash your kneecaps in if you don't pay rent on time. 

Looking back on it, the game wasn't particularly eventful— and that was the point. It was a way for me to live out the idyllic life I had meant to have during my summer break: just tending to my plants and talking to friends. It wasn't an extreme form of escapism in any way, too, because there were allusions to reality with Tom Nook's ever-incurring debt and having to de-clutter your pockets every once in a while. But it was a subtle, pastoral distortion of my reality— and that's exactly what we all needed during quarantine.