Fighting for the farm
This week: Plastic surgeons, reply-guys, Russian TikTok teens, the last of the FarmVillers and a plague of livestreams
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Farmville has been a punchline to most of us for years, if we ever have occasion to think about it at all. But for Christina Cragg, the Facebook game was a rare digital refuge — her “little happy place.” A pixelated port in the internet storm.
So when the game’s maker, Zynga, announced that it planned to shutter the original Flash game on January 2, Christina rallied to the defense of her ice cream trees, cabbages, sheep and chickens. First she called Zynga to express her displeasure. Later she launched a petition to save the game. And in the 20 days since it went offline, she’s continued posting it regularly to Zynga’s Facebook page.
“I know it seems hopeless,” she wrote in one update on Change.org. “But if we don’t try then we will always wonder.”
What becomes of the last, lonely diehards who love discontinued websites long beyond their deaths? (What becomes of anyone who can’t accept that a thing in which they’ve irrationally invested so much has, in fact, ended?) I read Daniel Victor’s article about the last of the Farmvillers in the New York Times three weeks ago, and immediately wondered how they would fare over the coming weeks and months. Most people adapt, you’d assume. But the last of the Farmvillers are a special breed — unusually devoted to a widely reviled game, and often fairly set in their habits.
This is evident from both the thousands of comments on Cragg’s petition and the laments of posters in groups like “Life After Farmville,” a sort of Facebook “rehab center” (their term!) for FV refugees. Many of its 2,000 members are elderly or lonely or bored, and you get the sense the game filled a particular hole for them that they fear other games won’t replace.
“i,m old and it,s all the enjoyment i have.please bring it back,” one woman wrote.
Said another (all sic): “It was more than a game to me,it was my friend.I made a lot of friends because of fv and through groups about fv.I don't know what to do now.”
The moderators of the group have floated one idea: They’ve encouraged members to move on and join another game, called Taonga, which is basically Farmville set in the south Pacific. Some have taken them up on it. But some — the real fanatics in the bunch — are undeterred, still reminiscing about their lost farms and plotting for an imagined future where Zynga brings the game back. Alternately, they’ve turned their loss into a grievance: “totally unfair” / “we invested in this” / “Zynga makes me sick.”
For those folks, at least, Farmville still isn’t over. And it’s hard to guess when it will be (!). On Jan. 11, Cragg posted an update to her petition, encouraging signees to keep sharing.
“I have tagged Zynga and emailed there (sic) support department with this petition and if more of us do it perhaps they will listen,” she’d written earlier in the month. “Together we can make a difference.”
“I am making my voice heard loud an (sic) clear,” one woman responded. “How dare you I will fight you until the end.”
If you read anything this weekend
This sweeping essay on the uncanniness of a livestreamed insurrection. The Capitol rioters didn’t just break windows, threaten lives and tromp around the Capitol — they posted hundreds of hours of evidence. Many of us saw some of those clips in passing, but ProPublica downloaded and geotagged 500 videos from Parler (select “inside Capitol” for the crazy shit) and then apparently made Alec MacGillis watch/analyze a whole bunch of them (!!). [Alex MacGillis / ProPublica]
This post-mortem on the rise and fall of Parler. Speaking of Parler, if you read one last article on the social-network-turned-pandora’s-box, might as well make it this one. It’s informed by both months of reporting about the site and months of time spent on it, as a user — meaning that if you did not have the, uh, pleasure of signing up for an ironic account, you’ll still get a good sense of the site’s norms/culture. [Kaitlyn Tiffany / The Atlantic]
This unifying theory of “nothingness” as ascendant (and all-encompassing) cultural trend. I love everything Kyle Chayka writes, truly, because he’s so good at identifying and naming ubiquitous phenomena you’d somehow never recognize yourself. This piece is no different, re: succulents, Soylent, smooth brain, sensory deprivation and the impulse for “negation” that unites them. Brb — gotta put on some Phoebe Bridgers and make hot chocolate. [Kyle Chayka / NYT]
This alarming profile of an Instagram plastic surgeon who might also be a psychopath. I wouldn’t call this light reading exactly?? — but in this environment, the vexingly unresolved saga of an seedy, eccentric (and maybe worse) influencer feels like an indulgence. [Katherine Laidlaw / Wired]
This quick check-in with Trump’s reply-guys, now that Trump himself is gone. Yes, I am doing that thing where I link to my own stories. But this was extremely fun to write and I’m (candidly! whatever!) p. happy with this one. [Me / OneZero]
And now for something completely different
(In case not obvious from the context: a Russian teen teaches other Russian teens how to pretend to be an obnoxious American at pro-Navalny protests. I laughed!)
Postscripts
Bardcore. “Alt-tech.” Inauguration mittens. The Snapchat gold rush. A very good profile of Amanda Gorman (and the transcript of her poem, which still gives me goosebumps). The Facebook group where it’s always 2009. Some early evidence that the Trump Twitter ban worked. This is not the third, fourth or 10th most pressing lesson of the insurrection, but damn: facial recognition is pervasive/powerful.
This week, in everything online now requires moderation: merch sites, dating sites, Spotify & Substack. Even Biden’s website is way better. “You do not fuck around with these people in public.” If nothing else comes of the sea shanty meme, I am delighted to see these obscure musicologists get their moment in the sun. Last but not least, an appreciation for Wikipedia — perhaps the only dream of the early internet to come to fruition.
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— Caitlin