Ready Player One: Escaping Escapism

I cannot lie: I’ve never been much for gaming culture, comic books, or anime. I cannot say a single intelligent thing about the Atari 2600, and nary can I tell the difference between a member of the X-Men and a WWE wrestler. My video game library—when I still had one—consisted of such classic titles as MLB Slugfest and ATV Offroad Fury 2 for the Playstation 2, and my favorite morning cartoon was Arthur on PBS. In short, I’m about the last person who should have enjoyed Ernest Cline’s ode to nerd culture, the cult-classic 2011 novel, Ready Player One.

But seriously, I loved this book.

As someone who spends a fair amount of time online, running into forum users and YouTube commenters referencing Cline’s novel has become a common experience for me over the past few years. Watching a video clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? “READY PLAYER ONE BROUGHT ME HERE!” Listening to Oingo Boingo’s Dead Man’s Party (one of my favorite tunes)? “OMG WHO’S HERE FROM READY PLAYER ONE?!” It wasn’t until I discovered that Steven Spielberg, my all-time favorite director, was heading-up the Ready Player One movie that I decided it was high time I saw what all the hype was about.

Is Ready Player One the most expertly crafted novel you’ll ever read? Absolutely not. The diction is simple, the dialogue can sometimes feel cliché, and occasionally Ernest Cline’s real-world opinions seem to bust clumsily into his narrative, masquerading as the musings of the novel’s protagonist, Wade Watts. This feels especially evident during the story’s set-up, when Watts—known mostly by his online avatar, Parzival—goes on an impromptu rant against organized religion that feels more like something lifted from a thirteen-year-old’s post on reddit’s atheism forum. But, the story was compelling and a heck of a lot of fun, so I was willing to forgive and forget.

At this point, many of you are probably wondering why I felt compelled to write a review of a seven-year-old novel just days before the release of its reimagining as a multi-million-dollar blockbuster. One reason is that I’d rather be doing just about anything other than coursework for my MDIv program. But the other reason—the better reason—is that I actually feel like Ready Player One has a lot more to say about the 2010’s than it does the 1980’s.

At its heart, Ready Player One is about the joys—and dangers—of escapism. For those who have not read the book or seen any of the constantly-airing TV spots, the basic premise of the story is that a Jobs-esque tech-visionary named James Halliday has posthumously launched a Mad Mad Mad Mad World-type treasure hunt for a video game “easter egg” hidden inside the “Oasis,” a virtual world available to all of humanity via the internet. By promising billions of dollars and god-like power to the man or woman who finds the egg, Halliday sparks a cutthroat race involving riddles, puzzles, and knowledge of 80’s pop-culture—all taking place within a virtual world. Halliday’s contest, as well as the fact that most of the social and business elements of day-to-day life take place within the Oasis, ensure that the majority of humanity is perennially plugged-in, which is apparently a good thing, considering the real world (circa 2045) is nothing less than a dystopian hell-hole, having fallen victim to about every social, political, and natural malady imaginable.

The novel’s conclusion is both satisfying and inspirational, as Wade Watts—a man who had devoted every waking moment towards building up a fake version of himself in a fake reality—realizes that it is only the real world, not the virtual one, that is ultimately capable of offering fulfillment. And what is the fulfillment Watts finds at the end of the contest? Why, none other than love, of course! True love. Affection. A reason to wake up in the morning. A reason to hope. A reason to turn away from the virtual world. A reason to embrace reality.

What’s wrong with this? Well, nothing—at least on the surface. Cline’s message is actually quite noble. If you are someone who runs away from the real world because of fear, anxiety, or hatred-of-self, understand that reality is worth confronting, and that it is ultimately reality that can offer life’s greatest treasures: love and friendship. Cool stuff, right?

Well, almost.

The bottom line is that most of us do not live in either the “Oasis” or the real world, but rather somewhere in-between. We’ve tasted love. We’ve known friendship. And in those ecstatic times, Facebook suddenly paled, Twitter felt redundant, and our mobile devices seemed like deterrents from what was in front of us: love. The greatest emotion. True, overpowering, real.

But the truth is that love, as an overwhelming, butterflies-in-the-stomach emotion, is fleeting. Even the healthiest of marriages and the greatest of friendships grow trite and routine at times. A newly-married couple won’t make googly eyes at each other forever, and best friends won’t always feel attached at the hip. Does this mean that the married couple has fallen “out of love?” That the two friends should start combing their Facebook pages for replacements? Of course not. Love, as a virtue, can exist despite intense emotions or lack thereof. It takes perseverance and dedication, yes, but love cannot fail as long as we daily make the sometimes difficult decision to choose love over apathy, pride, and indifference. We all know this to be true.

But we don’t always act like we know it. My concern with Ernest Cline’s take-home message at the conclusion of Ready Player One is that it sets unnecessary parameters. Have you fallen deeply in love with someone? Then looks like you won’t be needing this silly “virtual” reality anymore! But what if you haven’t “found” love? What if your life is rife with all sorts of anxiety and suffering, and you struggle to feel love from anyone, especially yourself? What if you feel alone day-in and day-out? Is it then okay to embrace escapism?

Unequivocally (if not unknowingly), our culture has answered this question with a resounding yes! We are a society that not only routinely embraces escapism, but actually celebrates it. How often do we speak of Netflix “binge-watching” as if it is a totally normal pursuit? A normal antidote for the boredom of life? Just finished watching ten episodes of Stranger Things in one day? Then how about these other titles? Texting, Snapchat, Instagram—all of these are advertised as ways to connect with the real world, but we know that they are just rabbit-holes that lead to escapism. Karl Marx once called religion the “opium of the people.” Is it possible that we now live in a world where technological escapism is the new opiate? Suddenly, the future world of the “Oasis” feels very close to home.

In Ready Player One, Ernest Cline alludes to the fact that the world as a whole has gone down the metaphorical toilet in no small part because everyone is so busy running from their problems in a virtual wonderland. Yes, I suppose this can be viewed as a “chicken-or-the-egg scenario”—i.e. did the world turn to the Oasis because it became so miserable, or did the world become so miserable because it turned to the Oasis? But Cline seems to leave little doubt in his belief that the real world, albeit big and scary, cannot be willfully neglected simply due to it being big and scary. It must be confronted.

And this is the question I raise for all of us to consider: are we confronting reality, or are we escaping it? We cannot confront reality only when it is convenient, when it feels appropriate, or when it seems to have something nice to return to us. We cannot take advantage of reality only when we smell political opportunism or a chance for self-aggrandizement. We cannot only pretend that reality exists when we feel we no longer need the crutch of escapism. We must confront it every single day, even when it is painful. Even when it seems to augment our suffering. Even when it leads us to encountering our flaws, our insecurities, and our failings. A bald man does himself no favors by slapping on a brown toupee and declaring himself John Stamos. Similarly, a man whose wife and kids are driving him nuts does himself no good by playing Madden until everyone falls asleep.

In Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, it may be the virtual world where players gain experience points, but it is in reality—the physical world—where human beings learn and grow. And despite what the novel may inadvertently suggest, opportunity for growth and the escape from the shackles of escapism itself is not only for a select few who have found something in the real world worth living for. Rather, it is for each and every one of us—the feeble and the vulnerable and the depressed and the anxious alike. No man can be thought an island. It is through the rejection of the apathy of escapism that we can begin to understand how much we truly need each other--how much we can benefit from seeing our faults and the faults of others through unimpeded eyes, through caring eyes, through God's eyes. It may seem scary at first, but it is only once we are all outside of the fake world of escapism that we are able to see each other not as avatars with skills and levels, but as human beings with the dignity afforded to each one of us.

I cannot wait to see Ready Player One in theaters, and can only hope that Steven Spielberg takes the noble message imperfectly presented by Ernest Cline and makes it the resounding moral of the adapted story. God knows it’s a message we all need.