Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 20

Content warning: references to the 2016 presidential election, sexism, stalking, male entitlement, racism, tokenism, class and privilege issues.



Wade is in the OASIS. He has his own asteroid, going from place to place without ever actually going anywhere. It is also in this chapter where we learn about this future's politics. Oh boy.


As soon as my log-in sequence completed, a window popped up on my display, informing me that today was an election day. Now that I was eighteen, I could vote, in both the OASIS elections and the elections for U.S. government officials. I didn't bother with the latter, because I didn't see the point. The once-great country into which I'd been born now resembled its former self in name only. It didn't matter who was in charge. Those people were rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and everyone knew it. Besides, now that everyone could vote from home, via the OASIS, the only people who could get elected were movie stars, reality TV personalities, or radical televangelists. (Page 201)


Excuse me while I go and vomit out of disgust, rage, and PTSD.










Okay, I'm back. Where were we?

Oh lord, the election day passage.

The line that says that in the future, "reality TV personalities" - and anyone "radical" and even "televangelists" - could become President of the United States. This book has not aged well.

I was shocked and nearly frightened out of my skin when I'd first read that. It is scarily-prophetic instances like here where I'd argue that current editions of Ready Player One should come with trigger warnings, post-2016.

"The once-great country", huh? Never bothered to vote, huh?

We have not reached anywhere close to how lazy and selfish Wade can be yet:


I did take the time to vote in the OASIS elections, however, because their outcomes actually affected me. (Page 201)


....
....
....

Sorry I need to regurgitate and clean out my body's systems again.










Right.

So Wade, our protagonist, voted in the OASIS elections but not in real life elections for a real life, struggling and dying government. Their issues don't affect him, personally. So he doesn't bother to vote. Because everything's all about him and what makes life easier and better for him. He is more important than anyone else.

Wade Owen Watts (stupid name), you are the worst. You represent one of the enablers of our current, dark times.

"their outcomes actually affected me." - you are a selfish wanker!

OUR. HERO!

He says that Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton are part of the OASIS User Council. They are presidents and VPs, as they have been for over a decade. These two famous, beloved male figures in geek culture are namedropped in Ready Player One.

In the same book, no female geeks are mentioned. Ever.

As you could probably tell by now, I don't like this book very much.

Infodumping next on OASIS user channels, or vidfeeds. Basically it's YouTube. Wade uploads episodes of '80s TV shows, movies, and vintage anime on his YouTube channel. He's one of the High Five and a famous gunter, so he receives millions of views every day whatever he uploads. Another way to make money. Another way to get sponsors. Another way of saying that the OASIS is a big fat lie and it is monetized, no matter what the outside package (and James Halliday) told people.

This use of vidfeeds and broadcasting online to attract worldwide viewership is different from our current times, how?

Not angry and repulsed enough by Wade yet? Enter his stalking of Art3mis!

Her YouTube channel features female-led TV shows such as Square Pegs, Electra Woman and Dyna Girl, Isis, and Wonder Woman. Funny how the only female-led shows mentioned in the book all have to do with its only female lead, in superfluous infodumping. You're not going to reflect on it, Wade? Think about it at all?

Art3mis also has a clothing line for female avatars now, under the label Art3Miss. This is not referred to again. But it is nice to know that she is doing well without Wade.

He can't allow that!

Art3mis has blocked Wade at every turn. She has made every attempt to never speak to him or see him again. Does our hero take a hint and move on, graciously accepting a disappointment in life?

Of course not!


I tried everything I could think of to reach her. I sent her avatar flowers. I made multiple trips to her avatar's stronghold, an armored palace on Benatar, the small moon she owned. I dropped mix tapes and notes on her palace from the air, like lovesick bombs. Once, in a supreme act of desperation, I stood outside her palace gates for two solid hours, with a boom box over my head, blasting "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel at full volume. (Page 203)


"a supreme act of desperation" - you got that part right, you stalker. You are a wonder in male entitlement to behold, Wade.

TAKE. A. HINT.

LEAVE. HER. ALONE.

I repeat what I said in chapter 18 about how it's not a good idea to take romantic advice from John Hughes films. Or Cameron Crowe films.

For further information on why this is awful and genuinely harmful, here is a link to the brilliant YouTube video about the 'Stalking is Love' cliche in films and TV: www.youtube.com/stalkingforlove

The cliche was especially prominent in the eighties.

And it needs to die now. Because women are not games. They are not slot machines where the more coins you put in by way of good deeds, sex will eventually pop out.

See also the 'Adorkable Misogyny' video, by the same creator of 'Stalking for Love', the Pop Culture Detective Agency. All of his video essays are worth a watch. They relate fantastically to Ready Player One.

Wade says that the hunt and being famous are good distractions for him from his loneliness and isolation. And his man pain. Poor baby.

He also mentions his growing apart from Aech. They'd gotten into an argument on a chat room, and his "Stubborn pride" kept him from calling back to apologize. Stubborn male pride, you mean. What a charmer. Wade keeps getting more likable as the book progresses, doesn't he?

On the other hand, I don't care a smidge about the falling out of two obnoxious fanboy friends for years who never actually met each other.

Then he'd teamed up with Daito and Shoto on quests that recreated classic Japanese TV series'. He's using them because they speak Japanese and that is needed for a particular quest. An infodump on Ultraman. It's all part of solving the Jade Key riddle, you see.

Having played through all thirty-nine episodes of Ultraman, like a Flicksync, I imagine it must have taken ages. Or it should have. But according to Wade it only took a week to complete. Having no life is fun!

Not fun to read about, though. Not when it is written in passive in the narrative.

The prize for completing the Ultraman quest is a virtual artifact called Hayata's Beta Capsule, which allows the avatar possessing it to transform into Ultraman for three minutes, every twenty-four hours. Wade gives it to Daito and Shoto - as part of his nefarious plan to "get on Daito's good side" (and not let the artifact fall into Sixer hands):


"You two should keep the Beta Capsule," I said. "Urutoraman is Japan's greatest superhero. His powers belong in Japanese hands."
     They were both surprised and humbled by my generosity. Especially Daito. "Thank you, Parzival-san," he said, bowing low. "You are a man of honor."
      After that, the three of us had parted as friends, if not necessarily allies, and I considered that an ample reward for my efforts. (Page 205-206)


Wade is a manipulative white boy, taking advantage of foreign, POC characters for his own personal gain in the long run. He is not making Americans or America look great right now.

Yet more honor-talk and bowing from our go-to tokens. They are such tools.

The chapter ends on yet another infodump about the further means that Wade pays his bills and everything else. He buys extravagant things in the OASIS, and he travels around there a lot. The GSS raise the OASIS travel fees and transportation fares constantly (yep, no monetizing there! The OASIS is free, remember!) He now has a full-time job as an OASIS technical support representative. How the flying fuck has he time for a full-time job along with everything else he does? I don't know. He must own a working TARDIS, or a Time-Turner.

When does he sleep?

Plot hole aside, Wade is given an excuse to whine about having an office job, as a helpdesk avatar, using a separate OASIS account from his fun Parzival one. A practical and safe move, considering.

He describes his job as his "own private virtual hell." If you thought he couldn't possibly be any more unlikable:


Helpful Helpdesk Inc. took millions of calls a day, from all over the world. Twenty-four seven, three sixty-five. One angry, befuddled cretin after another. There was no downtime between calls, because there were always several hundred morons in the call queue, all of them willing to wait on hold for hours to have a tech rep hold their hand and fix their problem. Why bother looking up the solution online? Why try to figure the problem out on your own when you could have someone else do your thinking for you? (Page 207)


FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You DARE to whine about having a real job - a real life - when you had previously explained how hard it is for anyone to get any job nowadays. You whine because now you can't play as many games and watch as much TV and movies as you want, which is all the freaking time. You strongly prefer your own selfish hidey-hole and isolation, as opposed to helping people less fortunate and privileged than you.

OUR. FUCKING. HERO!

"Why try to figure the problem out on your own when you could have someone else do your thinking for you?" !"£I*£("£)"*%%&$*$|&$*$!!!!!! YOU LITTLE CUN--

YOU ARE NOTHING BUT JAMES HALLIDAY'S SAD LITTLE PUPPET! YOU'VE SPENT THIS WHOLE FUCKING NOVEL TRYING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO THINK EXACTLY LIKE HE DID! TO HAVE NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT OF YOUR OWN! FOR HIS DEAD HAND TO HOLD YOURS! TO WIN HIS STUPID EGG HUNT!

=deep breaths=




=deep breaths=

I am calm. It is just a book.

So, what have we learned from this chapter? What has been accomplished?

NOTHING!

Nothing that progresses the plot in any meaningful way! Yet another waste of time!

Except for the cliffhanger, where there's news of Art3mis having found the Jade Key, but that's for the sake of a cliffhanger. It is information that could have been revealed in the next chapter. And who cares at this point?

I don't. I'm done, for now.

Goodbye, and take care, my loves.