Ready Player One Read-Through: Chapter 6

Content warning: sexism, misogyny, references to sexual assault and rape.



This is going to be painful.

Welcome to Anorak's Almanac: The Infodump.

Wade is bored during his Latin class so he subjects us to his every reading and watching material.

Here he is listing famous authors:


When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I'd worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny. I read every novel by every single one of Halliday's favorite authors. (Page 62)


First of all: Bullshit. You haven't read every single book by every single one of these authors, unless you're a Time Lord. Second: All of the authors listed are male.

Seriously - Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L'Engle, Mary Shelley, Diana Wynne Jones, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, Shirley Jackson, Flannery O'Connor, Tamora Pierce, Margaret Atwood, Kelley Armstrong, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Simone de Beauvoir. None of these female writers of mostly science fiction and fantasy are considered noteworthy, Cline?

Could have been worse, I guess. He could have included H.P. Lovecraft, an extremely problematic author of his time. But Orson Scott Card is on the list, so that was possibly an oversight on the author's part.


I also watched every single film he referenced in the Almanac. If it was one of Halliday's favorites, like Wargames, Ghostbusters, Real Genius, Better Off Dead, or Revenge of the Nerds, I rewatched it until I knew every scene by heart. (Page 62)


Okay, anything that mentions Revenge of the Nerds in a positive light is automatically on my shit list.

List of Halliday's favourite films and film directors:


I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors. Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. (Page 62)


All of them men. And white (though Del Toro is Mexican, and Tarantino's mother is of Cherokee and Irish descent).

I'd like to take this moment to add that the Wachowski siblings are not mentioned in this book. Odd, in light of the obvious The Matrix influences. Given that only Lana Wachowski had come out as transgender before Ready Player One's publication, it would have likely been extremely awkward if the siblings were referred to in the book, both by name. "The Wachowskis" would have been fine, if that was how they'd preferred to be called.


Somewhere along the way, I started to go overboard.
I may, in fact, have started to go a little insane. (Page 62)


Like Halliday, then?

All the films and TV listed are about men, and star male protagonists. Not just in this chapter, but all throughout Ready Player One - all stories about men, with very few exceptions like Heathers and Sixteen Candles.


I learned the name of every last goddamn Gobot and Transformer.
Land of the Lost, Thundarr the Barbarian, He-Man, Schoolhouse Rock!, G.I. Joe--I knew them all. Because knowing is half the battle. (Page 63)


What, My Little Pony, Jem and the Holograms, Rainbow Brite, and She-Ra: Princess of Power are not important enough trivia, Cline? Not manly enough for your toxic nostalgia?

As a side note, for a book all about eighties nostalgia and capturing that zeitgeist of history almost to painstaking perfection, there is not a single Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference to be found. That was the shit from 1987 onwards - heck, it's been shown to have stood the test of time, unlike a lot of the cartoons listed in this chapter.

Halliday apparently liked EVERYTHING eighties (as long as they catered to his fragile straight white male ego, of course), so Wade has to as well. In order to win the OASIS. There is no love here, no insight - it's just listing eighties crap, from the popular to the obscure. I admit to skimming all of this the first time I read the book, because it is ultimately pointless. I could almost taste the author's semen in this whole chapter.

All it does is represent such a narrow definition of the term "geek", and geek culture in general. Ready Player One is enjoyed by every geek, really?


I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend. (Page 63)


EW! CLINE-- I MEAN, WADE! NO ONE WANTS TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CREEPY FETISHES! KEEP THEM TO YOURSELF AND HAVE SOME DIGNITY! YOU CHOSE TO HAVE THIS PUBLISHED!

And for the last time, GIRLS DON'T EXIST FOR YOUR VOYEURISTIC MALE GAZE, YOU PERVERT!


I was obsessed. I wouldn't quit. My grades suffered. I didn't care. (Page 63)


"Obsessed and don't care" - that is the attitude of Ready Player One in a nutshell. This is seen as a good thing.

I want to take this opportunity to clarify that I didn't write this read-through to be mean.

I know that for a lot of people who grew up in the 1980s, this must be a nostalgic goldmine. "I remember that!", etc. Insulting a generation and telling them that everything they liked as a kid is bad is an incredibly shitty thing to do. Every bit of our childhood that was important to us, that meant something to us and shaped us into who we are now, is and always will be important to you personally, for a number of reasons.

But to me, a nineties feminist girl who believes in looking forward for progress to happen, not in remaining in the past, Ready Player One reads like a manchild approaching middle-age complaining that, "Everything was better in my day!" "I wasn't asked to put in the effort to think about other people's feelings and be critical of the media I loved back then! Not fair! What about ME and MY nostalgia?!" "Why can't only I matter anymore?!"

Onto more of Wade's insufferable gloating:


You'd be amazed how much research you can get done when you have no life whatsoever. Twelves hours a day, seven days a week, is a lot of study time. (Page 64)


I'm sure this is meant to be funny and ironic. However, the book keeps saying how escaping reality (and living in someone else's shadow) is a good thing. Again, no insight, no love. This whole communication is about saying a lot without saying anything at all.

Wade is unsympathetic; he's just plain pathetic.



A small rant now about toxic fandom, male entitlement and toxic masculinity.

Practically every person I know who grew up in the eighties - all men - online or offline, when asked about it, won't shut up about it. They go on and on and on about how the eighties was the best decade ever to be a child and a teenager, and that everything was so great and perfect back then. And I want to scream at them.

"No, the 1980s wasn't perfect, not for everyone. Far from it."

I wasn't born then, so I know I'm not the best person to judge that particular decade. But from all the films, TV shows, comic books, and games I've seen - from a pop culture standpoint - nearly all I get from the '80s zeitgeist is the impression of manly men, big damn male action heroes, getting the girl - even if it's by force, and creepy male nerd entitlement (look no further than John Hughes movies for this). Female action movie star Sigourney Weaver being groped by demons, with sexual assault imagery, and reduced to a damsel in distress. Strong female leader Princess Leia in that slave bikini and chained like a dog for the disgusting slug, Jabba the Hutt; plus that vaginal "Sarlacc" creature in the sand dooming men. Batgirl being paralyzed and sexually assaulted for the angst and development of two men. Red Sonja being raped in the beginning of her own feature length film, right after witnessing the slaughter of her entire family, and having it never be mentioned again.

A decade where misogyny thrived can apply to any one of them. But for my money, if there was one decade in which misogyny came back with a vengeance, it was the '80s. A backlash against the second-wave feminism making its cultural impact felt everywhere in the seventies. It was the decade that embodied the phrase, "Boys will be boys", in my opinion

And evidence suggests that this toxic mindset has influenced, and ingrained itself in, the youth of the '80s.

The eighties was about toxic masculinity - not every aspect of it, but most of it. It is the decade that first spread the inkling of the concept of toxic nostalgia - the fear of change, the fear of progress, the aversion to include and accept anyone who isn't het, white and male, the message that violence is the answer to every problem, and is enjoyable - thus ruining current generations for everyone else.

Eighties and nineties kids - the toxic, trolling kind with poorly-learned social skills - refuse to be adults and accept that the world they grew up in doesn't exist anymore - that it can't exist anymore. They can't accept that they are not the center of the universe, and that they are not the only ones being catered to in pop culture media and other things anymore. They feel threatened by this inclusive way of life. So they respond to this uncomfortable anxiety - this reality check that really doesn't affect them personally - through violence and vitriol. In an attempt to mask their fear, as well. As men, this was how they'd been taught to deal with their emotions their entire lives, in a culture perpetuating and enabling toxic masculinity. And the internet has allowed these types of men the power and anonymity to express this violence, this frustration turned into racism and misogyny. Because, as members of the patriarchy and the privileged, they know they can get away with it without consequences, and destroy lives that aren't their own.

It is that generation that predominantly says that women can't be heroes.

It is that generation that says women can't be on the dollar bill.

It is that generation that says women can't be content creators.

It is that generation that says women can't work in or critique comics.

It is that generation that says women can't work in or critique video games.

It is that generation that says women can't be gamers.

It is that generation that says women can't be geeks.

It is that generation that says women are not allowed to receive any kind of attention, not if there isn't a man involved too.

It is that generation that says women can't say no.

It is that generation that says women can't be Jedi.

It is that generation that says women can't be Ghostbusters.

It is that generation that says women can't be President of the United States.

You see where I'm getting at?

I'm not saying that eighties kids are the only people responsible for the current state of our society and retrograde cultural climate right now. That's wrong. Though some of them are not helping the current "This is why we can't have nice things" mentality in pop culture fandoms.

And I am 100% convinced that James Halliday would have supported online movements such as Gamergate, if not outright joined them.



Okay, I'm tired. Let's wrap this up.

Long story short, Wade finds out the clue to finding the Copper Key, which will help in searching for the egg. After five years with no one else coming close. He figures it all out when sitting in Latin class.

In the next chapter, after sixty-eight pages, the plot starts! Something will finally happen in this book!

I will now dedicate my life to this read-through and have no social life whatsoever. What? According to Ready Player One, having no life and never going outside is good.

Wade Watts - what a role model!