Before Instagram and Facebook…
Twitter, Tumblr and MySpace…
Email, dial up and the Internet itself…
There was Pong.
Yes.
Pong.
One of the first ever computer games.
The one that took the world by storm, and breathed life into a nascent digital realm.
Have you ever even played Pong before?
I haven’t.
On the other side of so much TikTok and Fortnite, I can only imagine how mind-blowing and addictive Pong had to have been when it was first hitting the streets.
Like look at this hot fire.
I just went down a rabbit hole on Google Images after finding this beautiful box.
I discovered that there’s a whole book about the birth of modern gaming called Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master, the title of which is taken from the Pong founder’s aphorism:
All the best games are easy to learn and difficult to master. They should reward the first quarter and the hundredth. ~ Nolan Bushnell1
Which brings me to why I am talking about Pong at all.
Because I’m starting to see this game, in all of its simplicity, as a microcosm for modern communications.
All we do is go back and forth, talking and listening, sending and receiving, calling and responding, bouncing back and forth an invisible ball of energy in an infinite game of Pong.
Only our lives are more ridiculous, as we play a game of Pong with each person that we communicate with IRL and online on a daily basis.
At the same time that I’m playing communication-Pong with you, I’m playing communication-Pong with like 150 other people.
If every paddle that I’m holding for these games of Pong is the side of a polygon, then we’re talking about a 150-sided shape here.
I just learned that the name for this behemoth is heptapentacontagon, which I can’t help but say out loud in my best Pokémon voice.
This Pong IRL is the equivalent of analogies like juggling 150 balls at once, balancing 150 spinning plates, or trying to play a symphony by blowing into 150 different bottles.
Anyways, you get the idea.
Like usual, there’s a lot of folks who I have yet to reply back to.
Hella balls are in my court, so to speak.
And sometimes most of the time this stresses me out.
I’m lowkey procrastinating on responding right now.
But I believe that there’s a purpose to writing into what sometimes feels like a bottomless hole.
Or better yet, playing Pong in an endless back and forth with myself.
It’s here that I’m remembering that this incredible, infinite game of multi-sided Pong, is supposed to be fun.
There’s really no real way of keeping score, but our bodies can tell when we’re winning or losing off of how much fun we’re having.
Because every game that is truly worthwhile, with ripples that expand into every direction, is one that is played for the fun and love of the game.
So I’m going to keep playing, and text you back.
At some point, I swear.
Thanks Wikipedia.