[IF Comp 2013] Impostor Syndrome
Impostor Syndrome, Georgiana Bourbonnais, Twine
version 2013-09-29
This is a hypertext game about how being anything other than a straight white cis man in tech fields involves putting up with endless appalling bullshit. It also touches on some related topics - how being an introvert makes you vulnerable in competitive creative fields, how internet culture's weird mix of anonymity and non-privacy enable harrassment - but these are all in support of its central issue.
From the blurb, my main concern about this game was that it wouldn't actually add anything that wasn't already covered by the blurb. This concern sort of turned out to be justified, and sort of didn't. On one hand, it taught me bugger-all that I didn't already know; on the other, it was successful at getting me emotionally engaged with its protagonist's situation, in spite of being rather weary of Oppression Games by this late stage of the comp.
It's very much feminism with a veneer of fiction, rather than fiction that is feminist. There are some fictional elaborations beyond what's strictly necessary, and some of these go a little further than is necessary to sustain their point, but not very far. A major fictional element, for instance, is that it's set in a near future - but as near futures go it consists mostly of very mild and unsurprising speculation. The protagonist is a named character with a particular history, but that history exists mostly to illustrate political points; we see very little about her that does not pertain directly to her relationship with sexism in the tech sector. And I felt pretty confident that the author had kept things that way intentionally, rather than trying and failing to include broader fictional content; this is a considerably more assured piece than, say, Dad vs. Unicorn or Our Boys in Uniform. It's clearly very invested in expressing aspects of a painful experience that is to some extent personal, but doesn't set this up as a priority that trumps all else. While it feels to some degree like a cri de coeur, it's very careful that this doesn't get in the way of clarity.
All this makes it a bit difficult to review, because it's not clear to what extent the protagonist is meant to be a fictionalised expression of the author, how much an archetypical Woman In Technology, and how much a distinctive fictional creation. It seems as though all three elements are present, and modes of evaluation that would be useful for one will probably be totally inappropriate for the others. For instance, I'm going to talk about how I wanted to see more about the scope and variety of Georgiana's life; for a fictional creation, that's a really big deal. But for a representative everywoman in a didactic piece, it could be a distraction; and for a cri de coeur, it'd be an invasive demand for more soul-baring from someone who has obvious reasons to hold back some of themselves. So, well, I'm going to talk about it a little bit as an advocacy piece and a little bit as an artistic fiction, and hope that y'all can keep track of my ineffective attempts to keep the strands distinct.
Okay. Advocacy. There are a number of functions that advocacy pieces perform. Off the top of my head, here are the big ones (I'm sure you're all familiar with already, I'm just laying out terms for the sake of clarity and so that I can shorthand them later.)
Its voice employs a very specific modern civil-rights vocabulary - people of color, transphobic - that suggests it's to some extent talking to people who have already adopted that vocabulary together with its associated values. Vocabulary can also be an element of introduction - getting people to adopt your terms is a big deal - but here it occasionally felt used as if to an audience already pretty conversant with, e.g., the issue of transphobic harassment. This is tricky - there obviously isn't room here for the piece to go into a full-fledged explanation every time it touches on an intersectional issue. And it doesn't use that vocabulary heavily. So there's a balance between two roles here.
Reinforcement has a bad reputation, some of which is justified. (I initially called it 'cheerleading', which sounded too pejorative.) It's far and away the most common form of argument, and it often serves less-than-helpful roles. But it also has a bunch of seriously important functions. And as such, Impostor Syndrome was pretty good; I felt for the protagonist, I was reminded forcefully that these issues severely impact people, I was ashamed for my gender and for geekdom in general. I wasn't wild about the bit in the ending that could be taken to imply that the only true allies are other women and minorities - but in context I understand the need for guaranteed safe space, and I appreciate that the point of feminism isn't to give non-minority allies constant attaboys. (The stronger ending did make me feel that this was more centrally a reinforcement piece.)
Still, I prefer my advocacy art to be considerably more concerned with the aesthetic and exploratory elements than this; although the point it adopted between the general and the personal seemed carefully-chosen, it wasn't the right point for me. Like Autumn's Daughter, its power as narrative art suffers heavily because it's so strongly concerned with the introductory-advocacy purpose of briefly summarising many aspects of an issue and of representing something typical or emblematic.
And here again I think the game runs into the question of whether this is a particular character's story or a general primer on the topic. Is giving voice to her anger meant to be the crucial step for Georgiana, or for everybody in a similar position? Georgiana has doubts about the usefulness of what she's done. It's possible that we're meant to credit that entirely to her self-doubts and conclude that she's acting as the textbook heroine at the end of a textbook narrative - but I don't think that's really the idea. With the woman who tells her she's "sparked what is perhaps the most important conversation to ever happen in our industry", there's a strong implication that the important thing is not whether that's true - god knows there have been many conversations about this - but whether that woman's energised. I think that's a cue that the reader's meant to share in Georgiana's ambivalence about her approach, because, well, the game's very clear that she's not perfect, doesn't always make ideal choices, and that there isn't really an ideal choice to make. The game's conspicuously silent on whether anything ever does change as a result of speaking out. Impostor Syndrome is pretty clear that this is not an issue that you get to have a comfortable position about. So to me it felt as though it was trying to strike a very specific balance between flag-waving and navel-gazing, while acknowledging that in reality you don't always have the luxury of doing both.
So I don't think that Impostor Syndrome's message is that 'find your anger and speak it' is the one true path, as Emily has wondered; I think it's meant to be the least worst thing for Georgiana at that moment. But I also think that this would have been a lot clearer and stronger if Georgiana had been more of an individual and less of a representative.
Or to put it another way: I felt for Georgiana, but (as with Autumn's Daughter) I felt for her as I would for a stranger. And I got the somewhat-befuddling sense that this was what the game set out to do, that at some level it didn't want me to connect with her as an individual rather than as the representative of a category.
(Sidebar: at one point it uses a howling dogs style paragraph-entirely-made-of-links for a crucial choice. I am super not keen on this technique. I can see what it's getting at, and it's a little easier on the player than a randomly-determined result, but ach. Again, Twine is still figuring out how to create difficulty while treating the player fairly, and tends to err on the side of 'I'm not going to worry about treating the player fairly, because I'm representing an experience that isn't fair.' That generally doesn't get very far with me; it feels as though it's taking one of the weaknesses of hypertext - that your agency and involvement in the piece are weakened by your inability to usefully predict where your actions will take you, that you can only get anywhere by process of elimination - and turning it up to 11. To me that feels like antagonising the player to get your point across, and I have no patience for that approach. (To me it feels like a close analogy to the very worst of old-school IF, where the game berates you for its own failure to show you what you should be doing.) Perhaps this I just need to get used to hitting Back a lot - but my sense is that, like parser-IF games that require you to spam UNDO to get the result you want, it's always going to be disruptive. Impostor Syndrome's use of the style is more reasonable than that of, say, Our Boys In Uniform, but still.)
Score: 6
version 2013-09-29
This is a hypertext game about how being anything other than a straight white cis man in tech fields involves putting up with endless appalling bullshit. It also touches on some related topics - how being an introvert makes you vulnerable in competitive creative fields, how internet culture's weird mix of anonymity and non-privacy enable harrassment - but these are all in support of its central issue.
From the blurb, my main concern about this game was that it wouldn't actually add anything that wasn't already covered by the blurb. This concern sort of turned out to be justified, and sort of didn't. On one hand, it taught me bugger-all that I didn't already know; on the other, it was successful at getting me emotionally engaged with its protagonist's situation, in spite of being rather weary of Oppression Games by this late stage of the comp.
It's very much feminism with a veneer of fiction, rather than fiction that is feminist. There are some fictional elaborations beyond what's strictly necessary, and some of these go a little further than is necessary to sustain their point, but not very far. A major fictional element, for instance, is that it's set in a near future - but as near futures go it consists mostly of very mild and unsurprising speculation. The protagonist is a named character with a particular history, but that history exists mostly to illustrate political points; we see very little about her that does not pertain directly to her relationship with sexism in the tech sector. And I felt pretty confident that the author had kept things that way intentionally, rather than trying and failing to include broader fictional content; this is a considerably more assured piece than, say, Dad vs. Unicorn or Our Boys in Uniform. It's clearly very invested in expressing aspects of a painful experience that is to some extent personal, but doesn't set this up as a priority that trumps all else. While it feels to some degree like a cri de coeur, it's very careful that this doesn't get in the way of clarity.
All this makes it a bit difficult to review, because it's not clear to what extent the protagonist is meant to be a fictionalised expression of the author, how much an archetypical Woman In Technology, and how much a distinctive fictional creation. It seems as though all three elements are present, and modes of evaluation that would be useful for one will probably be totally inappropriate for the others. For instance, I'm going to talk about how I wanted to see more about the scope and variety of Georgiana's life; for a fictional creation, that's a really big deal. But for a representative everywoman in a didactic piece, it could be a distraction; and for a cri de coeur, it'd be an invasive demand for more soul-baring from someone who has obvious reasons to hold back some of themselves. So, well, I'm going to talk about it a little bit as an advocacy piece and a little bit as an artistic fiction, and hope that y'all can keep track of my ineffective attempts to keep the strands distinct.
Okay. Advocacy. There are a number of functions that advocacy pieces perform. Off the top of my head, here are the big ones (I'm sure you're all familiar with already, I'm just laying out terms for the sake of clarity and so that I can shorthand them later.)
- Conversion. This is the hardest thing to do: speak to people who are already aware of the topic, and are either opposed to your viewpoint or ambivalent about it; change their minds.
- Introduction. Speak to people who aren't really familiar with the subject, let them know what it's about and get them on your side.
- Exploration. Speak to people who are already on board with your position, and deepen their understanding of the subject.
- Reinforcement. This isn't intended to persuade or inform anybody: it's aimed at one's existing allies, and is about building sympathy, rousing up enthusiasm, expressing support, affirming orthodoxy or consensus, and/or strengthening one's commitment to a position.
Its voice employs a very specific modern civil-rights vocabulary - people of color, transphobic - that suggests it's to some extent talking to people who have already adopted that vocabulary together with its associated values. Vocabulary can also be an element of introduction - getting people to adopt your terms is a big deal - but here it occasionally felt used as if to an audience already pretty conversant with, e.g., the issue of transphobic harassment. This is tricky - there obviously isn't room here for the piece to go into a full-fledged explanation every time it touches on an intersectional issue. And it doesn't use that vocabulary heavily. So there's a balance between two roles here.
Reinforcement has a bad reputation, some of which is justified. (I initially called it 'cheerleading', which sounded too pejorative.) It's far and away the most common form of argument, and it often serves less-than-helpful roles. But it also has a bunch of seriously important functions. And as such, Impostor Syndrome was pretty good; I felt for the protagonist, I was reminded forcefully that these issues severely impact people, I was ashamed for my gender and for geekdom in general. I wasn't wild about the bit in the ending that could be taken to imply that the only true allies are other women and minorities - but in context I understand the need for guaranteed safe space, and I appreciate that the point of feminism isn't to give non-minority allies constant attaboys. (The stronger ending did make me feel that this was more centrally a reinforcement piece.)
Still, I prefer my advocacy art to be considerably more concerned with the aesthetic and exploratory elements than this; although the point it adopted between the general and the personal seemed carefully-chosen, it wasn't the right point for me. Like Autumn's Daughter, its power as narrative art suffers heavily because it's so strongly concerned with the introductory-advocacy purpose of briefly summarising many aspects of an issue and of representing something typical or emblematic.
And here again I think the game runs into the question of whether this is a particular character's story or a general primer on the topic. Is giving voice to her anger meant to be the crucial step for Georgiana, or for everybody in a similar position? Georgiana has doubts about the usefulness of what she's done. It's possible that we're meant to credit that entirely to her self-doubts and conclude that she's acting as the textbook heroine at the end of a textbook narrative - but I don't think that's really the idea. With the woman who tells her she's "sparked what is perhaps the most important conversation to ever happen in our industry", there's a strong implication that the important thing is not whether that's true - god knows there have been many conversations about this - but whether that woman's energised. I think that's a cue that the reader's meant to share in Georgiana's ambivalence about her approach, because, well, the game's very clear that she's not perfect, doesn't always make ideal choices, and that there isn't really an ideal choice to make. The game's conspicuously silent on whether anything ever does change as a result of speaking out. Impostor Syndrome is pretty clear that this is not an issue that you get to have a comfortable position about. So to me it felt as though it was trying to strike a very specific balance between flag-waving and navel-gazing, while acknowledging that in reality you don't always have the luxury of doing both.
So I don't think that Impostor Syndrome's message is that 'find your anger and speak it' is the one true path, as Emily has wondered; I think it's meant to be the least worst thing for Georgiana at that moment. But I also think that this would have been a lot clearer and stronger if Georgiana had been more of an individual and less of a representative.
Or to put it another way: I felt for Georgiana, but (as with Autumn's Daughter) I felt for her as I would for a stranger. And I got the somewhat-befuddling sense that this was what the game set out to do, that at some level it didn't want me to connect with her as an individual rather than as the representative of a category.
(Sidebar: at one point it uses a howling dogs style paragraph-entirely-made-of-links for a crucial choice. I am super not keen on this technique. I can see what it's getting at, and it's a little easier on the player than a randomly-determined result, but ach. Again, Twine is still figuring out how to create difficulty while treating the player fairly, and tends to err on the side of 'I'm not going to worry about treating the player fairly, because I'm representing an experience that isn't fair.' That generally doesn't get very far with me; it feels as though it's taking one of the weaknesses of hypertext - that your agency and involvement in the piece are weakened by your inability to usefully predict where your actions will take you, that you can only get anywhere by process of elimination - and turning it up to 11. To me that feels like antagonising the player to get your point across, and I have no patience for that approach. (To me it feels like a close analogy to the very worst of old-school IF, where the game berates you for its own failure to show you what you should be doing.) Perhaps this I just need to get used to hitting Back a lot - but my sense is that, like parser-IF games that require you to spam UNDO to get the result you want, it's always going to be disruptive. Impostor Syndrome's use of the style is more reasonable than that of, say, Our Boys In Uniform, but still.)
Score: 6