I can’t remember how or why but yesterday someone tweeted me the above YouTube link. It was weird. Very weird.
In the 90s, SEGA was weird.
So this morning I’ve been on a bit of a quest to find the absolute weirdest SEGA commercials ever made. It’s been fun, but I also have a bit of a headache now. I’ve seen things.
Mostly I’m just really surprised at some of the absolute craziness that SEGA got away with, and how so much of the language used in these trailers has filtered down to how mainstream news covers video games today. The whole idea of games driving people insane, of gaming being addictive, of games driving you insane, or melting your brain — they’re all present here. Some of it is flat out disturbing, like the line, “he was normally a quiet boy”. It’s the kind of words we hear in reports of random, fatal teenage violence — the kind of violent acts that mainstream media presents as a ‘video game problem’. It’s funny — the kind of impressions created by marketing often have long term cultural effects in terms of how we understand and process things.
But on the flipside of that seriousness, some of the ads just feature a more silly youth appropriation thing, the kind of thing that just looks hilariously misjudged in hindsight. The reality: I probably thought this kind of thing was cool as hell when I was young.
Well, enjoy. If you can find any more weirdness drop it below. I’d sure like to see it.
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