Not Crossing the Streams – Gaming and Politics
I love games and I’m passionate about politics. But for this website and the overall SigTrent enterprise, I’m making a conscious decision to minimize entangling the two. I want to share my thoughts on the hows and whys.
My motivations and goals
One thing I had to do when starting up SigTrent Plays Games was to figure out my brand. What exactly would my content be about? Most stream advisors will tell you it should be about you, that while games are the medium, you as a person are the message and what people tune in for.
I am a very political person. One look at my personal blog will make that pretty clear. But just because a stream is about me, it doesn’t have to be about every part of me. Lord knows there are parts no one wants to see! So I had to decide what parts of myself I want to highlight and focus on.
It’s a little cliche, but I decided that I wanted to focus on the more positive aspects of myself and encourage that feeling in my viewers. I want to make people happy and inspire them. I don’t want to get into conflict with folks. Ideally, people watching my content will feel happy, relaxed, informed, and entertained. Political arguments and discussions don’t generally create these feelings; often quite the opposite. So we are mostly keeping clear of them.
So no politics?
Mostly, but not entirely. As in many areas of life, you can’t entirely avoid politics. Any public social endeavor is inevitably going to involve some kind of political issues and concerns. Also, games themselves often raise political issues, and the world of games has its own political concerns. You will find these themes in my blog, though not too much in my live stream unless it concerns the game I’m playing directly.
My aim is to make content that is pretty widely inclusive so much as a one-man show can manage. That in itself is a kind of political choice. I won’t tolerate folks being uncivil or discriminatory to one another when I have any say in the matter. But you won’t find me arguing about it, its simply my policy and folks who break it will be politely seen to the door.
And while the SigTrent brand won’t be a political one, I personally am not shying away from politics in my other endeavors. I’ll be making explicitly political videos for my Sigfried Trent YouTube channel and my social media will feature my personal views on various political topics. But if folks try to engage with this while I’m gaming, I’ll politely ask them to bring it up in another context and if they persist, the exit awaits them.
A space to build sympathy
I do think there is a good political justification for keeping politics out of some spheres of our lives. Games are a very good example. When we do need to engage in political discussion, I think it really helps when folks can have common points of reference. If you have spent happy times with the person you disagree with, you are much more likely to listen and much more likely to share honestly.
I’ve certainly found that people who I have a pretty dramatic difference of opinion with are none the less very decent people when sitting at the gaming table or playing a game online as a team. If such a place of decency and cooperation can exist, especially without anyone coming to harm, I think it should be preserved in some way. It keeps the door open for people to change and to see a different perspective than the one they are used to.
So basically, when you are here, please share the love with others and enjoy the love others are offering.
So all are welcome but….
Even if you hate my own brand of politics, I’ll welcome you warmly to play some games, have some fun, and enjoy the company of others who also love games. Please don’t start any drama and please resist the urge to engage in it with those who do. So long as you respect everyone else, we’ll respect you too.
If you want to talk politics with me, jump into my other endeavors, and have at it! But here, please focus on having fun with the games you love to watch or play. Non-Game stuff is fine too, but try to keep it positive and hopeful because that’s the vibe I want to help folks feel when they tune in.
