The Panopticon Sees All (June 3)
Shock
players: Jason, Tri, Ben

We split up into two groups of Shock, with Jason and Susan­ stepping up to facilitate (go new facilitators!)

Our game had issues of gender expression, mass media and privacy, and spun a Shock of the internet on steroids, personal lives broadcast and consumed constantly. Del dropped by to check it out and provided in-game special effects (floating spy-cam puppets).

My favorite snippet, playing off of Jason's "gender expression" issue, was the idea that in order to have the broadest appeal and drive fan-base/followers, the all-consuming net would secretly tailor people's feeds so that their gender could be perceived as either male or female by different audiences, whichever was more desirable or that that particular person could relate to more. So the guys saw Kris-E as a girl (which she really was), but the pining teenage girls on the net saw her as a brooding sensitive guy, and all interactions with her male and female friends were likewise subtly warped to hint at different relationships. Jason's "but lots of your fans are slash/One-True-Pairing!" was hilarious.

Also hats off to Tri: "journalism... it's just a stepping stone to the real money: Porn!"

This was also our first Shock game with absolutely zero violence, or physical conflict of any sort, unless you count Jason's artist going mad and slashing his own paintings ("which are now worth more!" -- you just can't escape the spotlight of fame).