Interactive Entertainment

This reminds me of what Slavoj Žižek said about our false sense of political participation and his analogy to the "close door" elevator button that doesn't actually do anything to hasten the closing of the door. (See "Human Rights and Its Discontents" for the citation.) In 2004, The New York Times reported on the fact that most pedestrian buttons in the city had been de-activated, and yet citizens continued to think that pushing the button would give a green light to the crosswalk sooner. So much for interactive entertainment, although this YouTube video would suggest otherwise. For more on how people become obsessed with cheat codes of various kinds, check out Mia Colsalvo's forthcoming book from MIT Press, Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames.