Video Games: Emily Ward of Teeth at TEDxYale
[Music] The year that I could no longer count my age on both of my scrawny hands, fists unclenched and butterfied back together. I was a child of two gender, chasing stop signs marked with the gospel of a sixth grader's Sharpie profanity. Every afternoon when the school bus screeched to a halt at stop sign, I threw backpack weighed heavy with far too little toolken onto shoulders made frail with attempted vegetarianism. And it hurt badly, but I kept myself from falling by wrapping fingers dragging claw around signpost. I threw enough momentum of body weight fullcrumb and full speed ahead towards the promise of cold milk and half-finish video games. My father's chair was the obvious choice for settlement. Clearly, it was the most comfortable seat in the house. And well, he was working far too late to care anyway. But I wore through cushion with years of furiously played Final Fantasy, fingers twitching, frantic over exo, square, and triangle button, and the transition from directional pad to analog stick absolutely thrilled me. That is until they began to stick. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to bludgeon your way keyblade through hordes of heartless with a sticky left analog, but let me tell you right now, it is damn difficult. Especially when your X button won't let you pull up potion and half your party is TKO. That that was the first time I ever lost control. Literally, I lost control. I threw the controller clear across the room and it nearly hit the TV. crafted somewhere in China circa 1986. But my mother yelled at me, finger wag included, completely free of shipping, saying, "You are grounded, young lady." I didn't have the vocabulary to correct her slip in gender terminology. So I slunk. Shoulders curve spacetime by gravity into the shoe box of my room. walls hugging me closely with posters per with posters plastering lyrics on the inside of my belly. I dreamed I was a lyric. When I woke up, I found myself in dorm bed wondering why the hell did I piss away my childhood like it was nothing more than fiction. Button sticking seems so innocent compared to watching my life flick by uncontrolled flip book out my window. out my window. If the acceleration constant of mother earth's gravity is -9.8 m/s squared, and if I'm on the fourth floor of this god-forsaken building, how long will it take before I hit hard onto some kind of control? I am reaching deep into the belly of something I knew so intimately as a child. But exosquare and triangle button are lyric no longer and all are nothing but intestine and it hurts badly. But I'll keep on digging. When I was a child, I was under the impression that if one wanted to find a way to China, one simply had to dig a hole deep enough. Well, I am digging directional pads steady dig dug through the clay dirt and my destination is more than a china length away. Hopefully, I won't lose track of my childhood. Thank you. [Music]