If I ruled the world, human beings would live vicariously through themselves, not through other people and not through other things. So, in my world, there would be no need for the word “vicarious.”
At the beginning of this semester, I decided to go into uncharted territory. I dared to go where only 10 million players have ever gone before. I entered into the “World of Warcraft.”
It was on a Thursday afternoon that I was milling around on the Internet and happened upon an ad blinking at the top of my screen with a dancing troll holding up a sign that read “Play for Free.” Well apparently, “World of Warcraft” is free up to level 20 and so I thought, “Why not?” Why not live vicariously through a self-created, computerized magical being that lives in a fantasy world where I can battle monsters and hurl digital fire?
So after waiting hours for the program to download, I was finally allowed into the “World of Warcraft” and I built my own character: a blood elf mage with dashing good looks, a killer sense of style and mad facial hair. I named him Orlando, since Legolas is trademarked and Orlando, Fla., is home to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the most magical place on earth.
With my newly created Orlando, I set off to battle monsters, hurl digital fire and discover why this game has supposedly sucked the life out of so many gamers. The only game I’ve probably ever beaten was “Pokémon Snap” with the help of cheat codes off the Internet. But within half an hour of playing, I was up from level one to level three. For a few hours, I was no longer a poor, single college student. Instead I was Orlando the Blood Elf, protector of Silvermoon City, scourge of low-level monsters and mightiest of non-human mages (that is a complete exaggeration).
But “World of Warcraft” could not keep me entertained for long and eventually I got bored of it. If I look too long at computer screens I get migraines, and besides, the game was really too complex for me. Apparently you have to hit a bunch of different buttons to cast this spell or hurl that kind of fire.
But it did get me thinking about how we humans love to live out our fantasies through computers, television and other people. Perhaps the most grotesque examples of living vicariously are the mothers who paint up their 4-year-old daughters in makeup and spray tans to parade them across a stage to win oversized crowns. Perhaps a less extreme vicarious lifestyle is that of getting hooked on reality TV. How many sweet, innocent girls spend hours upon hours watching “Jersey Shore,” living through the binging adventures of crazed 20-somethings who apparently have no job? And how many guys live through their favorite athletes, obsessing over fantasy football teams and actively despising rival athletes like they actually know them?
There is nothing wrong with playing fantasy video games, forming a fantasy football team or watching young people make utter fools of themselves. However, things get bad. You begin to fantasize about those lives, constantly wishing you were somewhere and something else. God did not give you a wonderfully and fearfully made body with a whole world full of mountains, seas and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to just sit daydreaming about a make-believe life.
Life might be safer lived on a screen with less risk of getting hurt, but where is the adventure in that?
