Of all the videos I released in 2023, this happened to be the most popular – I think as it happened to vaguely coincide with the release of another channel’s (Boulder Punch) large Forbidden Siren video. I want to sit down and watch that video soon, actually – I still haven’t had the chance.

My video on Forbidden Siren is a video that I am definitely proud of, but if I’d been able to choose which of my videos got 11,000 views in a year, I can’t say with certainty that it would have been this one. Of course, that’s not how the algorithm worked, but a lot of people liked it – it’s where I got most of my subscribers this year. I’m very pleased with how it’s done, and very pleased people liked it.

Reflecting on it and its contents, I am most proud of the work I did in the first two sections. In fact, it’s what I went on to expand in my own academic study most of all. Our relationship with space and technology is fraught. Video games are a way to explore that safely. But there’s also so much I have to learn. My overall argument – that Forbidden Siren is a game that allows us to interface with the haunted in a particularly powerful way – helped me to codify a genre in my academic writing. As it is a game that is haunted in every facet by three aspects – the media, the technology, and the humans – I stand by my general chapters for the video and how I chose to break it down. I would have liked to have made the second part longer, and there are points I would have expanded upon in the first section.

This video actually acted as the first step towards identifying my topic. I mentioned that I’d been doing work in the sphere of hauntology and video games to my supervisor, and on identifying that, I pushed forwards with this research, and was able to draw a number of conclusions that were born out of the script for this video. It’s all well and good to say to myself, oh, I wish, when in actual fact, were it not for this video, I may never have approached this year in the same way, or done the amazing research I did do.

I wish I’d cited a number of other scholars whose work is so important; Mark Fisher’s hauntology is crucial. I should have done more with it. The mention of Freud and the uncanny should also have been essential in establishing how a haunting actually works. The work of Alexander Galloway and “realism” in gaming is also very important. Finally, of course, I would like to say one more important thank you to the great article written by Christian McCrea in 2009, for giving the inspiration and impetus for this video, and for perhaps a future career, in your essay, “Gaming’s Hauntology: Dead Media in Dead Rising, Siren, and Michigan: Escape from Hell”. Your work laid the foundation for what I wanted to achieve in games studies, and an incredibly valuable starting place for how to begin this daunting process. I cite him in the video a few times, but it is his description of the game’s menus that sticks with me most. He writes “it becomes apparent very early on that these are design choices, intermeshing with a cold and starkly designed interface which contains a massive database of information, as well as a timeline and character profiles that vibrate with bureaucratic malice” (McCrea 2009, 225). What a gorgeous description. And McCrea writes, gorgeously, “[t]here is no concept of death without the trappings of memory.” For me, Forbidden Siren was always the quest to assert oneself in the face of sublimation. Human identity washed away, attacked by past and future all at once. What does it take to survive – or not to die – in such a harsh environment? What can it tell us about ourselves?

I wanted to establish how hauntings work, but I didn’t really within the video essay. I write about our quest for meaning, but I never defined myself within the bounds of the video essay. I write in the introduction that

“Every moment, we as humans are capable of drawing something from the past. All around us are echoes of the past, whether in artwork, architecture, or even styles of clothing. We are driven by our desire to understand both the past and the future, and as such we live in an impermanent and unfocused present. We are constantly searching for meaning in everything we see, whether it be in the steps we take each day to work, or the manner in which we rise from bed in the morning. Our preferences shape who we are, but where do our preferences come from? What about the ghosts that we see, standing on a crosswalk, or standing in the middle of a now-empty lot. What about the memories that are drowned by non-existence, by change, by a total, absolute sublimation of the future? When our favourite childhood places go, where do we go? How can we even hope to make sense of these spirits of all kinds that haunt our every moment of existence?”

I wish I had made more of this mission statement later on. This year has been, as with most things in life, a humbling opportunity to learn just how far I need to come. Reflecting on most of my video essays that I’ve made this year, I’ve seen just how far my writing has to come, particularly in vague statements or concrete arguments. But that brings me around to the point of my video essays.

They are places for me to exercise my research, my knowledge, and my writing skills. In a way, they are almost training grounds for the “more serious” writing I do in my professional studies, in the hopes that one day I will be lecturing in this field and getting to help other scholars in their interests in video games, horror, and hauntings. I can dream that one day I will be a professional academic, able to give lectures and make videos. In a way, my dream has already come to fruition. Those who are enjoying my videos are giving me the opportunity to teach, to help give them food for thought, to share knowledge, and horror, and great video games and scholars alike.

But there’s always more to be said, and always things left undone, as frustrating as that can be. Videos are painful in that I say things but can never un-say them, or never re-say them, as easily as I could in this written format. It is why I am comforted by this format in particular. The video essays, as great as they are to make, always have to feel more complete than what constitutes some of my blog posts. There is always, precipitously, a fear about releasing a video, or even recording the script. Things left unsaid always percolate in my brain. There are things I wish I had included – I wish, in particular, I had been able to say more about AI art, but I made that at a foundational time for myself and AI art. I still dislike it on a deeply personal level, but I think I understand it more, now. The fear, at least for now, is a bit lessened. Human art will always be more important, and more meaningful to me, as a fellow member of the human race. AI art can be interesting, but it can never replace people.

Someone who reflected positively on AI art in the comments said that an appreciation for AI art is like appreciating the random beauty of nature. I appreciated that part of the comment, though I still couldn’t accept the rest of the arguments they posited. To me, it’s down to basic human dignity – if AI is taking work from artists, or stealing the spotlight from real artists in search algorithms, then we have a problem. Because it should be the human beings that are privileged, not the machine. I suppose that’s not the world we’re living in, though.

Marc Augé (who sadly passed in July of 2023) wrote that “[i]t is quite clear that our memory would be ‘saturated’ rapidly if we had to preserve every image of our childhood, especially those of our earliest childhood. But what is interesting is that which remains. And what remains – remembrances or traces […] – what remains is the product of an erosion caused by oblivion. Memories are crafted by oblivion as the outlines of the shore are crafted by the sea.” I have found myself reflecting increasingly on the passing of time, and what memories remain most prominent in my mind. It is strange to consider exactly how things change – how even the passing of a single day can leave us a new person in subtle ways. Resolutions to change things, to improve, to get better – these can appear at any time. And, as Augé writes, what remains is the product of an erosion – except in this instance, it is not caused by oblivion. As I age, I feel as though extraneous things are washed away, things that I don’t want to define me any longer, things I want to improve, even in small ways.

My video on Forbidden Siren, in some ways, is one of my favourite videos that I’ve made. But there are many things that I did not quite understand about the video format, and because of that, I made something which has patches I could have improved. I wish I had lingered particularly on how Hanuda changes, or at least how the nest appears, over the course of the game. As well as refined my argument on how technology interfaces with us. But, of course, I refined my arguments elsewhere over the course of the year, and without the video, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve what I did.

As I move onto the next stage of academia, as well as my next stage of content creation, I will take many lessons from this video. I hope that such improvements, as garnered from this reflection, come through. Forbidden Siren is still one of my favourite horror games – its atmosphere of dread and menace still punches through the screen with serious force. I want to give every game that I showcase its due diligence. I want to ensure that I respect each game, both in script and video editing. In a way, The Hauntology of Forbidden Siren was the first video that felt like a proper success. On reflection, I feel as though I released it slightly before it was ready.

Maybe that is the trouble with setting myself goals for release. I feel a pressure to produce something, and so perhaps release it before it is ready. But I also felt it was ready at the time – it is only with the benefit of hindsight that I realize what could have been fixed. I suppose that is the curse of creating and producing things! As I trek on towards the future, I will look to this video as an anchor point, or a foundational block – it is something to be proud of, but to build on top of.