The other day I was watching this let's play on YouTube. I enjoy watching let's plays because, though I'm an avid gamer, I'm kinda broke at the moment and this is a way to get something of the experience for free.
However, I'm not really writing this to justify why I watch let's plays or the existence of let's plays in general. I'm here to talk about how interesting media has become in the modern age.
If you happened to click on the above link, you were quickly taken to Part 2 of Markiplier's recent let's play of The Evil Within. It looks to be a fairly solid horror game, but of particular interest is the game world: it takes place inside a fictional reality created by an evil corporation that has gone haywire.
Now, I'm not going to get into the particulars of the game (it's not a post about The Evil Within just like it's not a post about let's plays) because that's also not the point here. The point is that this is a fictional world inside of the fictional world of the game.
In other words, it's a nested reality
It's not like we haven't essentially had nested realities since the dawn of civilization. First these were orated tales and cave art. Then they were written tales and the more modern art of the last few thousands years that was more detailed, complete, and consistent.
Now our nested realities have become so sophisticated that they're beginning to develop nested realities of their own.
But wait, there's more.
YouTube itself can be considered a sort of nested reality, since the recording that's playing back is, in a sense, a fiction that was created by referencing an actual event that happened in the past.
So while watching this let's play I had the sudden realization that I was watching Markiplier (inside of a nested reality of a YouTube recording), playing a game ( which is a nested reality by definition), about a guy who has to go inside of a nested reality.
Cool, huh?
Oh, but there's one more thing.
This blog post can be considered a type of nested reality too, in the same way of the YouTube video. It's a recollection (a nested reality inside of your mind based on an event or events that happened [hopefully]). Which means that you exist on the highest level of a veritable Russian doll of nested realities while you read this post.
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2017
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