The other day, I was having a discussion with my woman about photography, and she made the point that we are fast becoming a non-photogenic generation.

I agreed with her instantly, of course, but later (during some mental downtime) I actually thought about what she was saying, and realised that she made a surprisingly interesting point. When my parents were kids, they used to play in the street, laughing, japing and dazzling passers-by with their implausibly rosy cheeks. It was a world without paedophiles. By the time I reached Japing Age, though, the rot had already set in. Kids were spending all their evenings on Spectrums and C64s, scowling at anyone with the temerity to open the curtains or disturb the filth accumulating in great drifts in the corners of their bedrooms. And as they grew up, their insular lifestyles grew with them. That’s why our photo albums now consist of weddings and holidays and not much else. We’ve lost something; something that no amount of exploding things can make up for.

Remember the Kodak Carousel scene in Mad Men? If you haven’t seen it, it’s a profoundly moving piece of drama. Ad-man Don Draper plays a photographic slideshow of his life to a stunned audience, who watch him building a treehouse with his kids, falling in love, holding his newborn baby; all the beautiful, lost moments of his life. But imagine how it would have played out if Don Draper had been a member of the Sun-Fearing generation. If he had been me, in fact.

A little different, I’ll wager.

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that someone has been lurking in my bedroom for the past twenty years, taking photos of me during my most intimate moments. Sort of like a sex-offender version of Edward Cullen. But that’s another article in itself.

Let’s begin.

DUCK: Here they come, gentlemen. Don, it’s your show now.  Just… if I can offer one word of advice, please don’t do that thing you always do. You know the thing I’m talking about.

DON: Don’t worry, Duck. This one’s in the bag.

The KODAK MEN are shown into the conference room.

DON: Welcome, gentlemen. Please take a seat.

The KODAK MEN sit down alongside the MAD MEN. One of the KODAK MEN takes out a slide wheel and places it on the table.

KODAK MAN 1: We appreciate that you’ll have a hard time selling this. We’re aware that the Wheel is seen as old technology now. Extremely old technology, since for the creaky premise of this comedy article, we’re currently in 2009.

DUCK: That shouldn’t be a problem for Don. He’s not just an all-round swell guy: he’s also a creative genius.

DON: Thank you, Duck.

DUCK: I’ll put that one on the tab.

Everyone laughs. Don turns back to the KODAK MEN.

DON: Back when I was just a junior ad man, I spent a lot of time on the Counterstrike forums. It was the perfect place to learn about the darker side of people; what really makes them tick. I made a lot of good friends there, but there was one particular man who became a mentor to me, and whose guidance I heed to this day. His name was Commodore Fuckburger. He taught me that people are never happy with what they’ve got. They always want what they had.

The KODAK MEN listen, interested.

“Don_ZeDong,” he once said to me, “just look at Counterstrike. A few years ago, it got upgraded: new graphics, new gameplay. People should have been grateful, but they weren’t. For some reason, they hankered after the old Counterstrike, bitching on endlessly about how this new version was just for faggots and gays. It wasn’t, of course. It was actually pretty sweet. They did change the names of all the guns though, which was a totally homo thing to do.”

DON: What Fuckburger was saying here was that gamers weren’t really hankering after the old game. No, they missed the memory – the nostalgia – of those vanished days of their lives. It’s something you ache for. Something you can never get back. Sweetheart?

ASSISTANT LADY starts the projector. The room is darkened.

DON: In Greek, nostalgia literally means “the pain of returning home.” And that’s exactly what you feel when you look at my personal photographs. Pain.

The Wheel clicks, and the first slide displays a teenager, beswamped with acne. It is 1996. On the screen stands Lara Croft in her most primitive incarnation. Her buttocks are like two mouldy cardboard boxes. Her mouth clings desperately to her face, like a butterfly to a windswept cliff. There is very little to arouse here, yet the boy’s brow clenches as he masturbates with grim determination. He will make it, no matter how long and arduous the journey.

DON: It’s not called the Wheel. It’s called the Circle Of Sadness. It transports us back to a time where we succeeded in escaping; where each evening was a journey to a far-away place, full of magic and endless possibility. When we were kids, our playgrounds weren’t parks or streets: they were balconies suspended in space.

Click

Submarines hugging the floor of the Mariana trench.

Click

Quaint Italian towns, haunted by the disembodied voice of Pavarotti.

Click

DON: But it wasn’t really the games themselves that brought us there; it was our own imaginations. The games were just the stepping stones. And that’s why you can never truly go back, no matter how hard you may try. Because you’ve changed now, and those places in your dreams have evaporated, leaving only cold, hard adulthood behind.

The next slide shows Don, aged 32, wearing nothing but a tattered pair of Aliens boxer shorts, sloganed “Butt Huggers”. His stubbled, tear-streaked face is bathed in the light of Aliens Versus Predator. His belly droops low, but not low enough to obscure the moth-holes in his underpants. Through one of them, his penis peeks out.

DON: Sometimes, when you look at these pictures… you wish you could go back to the very beginning, and warn yourself. Stop now, while you can.

Don is six years old, in his grandparents’ living room. He stares, wide-eyed, at the white dot bouncing from left to right and back again. His sister will quickly grow bored with the game, but Don will stay in the room all night, playing Pong until his eyes hurt and his t-shirt becomes crusted with dribble.

DON: But you can’t. You never know where the future will lead. And perhaps it’s better that way.

A huge crowd. Don, naked, is fourteenth-from-left. He is one of the Squatters; there are an equal number of people lying supine on the ground. It is the biggest teabagging session ever attempted in a computer game. All around the world, teenagers are hi-fiving themselves and shaking uncontrollably as the Mountain Dew courses through their veins. Don reclines, a look of blissful calm upon his face. This is the finest moment of his entire life.

The slides end, and the lights go up.

KODAK MAN 1: There were… There were an awful lot of shots of your dick in there, Mr. Draper.

KODAK MAN 2: Pretty much every shot, in fact.

KODAK MAN 1: You’re actually touching your dick right now.

DON: Yes I am. And that’s the point. The Circle Of Sadness conveys a very profound message, and because of my time on the Counterstrike forums, I know exactly what that message is, and how it should be expressed.

Duck groans quietly.

KODAK MAN 2: And what exactly is your message, Mr Draper?

DON leans forward.

DON: Would you like me to lay it on the table for you gentlemen?

KODAK MAN 1: Please do.

There is a sad, wet thump.

Don looks expectantly at the KODAK MEN.

DON: That’s my message, gentlemen. Take it or leave it.

The KODAK MEN exchange glances, then get up and leave without saying a word.

DUCK: Good luck at your next… ahhh, fuck it.

Filed under: Gaming nostalgia