I’ve been enrolled in a Screen course at TAFE this semester. Initially I thought it would a breezy lazy course, but no, but it’s been quite a busy semester thus far. One assessment was to make a short seven minute mockumentary film to be submitted to Tropfest next year. Everyone in the class pitched an idea and mine was selected.

Mine is called “Dudebro” and it’s about a typical misogynistic dudebro gamer. I wanted to make the film when I thought about all the sexist shit that’s gone down in gaming culture in recent times. There was the online harassment of Anita Sarkeesian who was attacked for the mere notion of wanting to explore tropes about women in videogames, or the sexual harassment of Miranda Pakozdi, a competitor in the Capcom Cross Assault tournament which was justified by fellow competitor Aris Bakhtanians who said that, “sexual harassment is part of the culture”. I wish these were just two isolated incidents, but alas they’re not, and I or anyone who’s been even vaguely following videogame news in the last year could list plenty more I’m sure.

I play videogames, and I don’t want the culture to continue to be infused with this. I want it to be an inclusive culture that welcomes anyone. So I made a mockumentary to do what I could to address this and hopefully make people think.

It won’t be available to see online I think until Tropfest next year, but I also made a vlog in character – as the titular dudebro “Moz” – that I used when I pitched the idea for the film. I should probably give a language warning as Moz doesn’t know many adjectives that aren’t four letter words.

On a different note, tomorrow I’m off to Melbourne to go to Freeplay, the annual independent games festival held there. Looking forward to catching up with friends and meeting new people.

I’m on holidays now for three weeks and spare time for gamedev and has been hard to find this term, but that’s okay as it’s been a useful term and with a little bit of time management magic next term, hopefully I can find time to work on developing games and studying and working.

I’m planning in the new semester next year to do a teaching certificate at TAFE so that I’m able to teach there. I could teach whatever I’m qualified to teach within digital media, and I could teach English too. As I said in the last post, I still plan to independently study gamedev (and hopefully make money from doing so in the future) but for the short term I have to balance that with the need to make money for a living so I can eat and buy clothes and live under a roof and all those important necessities of life.

There was a time when teaching would’ve seemed unappealing to me. True story: I actually started a teaching degree when I was 20 years old and had just finished my undergrad arts degree, but I dropped out after a semester when I realized that I didn’t want to make a living teaching 14 year olds French.

These days though, my attitude to teaching has changed. When I think back to the various formal studies I’m done, I can see how a teacher can make such a difference. A bad teacher can leave you disillusioned and depressed, but a good teacher can encourage you and give you hope. And education is of such vital importance in life. Education is how people achieve social mobility, how they find work, and how they improve their self-confidence. So what a valuable and beautiful thing to be able to teach someone. It may not seem like much helping someone conjugate verbs or mask an image in Photoshop, but for all you know, that could be the very start to someone changing his or her life for the better. How awesome is it to be able to help someone do that!

So that’s the plan. I should pack now. I have a plane to catch tomorrow.