Aimee Hart and Writing What You Know: Monetizing Trauma | Winter Spectacular 2020
One of the number one things that was beaten into me in secondary school was that I should ‘always write about what you know.’ I had a teacher that, according to them, could always tell a lie in someone’s story by the lack of realism. Whether it be fictional or not, she could sniff out the dishonesty, the fantasy, like a bloodhound.
This is the gay community when we see a video game fuck up queer characters STILL… IN 2020.
I suppose that’s why it became so natural to write about the traumatic things that happened to me and how that affected my perspective. At first, it was mostly wrapped up in fiction. After all, it’s much easier to protect not just the reader, but yourself, when you wrap trauma in bubble wrap. You can see the trauma, know that it’s real, but the plastic ultimately provides safety from it fully touching you.
However, growing older and stepping foot into the working world of freelance journalism has a funny way of removing that safety net. You may not think so at first, especially if you’re focusing on video games and are more interested in helping people find all of the Chaos Emeralds in a guide than wondering aloud about the ethical repercussions behind the latest triple-A game. But there is always something in video games that ticks something in you, something personal, something that’s hard to ignore - especially if you’re a minority.
Dragon Age has a strong and proud queer fanbase and a long history of representation.
My first ‘tick’ was through playing some incredibly old Flash dating simulators on Newgrounds, a website where online games of all shapes and sizes could be found (does it make me old that I feel I need to describe what Newgrounds is?). These games were mostly fan-made, and some were risque enough that my immature mind was mostly confused at the array of sexual content. The images didn’t bother me - but words? Those certainly intrigued me. The first word I remember looking up was ‘fag’ and ‘dyke.’ I didn’t know what those words were, and even after reading them up I still had no real clue apart from that they made me feel bad and instilled a shame in my sexuality far before I even knew what being part of the LGBT community meant. Looking back, it may not seem like such a traumatic memory, but considering the years I spent in the closet afterwards, it would be dishonest to say it was anything but traumatic.
As I grew older and became more perceptive of my sexuality, even having tried several labels in the process, so did my awareness of how powerful it felt to interlink both who I was with a hobby I was passionate about, aka, video games. One of my very first articles talked about how gaming was for everyone, and despite the lukewarm take it was, it helped me gain confidence in my work.
After that was when my freelancing truly began and the search of a niche was founded: writing about queer fandom, communities and issues within video games. It’s something that I quickly became known for, and was what helped me end up in my current job as Deputy Editor of the very first LGBT+ video game publication: Gayming Magazine.
But while speaking about queer issues is one thing, it’s quite another to monetise it and make it your niche within this industry. It sounds dirty when put like that, doesn’t it? Monetising your queer trauma, or just trauma in general. No matter how accepting the people around you are, there are more than enough douchebags out there that’ll remind you, you’re the oddity - it’s hard not to feel wrong, to feel strange no matter where you are, or what community you’re in.
If you have played The Outer Worlds you too would likely die to protect Parvati.
I used to feel like monetising the grief I’ve experienced, and the grief that my community has experienced, was cheap, almost rude. I was to write about queerness in video games for websites that still allowed far-right trolls to find you and berate you online, and it felt as though, in spite of all my hard work and the mental battering I received, that getting paid for all of it was wrong somehow.
But that was years ago, and experience has changed my perspective of that altogether. What I write about may touch on the rawness of the trauma of being a queer woman in a heterosexist world, but it also gets read by people who need that content. It helps normalise the positivity and love that is found in being true to yourself as a queer individual. I did not have that growing up. I had articles and media that were openly homophobic with little to no blowback. That’s not to say that queer positive articles and media didn’t exist, of course - there were queer people before me in this industry, and there will be queer people after me - both putting in the work to make this industry, and games, better. But, unfortunately, I had very little experience in finding them for a long time at such a young age.
Getting paid to write something personal isn’t just for me, anymore. And if I’m being truthful, it never has been. It’s to help make this industry a better place, to show vulnerability and let others know, whether that be through a reader’s perspective or someone else entirely, that it’s okay to do the same thing. Coming to terms with selling bits and pieces of your personal life isn’t a fast ride, it’s a long and difficult one, one that isn’t for everyone either. And that’s okay, because there are no winners or losers here, just a community trying their best to make this industry a more inclusive, and welcoming place.
Shout out to Tell Me Why for having a trans character that goes though a traumatic childhood event and doesn’t fuck up and conflate those two things.
