Be
(more than) Yourself.
The
advertising war between EA and the French Army.
Four
years ago I used to live in Paris. Living in Paris – along with all
the romance – involves a lot of time spent in the Metro
the Parisian subway. It is natural, than, that when the Armée
de Terre (the
French Army) decided to launch a new recruitment campaign they chose
the Metro as privileged location for their advertisements. The result
was the “devenezvousmemes.com” (become yourself) campaign
“Since
when you didn't push your limits?” Ask the posters to any French
teenager waiting for his or her train. With us you'll have the
possibility to do it.
The
image has strongly material features: it looks like drawn onto an
uniform, with buttons and badges. The message is that this is a
serious call, if you enlist you will become a real man, you will be
challenged every day and you will reach the best that you can achieve
trough sweat and effort. The campaign (still active today) its
reported to have had a certain amount of success and the military
were quite pleased.
Since
it happened the unthinkable. I remember laughing ten minutes when I
fist saw it, astonished by the bravery and smartness that brought to
this:
Electronic
Arts with two simple words “more than” had just destroyed the
military rhetoric. Why do I have to suffer and work to reach my
zenith, when I can be far beyond it comfortably sitting at my
computer?
The
image follow this antithetical discourse: it is an immaterial
picture, without any background, but far more bad-ass than the
previous one. It seems to say “Do you think that they
will allow you to pilot an helicopter and
a
tank?”.
The
military weren't pleased at all, far from it. They asked and obtained
that the new announcements were retired within a week and they paused
their campaign too. The général Philippe Pontiès explained that
this double advertising was dangerous because it was confusing: “war
is not a game” he said “In a video-game, even if rules exist,
most of the time you can transgress them without harsh consequences.
Our project is to explain that we have to avoid this video-games
logic if we want to enter in the real life. In the Army we have codes
and rules. If we ignore them we put the life of civilians and
soldiers in peril, we can fail the mission”.
It
is very interesting to see how the two discourses, the military and
the playful, compete in today's society.
On
the one hand we have the military that, with its materialistic image,
says that the real life is not the digital life. That to accomplish
ourselves we have to be trained, fit and strong. Our true self lives
in the real world and it is not granted, it is an achievement. What
would be better, then, that the soldier life to achieve your true
self? You will learn that the world is out there, that you have
responsibilities, and we would not pamper you. You will live among
the others and according to them. This is reality.
The
ludic discourse is exactly the opposite. It propose a model in which
the digital world can be your reality, a much better reality, if you
want it. Why should you be yourself if you can be better? If you can
be an hundred of different selves, living adventures in every
historic period and every nation or planet without risking anything?
Your true self is in your mind, and if you believe it you can be
everyone. What would be better, than, that video-games to be who you
want to be? We can sell you perfect illusions, and you can be safely
and comfortably home. You can live by yourself and still meet a lot
of digital (and nice) people. This is better than reality.
Both
discourses, as usual, don't let any space for a middle ground: you
can be either a jar-head either a nerd, no other choices. But it is
fascinating that games, that so often have been accused to raise
violence in teenagers, are, in fact, in open opposition against the
military. You can like both, but you can't live according to the two
different realities that they propose you.
Professor
Ortoleva has written a small but awesome book on gamification
entitled “From sex to play: an obsession for the 21th
century?”. In his book he reconstruct the history of the perception
of sex in modern and post-modern culture, showing how it gained more
and more relevance in Western culture. A sort of sexyfication of
society that, after reaching is azimuth, is now fading leaving space
to the incipient gamification.
If
in the sex-centered '70s pacifist's motto was: “Make love, not
war”, in the gamificated 21th
century it has been replaced by a new motto: “don't make war, play
games!”