Picture this: You wake up feeling disoriented. You don’t know what time it is, what day it is, even what month it is. Each day blends into the next and you yearn for a social life. You wish you could sit in a restaurant with friends or walk around the mall looking for clothes you will wear to even more social events. Your wishes, though, seem far from reach. You are in the middle of the COVID-19 Stay at Home movement and as much as you thought you were an introvert, it is all becoming too much.
Now picture this: You awaken and are somehow already standing outside, in front of your house. You run over lush green grass, carefully laid paths, and footbridges that cross over-flowing rivers. You climb up inclines to catch bugs and find mysterious rocks buried under misshapen ground. Life is happy, so much so as you can almost hear joyful instrumental music in the background. Then suddenly, a loading screen appears. You see your crumb-covered double chin in the reflection of your screen. You aren’t actually spending your life enjoying the great outdoors, you’re spending hours engulfed in a video game that gives you the illusion of freedom.
Real talk, I’m not trying to say that I completely dissociated and invested my life in a virtual world. Animal Crossing: New Horizons, however, has given me an escapism that I badly needed while staying at home for too long. A combination of the nostalgia from previous Animal Crossing games and the restlessness I felt from within my home allowed me to feel genuine happiness by living vicariously through my character. In Animal Crossing, you don’t have to maintain six feet of distance between yourself and those you converse with. The only health issues you have to worry about are wasp stings and when your villagers have a cold – both of which are solved by taking some medicine and doing a 360-degree spin.
Where am I going with this rant on some video games? The point I am trying to make is that 2020 has been hard on everyone. People have coped with everything going on in different ways. This is my tribute to Animal Crossing. But, it is also my tribute to other people’s Animal Crossings. For some, their Animal Crossing might be the short nature walks they were allowed to take during quarantine. For others, it may have been books or movies or new hobbies. Feel free to let us know what your Animal Crossing was on our Instagram @hcualberta, or on our Facebook page: Her Campus at UAlberta. Whatever your Animal Crossing was, I’m glad it helped you through such a hard time. And I look forward to the future when we can look back at this rollercoaster of a year and fondly remember our Animal Crossings.