by Mendi Lewis Obadike is a very short narrative experience with some pretty simple CSS coding. While simple, the story is memorable with a clever spin. The story starts off with a rather boring/mundane account of a guy who would attend the main character’s church. However, by quite literally reading between the lines, you will notice that there is a more nefarious narrative that the main character quite deliberately hides from the viewer. Only when you hover your cursor over the empty spaces in between lines is when you are able to read the story of a powerful, old, white man who sexually exploited a young black girl in church by banking on the fact that she would be too softspoken, traumatized, or embarassed to speak up about it.
Reading the surface-level narrative did not do much to quell my anxieties, as the deliberate blank spaces began to become more and more common, my worries that a narrative was being censored began to mount. I had already accidentally hovered over a “hidden” sentence to reveal that this man was not as innocent as he appeared. But, with the words “church”, “powerful”, and “adult” came into the picture, I prayed my worries were unfounded. To my disappointment, my worries were not unfounded. Reading the second narrative made me feel uneasy, like prying an unwilling testimony out of a victim who did nothing wrong. While the narrative seems to be screaming as hard as they can, the best the truth can manage is to hide in plain sight. It is a rather gross and unnerving thought that these narratives are by no means a rarity, and it is more troubling to imagine how much worse it would have been if this side of the story had not come to light. How many other victims are misunderstood or callously ignored, and how all of these things happen with people we trust all in plain sight.
by Shelley Jackson is another narrative about a woman that also involves her body. It is an interactive website that displays a full-body, nude self-portrait of a woman, labeled head to toe. This page is also fairly easy to understand: point and click on any part of the body to read a short excerpt of this person’s experience growing up with this body part. Most excerpts are of the main character’s experience through adolescence, experiences that shape who they are today. Whether it be odd private moments, ignorance, or unfounded shame, these moments are raw and unfiltered to paint a very compelling narrative of this person’s personal experience living in this body of theirs.
Going through this website was rather frustrating. Only certain body parts were labeled and sometimes the redirection would be mismatched to their respective body parts. I had to inspect the CSS code myself to uncover all of the different pages these body parts that were possible to encounter. In total, there were a staggering number of total pages to be redirected to, I counted 27 different links. While combing through all of the different locations to be redirected, I was pleasantly surprised how specific and meticulous these various different pages were. Speaking of these separate pages, the paragraph of text accompanying most of these body parts were rather interesting to read. Everything about this page is not remotely sexual in nature despite depicting only the body parts specific to this female character. From the blank, almost judgmental stare of the character’s self-portrait to the analytical dissection of each section of her body, this experience is meant to be explored, to be understood. While discovering a new part of this person’s body, you discover a new narrative of this person coming into their own. Describing aspects in intensely meticulous, grotesque detail. Every emotion, feeling, smell, and thought is described with nothing left to the imagination. It was an uncomfortable, yet interesting experience, especially as a reader of the opposite sex. It made the opposite sex feel much less mysterious and much more realatable, despite the surface level differences in appearance.
by Zoe Quinn was an invaluable experience. It took a lot out of me to start, especially because it was a text-based experience for a visually stimulated gamer such as me. It very much put me in the place of the main character, and an approximation of the experience of depression for this individual. Stuck in a rock and a hard place, the drive to “beat” the game quickly transformed into a desire to help this individual out of their depressive rut. I easily became invested, with each decision feeling more like my own, and at points reflecting decisions I’ve had to make in my real life. The feeling of claustrophobia also felt palpable, with each decision feeling as if you were uncovering a different dead end, the perfect solution so painfully eliminated from contention. However, with each decision leading to a more enjoyable and fulfilling life for this character, I simultaneously felt the same fulfillment/joy. It felt like I made the right choices and recontextualized what it meant to be there for someone else, and what it means to be successful; to live a fulfilling life. An experience I thoroughly enjoyed and hope I never forget.