“Change someone’s perception of reality, and they will act how you want.”
Ranboo, in a post-game debrief
Over sixty years ago the filmmaker William Castle released Mr. Sardonicus in theaters, telling the tale of a horrid wretch of a man whose face was frozen in a rictus grin. Over the course of the movie, audiences learn about the macabre sins that led to his initial disfiguration, and the heartless experiments he inflicted on others in an attempt to cure himself.
As the film concludes, William Castle himself shows up on screen and cheerfully informs the audience that they have the opportunity to decide if Mr. Sardonicus has suffered enough, or if he deserves worse. Audience members are instructed to hold up glow-in-the-dark cards to vote, and Castle makes a show of tallying the votes, before the chosen ending plays. No audience ever voted to save Mr. Sardonicus. And while Castle insisted that two endings were filmed, the general assumption is that he didn’t bother since no audience would make that choice, after seeing the film. Because of this unique feature, Mr. Sardonicus was advertised as “the only picture with [a] ‘Punishment Poll'”.
Alternate reality games are in large part defined by the agency they grant to players, promising participants a collective role in the events to follow. Your decisions will shape what’s to come. However, that agency doesn’t always have to be real – the illusion of agency is often enough to leave audiences empowered enough to feel responsible for the game’s progress, and culpable for their missteps.
Last year, the Twitch streamer Ranboo filmed a three part interactive horror series called Generation Loss: The Social Experiments that delivered a particularly compelling exploration of the nature of agency. In the process, it might just have unseated Mr. Sardonicus‘ claim as “the only picture with [a] ‘Punishment Poll'”. And while asking you to watch over four hours of livestreamed footage might be a bit much, Ranboo just released The Social Experiments: The Founders Cut as a slightly more condensed, cinematic retelling of events.
If you’d prefer to watch Generation Loss relatively unspoiled, now would be a good time to watch The Founders Cut, which provides the best streamlined entry point to the series currently available. However, a bit of context will likely help make the viewing process a bit easier, as the series takes some fairly dramatic tonal shifts that makes the first half hour in particular a misleading indicator of the full experience.
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