Quiet moments with food sizzling on the stove. Reading a book to learn carpentry. Tailoring clothes.
This is how I spend most of my time while playing Project Zomboid, a post-apocalyptic survival game, whenever I’m not frantically fighting off the mob. Unless I’m playing on a multiplayer server, there is no one else to be found in this post-apocalyptic Kentucky. There’s only quiet and survival.
I love survival games. I love games where you start from nothing in a world that is against you, and every small piece of incremental progress feels like a celebration. In Project Zomboid, that is boarding up the windows of my safehouse. In Kenshi, it’s surviving my first encounter with a Beak Thing. In DayZ, it’s figuring out how to light a fire.
This is kind of weird. I hear from a lot of other trans people that they want escapism in their entertainment, and turn to cozy games like Stardew Valley and the Sims for a mostly-conflict-free world (and I love these games too, for the record). I can also understand the draw of experiencing worlds where real-world limitations like transphobia, racism, and ableism, do not exist.
But there’s something cathartic about surviving a landscape that does not want you to survive. In an article on why we enjoy post-apocalyptic TV shows, Caroline Bologna asked researchers this same question:
“When we watch shows like ‘The Last of Us,’ our bodies and our brains engage with the content as though it’s really happening ― although much less dangerously… We are able to experience the rush of fear, adrenaline, suspense” (Courtney Tracy, psychotherapist and “The Truth Doctor Show” host).
I think this is similar to the way horror allows us to experience frightening and even traumatic situations in a “safe” way to confront our own trauma, with control over the experience and permission to disengage at any time.
“Experiencing the physical effects of fight-or-flight—racing thoughts, nausea, a narrowing of vision—helps us to better recognize and deal with parallel experiences in our day-to-day lives. By experiencing them in a safe, low stakes way, horror movies allow us to discover and understand our bodies’ fear responses, which helps to better handle anxiety attacks (as well as the fear of that physiological response itself)” (Mel Ashford).
Apocalyptic fiction and games allow us to physically and emotionally process real-life horrors that often get ignored.
Within Trump’s first two weeks as President, so many aspects of queer and trans people’s lives have come under threat. Anti-immigration policies and ICE raids are creating danger and uncertainty for undocumented (as well as documented) families. Information about race, oppression, and DEI are being erased from the resources we have access to online and in-person. Many of us are scrambling to figure out next steps. Should I try to renew my passport now so I have a way to leave the country, or will it be taken away? Should I find out how to get hormones if my doctor can no longer prescribe them? How can I support those who are more directly impacted while keeping my head above water?
Many of us are also feeling frozen and turning to distraction as an escape. This moment feels like an apocalypse, and yet there’s so much pressure to carry on as if nothing is wrong.
It feels counterintuitive to escape into a fictional apocalypse. But this does somehow help me get out of “freeze” mode. When the threats outside are the undead rather than nebulous, threatening policies and growing fascism, I know what to do. I collect food and fortify my base. I take action.
Researchers also tell us that apocalyptic media can help us feel more prepared to face real-world disasters.
“These fictions allow us to simulate what it would be like to live in a world like that and mentally prepare for the dangers we would face… Ever since we have had the ability to imagine and mentally explore dangerous worlds, we have done so. One study I conducted in 2020 found that many people were watching not only more pandemic-themed movies but also more horror movies” (Coltan Scrivner, behavioral scientist and researcher at the Recreational Fear Lab at Aarhus University in Denmark).
We are each coping in different ways, and I recognize how much of a privilege it is to use media as escapism when so many others targeted by the Trump administration are fearing for their lives. For those of us in this “in-between” place, it’s hard to know what to do, both to take care of our needs in the moment and prepare for future disasters.
In the zombie apocalypse, we can engage with small actions – cooking a meal, helping a friend, taking our meds – to survive. In the real world, our moments of survival are often small. Making a go-bag, having a phone call with a friend, and taking our medication every day might be the things that keep us alive, even if they don’t feel particularly badass. But maybe in either situation, for a short time at least, we can see ourselves as survivors.