Jason Voorhees Saved My Social Life

As a child in the 80s and 90s, I had a clear-cut vision of what adulthood was. Adults read big books written by towering intellects. They watched sophisticated cinema made by auteurs. They discussed complex ideas and social issues over dinner and drinks, drifting between politics, history, and literature. They looked for intellectual challenges and sought self-betterment, a profusion of novel experiences and imaginings perpetually broadening their frame of reference. Adult potential was boundless.

Then I became an adult, and I must confess I was a little disappointed.

In social situations, I met people in their thirties who read young adult fiction, if they read at all. Their shelves were filled with Ninja Turtles and GI Joe action figures, not books. Their notion of “cinema” consisted entirely of superhero movies, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Transformers. George Lucas and Michael Bay were their “auteurs.”

Video games were all-important, too, with Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and Street Fighter factoring heavily into dinner-party discussions. Pokémon came up frequently in several friend groups, and not just those composed of self-identifying geeks.

When groups ruminated at gatherings, they did so over plot points of the Star Wars sequel trilogy (The Rise of Skywalker prompted particularly passionate debate). The most burning social issue I ever heard discussed involved supposedly “woke” casting decisions in the latest iterations of the aforementioned…