Kojima says ‘walking simulator’ comments about Death Stranding prove social media can form hivemind narratives
He finds it “scary” that people may one day never confront differing opinions
Hideo Kojima has expressed concern at the way social media can form ‘hivemind’ narratives, citing the response to Death Stranding as one example.
To mark the Japanese release of the movie Digger, Kojima took part in a two-way interview with the film’s director Alejandro González Iñárritu for Gizmodo Japan.
During the conversation, Iñárritu explained how he was worried about the way “we all are living in our fragmented truths in our phones”, with people inheriting their opinions from social media instead of forming their own opinions.
“Even now, the conversation outside this film is fed not by the film, but by the stories of this film,” Iñárritu said. “Even if people haven’t seen it, they have a strong opinion of what they haven’t seen, and that’s the new reality. The new reality is to be certain about what you have not even experienced.”
He added: “It’s a virus like the flu, you are sick and you cannot escape from that filter that you are seeing everything through. Somebody’s reality is imposed on you.
“So if somebody sees something yellow, then everything in the world, all of these guys who were infected by that yellow worth, it’s like a magical kind of poison where everybody’s seeing the yellow in it, even when it’s red.”
Kojima said he agreed, pointing out that a lot of people who haven’t played Death Stranding often refer to it as a walking simulator, to the extent that it’s become one of the most commonly seen descriptions of the game.
“People who haven’t even seen Digger are criticizing it, aren’t they?” Kojima asked (via machine translation). “I created a game called Death Stranding, where you walk around making deliveries, but people who haven’t played it have said things like, ‘this is just a walking simulator’, as if they’d actually played it. That perception still persists, and that’s actually what scares me the most.
“Then, of course, with AI making its way into social media, you end up seeing only the things you like, right?
“You only come across opinions and content you already agree with, so you won’t be exposed to completely different perspectives or entirely different opinions. That’s the scariest part, because you’ll never end up meeting anyone by chance.
