AMONG US
a review by AnimeDweeb
a review by AnimeDweeb
Hey everyone, this is your least favorite YouTube video essayist, DweebTV. Before we begin, I'd like to shout-out today's sponsor, Raycons, for their hypothetical support for my fake channel. Also, only a small percentage of you are subscribed 😱
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*Be sure to hit the red and bell buttons! Also, be sure to click my profile and comment "SUSSY WUSSY BUSSY" on my wall to tell me you've read the review from start to finish, it really helps out a ton with the algorithm. Without further ado, let's analyze why Among Us is the most culturally relevant piece of media of all time.*
Among Us may be a game set in the upper reaches of space, but it has undoubtedly taken our world by storm. To prove this, look no further than the subject of this review: a bizarre case of East-Meets-West, taking the form of a comic spinoff in a serialized Japanese kids' magazine based on an American video game. It's hardly an exceptional feat on its own, but we're merely scratching the surface. Among Us ' comprehensive domination of the zeitgeist can be seen in live streaming, extensive media coverage, fandoms, and countless memes. Marketing has manifested through both lucrative merchandise deals and pure magic; even the mere sight of any real-life object slightly-resembling the cylindrical physique of a Crewmate allows the intellectual property (IP) to be made known within the conscious. Among Us ' infectious and damn-near invasive effect can be summed up by the exasperated mantra of detractors everywhere: "GETOUTOFMYHEAD." The cultural proliferation of the game has itself mutated into its own meta-ironic talking point, where satirical commentary on the IP's popularity too contributes to its saturation in an relentless cycle. For instance, examine the following viral clip:
STOP. POSTING. ABOUT. AMONG US.
As the success of the above infamous post suggests, avoidance isn't possible for the time being. Among Us is quite literally among us and here to stay, whether we like it or not. And what's not to like? The simple accessibility of the indie game's design is what allowed it to cement itself as a cultural mainstay. It's all sussy fun and games… or so it would seem. In truth,Among Us is embedded with several socially-relevant ideas that invite unparalleled popularity and obfuscate controversy. This franchise takes on many forms besides the app on your preferred playing devices. It's a simulation, it's propaganda, it's a prophecy. Among Us may be the only official iteration within the series, but we're living in the prequel. Jeez, talk about immersive gameplay.
Bold claims for a bold Crewmate, but I digress. Before you hit that "Emergency Meeting" button, allow my sussy self to present my case. Step into the vents, and join me in my task to uncover what lies beneath the surface.
Published in the April '22 issue of Bessatsu Corocoro, Berabou's manga one-shot is an exceptionally entertaining read that closely mirrors the primary gameplay loop of Innersloth's video game of the same name. For the purposes of this review, I'll be directing my commentary towards the game as a whole, while referring to the manga as a companion piece. This discussion will also avoid touching on additional player roles or fan-made mods.
In Among Us , you play amidst armless, faceless astronauts known as "Crewmates" aboard a sci-fi facility. Crewmates are each given tasks to complete around the map, and can win the match by completing all of these assigned jobs. Tasks come in the form of rudimentary minigames that are not mechanically challenging in the slightest. In fact, one could say that tasks are the easiest aspect of the experience. The real gameplay happens everywhere else. Not every member of the lobby is a Crewmate, as one or several players will be given the role of "Imposter." As the name implies, Imposters cannot complete tasks as the real Crewmates do, and aim to take over the facility. Imposters can achieve such victory in two ways: either by eliminating a sufficient number of Crewmates or causing an incident that critically damages the facility. To combat such murderous betrayal, Crewmates are also given the means to defend themselves through popular vote. Any player can initiate an Emergency Meeting, wherein players can vote for the ejection of any one member. Meetings allow Crewmates to potentially get rid of every Imposter and win the game, but can also be advantageous to Imposters in furthering their body count of innocent Crewmates.
This is a game that's easy to play, yet difficult to master. Gameplay rewards critical deduction skills and strategic planning. Experience, tactical subterfuge, sharp improvisation and keen social awareness are key to consistently isolating the enemy. But above all else, across all levels of play, Among Us encourages teamwork. The game expands the roleplaying foundations of its spiritual successor, the party game "Mafia," by creating an immersive experience for all participants from start to finish. Playing "Mafia" makes me long for purpose and interact as a "main character" with a designated role; Among Us overcomes this design challenge by making everyone the main character. Players need to be on their toes both within and beyond Emergency Meetings, in order to clear tasks in an inconspicuous manner and collect evidence against opponents. Any one player could be the deciding factor between victory and sussy defeat. Every player matters on a level playing field that is accessible and easy to learn. Thus, the dominant strategy is cooperation, which is encouraged by constant positive affirmation of the collective's tasks. In this manner, Among Us fosters an inconsequential, yet meaningful sense of collectivism towards a singular goal. This, I believe, is the game's strongest asset: the ability of making the individual gamer feel involved in a goal greater than themself. In my eyes, this is the key component that ensured the IP's timely success, even though things didn't start out so rosy for Among Us .
There's no understating the effect the COVID pandemic has had on this video game's meteoric rise to cultural relevance. After all, Innersloth had launched the title as far back as 2018 with little-to-no fanfare. Among Us ' time under the spotlight would only arrive in the summer of 2020, peaking at almost half a billion active sussy bakas on Steam. It makes sense that the challenging circumstances during this window would make the ingenious design choices of Among Us evermore enticing. For many, quarantine was a period of unwarranted isolation and vulnerability. Sudden disruptions to daily routines often taken for granted shook every one of us, with arguably the biggest change being the loss of intimacy. We felt alone. Thankfully, Among Us was always there, biding its time before springing into the public consciousness as the unexpected remedy for our problems. The game gave us goals worth looking forward to, though a reliable gameplay loop that's as simple as it is satisfying. Do tasks. Perform a mild degree of murderous tomfoolery. Do tasks. Suss out the sussy sus-poster. Do tasks. This enthusiasm for the game would then be amplified by the collective's; we as isolated individuals would be hyped because so many other members were. Be it through spectating celebrity-endorsed gameplay, curating content for the fandom at large, or simply booting up a lobby to play with friends and acquaintances ‒ we felt included in something greater than our individual selves. Among Us was never just about entertainment, but community. And that feeling of connection and affiliation is a powerful one, in more ways than what's immediately apparent.
Earlier in the review, I made the claim that Among Us contains embedded ideas. To demonstrate my point, let me quickly rephrase the game's premise: Among Us follows the activities of uniformed workers performing routine duties across a corporatized environment. Sounds way more boring, right? By omitting the sci-fi locale and the "party game" component of the experience, Among Us begins to resemble something… familiar. Gone is the fantasy of being on-board a spaceship with serial killers, welcome to capitalism. Whether this is intentional or unbeknownst to the Innersloth developers, Among Us serves as overt capitalist propaganda. Think about it: accomplishing work in an efficient manner is consistently rewarded with wins, thereby merging work and play outside of a workplace environment. Among Us glamorizes labor and hinges on its community of committed Crewmates to reaffirm corporate values through the aforementioned maxim: "Do tasks." Is winning insufficient incentive for hard effort? If so, in-game currency via microtransactions allows players to purchase a wide variety of skins, pets, and other cosmetic items. Decorating your Crewmate and coming up with unique personal strategies are just some of the ways Among Us upholds individuality, but at the end of the day, we're all marching to the same beat of the drum: "Do tasks." Conversely, the Imposters' inability to carry out work is antagonized and ostracized. Hard work is praised; the lack thereof is looked down upon. The connections are undeniably clear.
Perhaps the discussion of whether or not it's acceptable to expose young audiences to such propaganda is a contentious one. Since the manga omits this task-oriented aspect of gameplay from its narrative and instead devotes its attention to the deduction aspect, I'll leave these observations on a brief, ambiguous note. However, the key points of this investigative lens still stand. Through this case study, we are able to prove that this game manages to impart ideology and encourage a pattern of socially-acceptable behavior, in spite of its innocuous appearance. Collectivism, reward and antagonism. These three points are the key takeaways discussed thus far, and will each play a vital part in exposing the true nature of Among Us .
Let's have a chat about cancel culture.
Just as real-world events had a hand in Among Us ' spike in popularity, the context behind the game's inception offers a telling correlation. 2017 marked a year before the game's launch and the start of the #MeToo movement. Revelations from previously-suppressed voices concerning misdemeanors from high-profile public figures certainly led to a great deal of justice, while spreading other ramifications we're still adapting to today. The #MeToo movement was impactful in showcasing the power of public voice, and spawned an attitude surrounding public discourse known as "cancel culture." The term refers to the habit of appealing to popularity in order to place pressure on targets with the hopes of "canceling" them. This has become especially prevalent on the Internet, a platform that allows for the quick mobilization of complete strangers on-board bandwagons. But might may not always guarantee being right, and cancel culture can unjustly put down perspectives that are deserving of rational assessment. Nowadays, simply commenting "ratio+L" on the side of the majority is far more effective than having a well-argued stance few people have thought of before. Worse still, irrevocable hurt can be carried out before due process, thereby damaging real lives before truth can be accurately reported and understood.
As an extension of the IP, the manga details the perils of cancel culture, albeit in a lighthearted manner that feels on-brand. The story of King is ultimately one of folly, as he attempts to deduce the Imposter behind his colleague's murder. I mentioned earlier that the game rewards smart thinking, but it doesn't restrict play. Which means that oftentimes, the time crunch of Among Us forces players into the paths of irrational choices and pseudo-intellectual analyses (much like this review.) King's actions in the story reflect these fallacies. King's excitement for the match is established within the first few panels of the story, and he subsequently displays his superiority complex by taking control of the situation, only to waste valuable time and face defeat. He haphazardly establishes an alibi that's irrelevant to the situation at hand, fakes a Sherlockian "eureka" moment by identifying the similarity between a dead body and meat, and winds up ejecting a friend on nothing but a hasty hunch. Both manga and game act as admittedly entertaining simulations of cancel culture. While King may not have actually gathered public backing behind his actions, he still displays the inflammatory decision-making characteristics of someone looking for a head on a plate. Meanwhile, the video game doesn't substantially punish players for this impulsive playstyle. Emergency Meetings are courts built on public vote, and whoever controls the narrative controls power, regardless of their deeds and actions. As such, people frequently vote others out on dumb logic all the time. While it's commendable that Among Us affords gamers such high degrees of agency, this begs the question of why players would even consider the nuclear option, even if it results in failure? The answer is pleasure. We crave pleasure, and feel a sense of vindication in making the right choice, even if it's arrived at in the wrong process. It feels good to be in-charge and in the perceived right. We strive to get Imposter blood on our hands, even if it means losing some Crewmate guts along the way. There's a sense of pride in seeing someone in the opposition get ejected, even if they don't turn out to be the enemy. Before, I praised collectivism as the IP's strongest asset. But there's a darker side to that same coin: antagonism. The use of numbers against the few is the backbone for cancel culture, and Among Us has turned it into a party game.
We have accepted antagonism as part-and-parcel of the human experience. Unlike the limbless Crewmate workers, Among Us has indeed had a hand in drawing a line in the sand. The abbreviated term "sus" is just a widespread recent entry to a long list of insults in our vocabulary. Crewmate Vs. Imposter, Us Vs. Them. "Get his sussy wussy bussy off my ship." Where the Among Us manga impacts me most is with the story arc of Egg, which I find to be coded with revelatory subtext about the franchise as a whole. Egg is quickly introduced as a compelling deuteragonist, who gets put down by his peers for being "lame" (note the insults coming into play.) He then lashes out by killing Cap, and wishes death upon the other members of the spaceship. At no point does he show empathy or remorse, and why would he? He's an Imposter, and they are Crewmates. They are diametrically opposed to one another and, out of the millions of Among Us matches played across the globe, have never once reconciled. What a dark, tragic dichotomy. The manga's inclusion of Egg is on-par with the character arc of Joker, but also carries the only flaw tarnishing an otherwise perfect literary experience. Whereas Joker puts the blame of Arthur's villainy on the world around him, Among Us makes the shocking claim that evil is intrinsic and must be ejected at all costs, even if it means hurting allies. Sure, it's all fun and games. The player roles rotate with every lobby, and people will each get their turns to side with the majority. Losing or winning is mostly a nominal difference. But what if it isn't all just a game? What if the franchise is both a simulation and self-fulfilling prophecy of human irrationality? What happens when this innocent game promotes poor reasoning and "rightness," in favor of thinking and mercy? Should people deserve the opportunity to defend themselves, or were they indisputably bad to begin with? Is it appropriate to let this toxic culture exist, when it results in unjust accusations and hurt lives?
"ඞ."
In researching ways to conclude this review, I came across this text character resembling a Crewmate. It's part of the Sinhalese alphabet, but seldom appears in modern revisions of the writing system. Looking into this further, I came across a phrase which features this character: "නුවණැති බුඞ ශ්රාව," which roughly translates to "wise Buddha." I'm simply ecstatic that the creative geniuses at Innersloth clearly left behind this interpretation for us, because it leads to a very enlightening message about the auteurs' specific intentions. In Buddhism, the concept of intrinsic evil appears. As one of the key Buddhist texts reads: "By oneself, indeed, is evil done; by oneself is one defiled… Purity and impurity depend on oneself. No one purifies another." But unlike the way in which evil manifests in Egg within the manga, evil is separate from the self. No one enters the world with a moral superiority or defect; we are all neutral, and what we do is up to us. People cannot be fundamentally good nor evil. Thus, we need to separate the purpose from the person. Yes, some of us will make really bad mistakes, but no individual actions can dictate their fundamental nature. Antagonism against generalized faults is not the solution. Understanding is the key. So perhaps it's worth trying to hear others out.
Perhaps there's a little Crewmate inside each of us all along.
Uhhh idk I think the image of a Crewmate taking a dump was really cool ඞ/10~
And now you know why I don't review manga... If it wasn't already super apparent, this review isn't meant to be taken seriously, nor is it indicative of the quality of commentary you'd come to expect from the rest of my works. But you're certainly welcome to judge that for yourself! For those who happen to enjoy this read, my previous attempt at a joke review might also be pretty entertaining. If you're looking for a more serious rant, feel free to check out my other reviews for seasons past and present. I also frequently post writeups under my list updates, so definitely take a peek if you'd like to see me mald over anime as they hit the airwaves.
Before we end things off, I’d like to thank the sponsor of this video, “Raycons.” I actually have a pair of Raycons and I love them. I usually use them when I’m at the gym or I’m at home playing Minecraft. My favorite earworm right now is this sick cover of The Rumbling by SiM! The sound quality is just as amazing as all the other top name brands and they’re half the price. The ones I’m using are the everyday E25’s. They’re the best ones yet. 6 hours of playtime, seamless Bluetooth pairing, more bass, available in multiple colors, and their compact design helps get rid of background noise. I also like the fact that you can click either earbud with your finger to pause your music. Makes it super convenient if you need to stop for any reason. Go to buyracon.com/(DweebTV) for 15% off your order. The link is not in the description. Peace~
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