Sharp-edged social commentary with bottomless bags of scorn
Committing cultural arson in Little Inferno
“Congratulations,” reads the letter, “on the legitimate purchase of your brand new Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace! We’ve lovingly crafted each fireplace to warm your home and your heart. Love, Miss Nancy, Tomorrow Corporation.” In celebration, I burn the terms and conditions.
“Goodness! Have you already burned all your things?” writes Miss Nancy. “You can always buy more. With your brand new... CATALOG!” My glossy issue of Chimney Stuffer drops down the flue and into my eager hands. From this consumerist bible I’ll mail-order hundreds of soul-nourishing goods, setting them ablaze for the sole purpose of earning coins to fund my spree.
You see, the world is growing colder, and the only course of action is burning expensive things for warmth. From the Snooty Foodie section of the catalog I throw in some fine china and an exploding blowfish. Turning to Totally Recalled Toys I toss a heater so crappy it actually sets itself on fire. I burn abstract concepts like music, email and creationism. There’s even a mini sun and moon with gravitational fields that send all items in my Little Inferno orbiting wildly until they burn to a crisp. Money rises from the ash.
Different combinations unlock different achievements, and these enable me to browse new sections of Chimney Stuffer. I ignite a cell phone and low selfesteem action doll for the ‘texting gurl’ achievement. Sending both the television and radio up in flames gets me the ‘before the internet’ achievement. Through sheer haphazard experimentation I’ve now got access to Shop and Awe, 1st Person Shopper, and Miss Nancy’s Guide to Stylish Living, all filled with increasingly expensive and outlandish stock.
It’s all pretty pointless, but that’s the point. This is sharp-edged cultural commentary with bottomless bags of scorn. Although it casts its net wide, satirizing the game industry, the food industry, social media and materialism, there’s no ambiguity to its message: beware the damaging cycle. We consume to consume. In other words, desire desires desire.
How right that is, I think as I fling another credit card into the fire and watch the plastic twist and melt.