December 31, 2019: A cluster of pneumonia cases are identified in Wuhan, China. These are later attributed to a novel coronavirus by the World Health Organization on January 9, 2020.
January 11, 2020: China confirms the first death from the novel coronavirus.
January 21, 2020: The first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus is announced by the CDC. A doctor in Wuhan confirms that it can be transmitted from person to person.
January 30, 2020: The WHO states the novel coronavirus is a public health emergency of international concern.
February 3, 2020: The United States declares a public health emergency.
February 10, 2020: China’s death toll from the novel coronavirus surpasses SARS.
February 11, 2020: The novel coronavirus is officially named SARS-CoV-2. The disease is COVID-19.
March 11, 2020: The WHO declares COVID-19 to be at pandemic status.
March 18, 2020: I receive my Nintendo Switch Animal Crossing: New Horizons Edition.
March 20, 2020: Animal Crossing: New Horizons is released worldwide.
Call me a sucker for a Tanuki in a floral shirt.
I apologize in advance if any of that was triggering for anyone. I also apologize to anyone who may have found my addition of Animal Crossing into that timeline offensive. For me, it’s a powerful intro, but I also might just being a doofus.
For anyone that knows me, I am an anxious ball of nerves most days of the week. Sometimes it is almost adorable. Most days it is just obnoxious. One of my worst anxiety triggers is getting sick. When I get sick enough to knock me on my ass, I might as well start writing out my will with how much I give up on the world. The absolute worst thing that could ever happen to rattle my world would be something where I constantly have to worry about being sick. That would be absolute hell on Earth for my psyche.
Funny how things work out sometimes, huh?
The week of March 15th, my job officially closed down until further notice. For the first time since about 2017, I officially had no responsibilities. I was still attending classes for my Masters (picked a hell of a time to finally start that), but the option of attending class on Zoom was always there for me anyway. Besides that, I could finally be a degenerate again and not feel bad about it. Yet, I somehow was not able to enjoy it. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to any of my readers about what it felt like, but being scared of an invisible invader that could be carried by those I love terrorized me. I did not sleep well.
I was researching COVID-19 like a fiend before it even had a name. I was a regular ol’ amateur virologist, except I was stupider. Like total smooth brain about it. I have never been good with science, but I’ve always been good at BS-ing that I know what I am talking about. I talked so much about how it probably would fizzle out and never make it over here. Even if it did, it would be just like SARS right?
Nope. Shoutouts to my one friend who actually does study viruses though. She kept me sane throughout it all, even though we both didn’t have any clue what would be coming in the future.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Let me stop you there before you ask it. “What the hell does this have to do with Animal Crossing, a game where there is almost certainly no COVID-19?”
Well, a lot, actually.
As someone who is pretty stingy when it comes to buying new games consoles, I always said two things. First, I would buy a PlayStation 4 when Kingdom Hearts III came out (I made an exception for 2.8). The other was that I would buy a Switch when Animal Crossing came out because my brain just knew Nintendo couldn’t resist taking big scared idiot’s money like myself.
I know, I know. This still has jack all to do with Animal Crossing. If I had to boil this all down to something, in essence Animal Crossing saved my life. Maybe not in some literal sense, like Tom Nook talked me down from the ledge like Clarence Odbody in It’s a Wonderful Life. I ain’t no George Bailey, I’m much more pathetic. 
I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time on a visual joke that is not funny.
For those of you that do not know, Animal Crossing is the ultimate time sink for everyone, from nerdy internet guys to girls with colored hair that the nerdy internet guys are trying to hit on. I think there are other people that play Animal Crossing, but I have not met them. All jokes aside, it is hard to really describe Animal Crossing in any words that do not make me seem like a crazy person.
In this edition, you move onto a deserted island with Tom Nook, his two nephews, and two other random animals. From there, you start your new life and eventually get god-mode powers that let you adjust the island as you see fit. You know how every AAA game that comes out now says that you can do whatever you want? Animal Crossing actually is that. Some people use Animal Crossing to recreate entire landscapes. I know someone that made Onett from EarthBound. Others just want to catch bugs and talk to the funny animals about their funny lives.
It’s currently midnight. I drank an energy drink at noon and I feel like this image.
Escapism
noun. i-ˈskā-ˌpi-zəm. The habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity as an escape from reality or routine.
Essentially, anything that allows you escape from the world, whether it is a video game, movie, book, or your own head, can be defined as escapism. There are many different schools of thought with escapism and how effective it is as a coping device. Welldoing.org describes escapism as an unhealthy way of coping because the ultimate goal is the destruction of the self. Lifehacker has an entire article based on helping someone who is too caught up in escapism “snap back to reality.”
What do I think, since my opinion carries much more weight than these people? In essence, they’re probably right. It’s good to get away from the world when it becomes too much, but if you’re away from too long you never learn how to deal with it. I don’t mean “deal with it” like some biker guy tells you when you cut your hand on a broken bottle and you’re trying not to cry about it because you don’t know how to manage pain because you’ve been a little wuss your whole life (I swear I made this scenario up in my head).
But here’s a question. A thought experiment, if you will.
Is escapism all that bad when your real life has been put on pause?
First thing is first, I have nothing but respect for the essential workers that this stoppage of the world essentially did nothing to. I made a tweet about a hypothetical guy in my head that praises the essential worker but only to be an a-hole, but I actually mean it. I hope that you can still get something from this post even if your experience was so clearly different and more difficult than my own.
For the rest of us though, that question kind of has a point. Let’s be honest with ourselves. We never expected anything like this to ever happen in our lives. How could we? The last time there was a pandemic of this level was 1918. The last pandemic ended 100 years before this one began.
Look familiar?
When we are being encouraged by family, friends, and international politics to “stay home and be a hero,” what sense of self is still there? Not saying that work is our lives, but it felt like everything was on pause. You could say that Rudy Gobert stopped sports all on his own when he was officially diagnosed with COVID-19. No restaurants. No graduation. Nothing.
What else did we have but escapism?
For those who were on their own and only had Zoom to see their families, all they might have had was escapism. Boredom can take over. A lack of purpose can take over. Anxiety and depression have a funny way of getting worse when you are doing nothing. I can say from my own experiences (which in NO WAY are applicable across all situations), that even though depression makes me WANT to do nothing, doing nothing seems to make me feel even WORSE.
Animal Crossing is the picture of escapism because it literally lets you just live another life. The most “godlike” powers you get in Animal Crossing is the ability to make buildings and terraform the world. Besides that, you’re basically doing the same shtuff that we are doing in the world now.
You pay your rent. You catch fish. You make friends with your neighbors. You go on vacations. You can literally do so much in the game.
Want to build the city of your dreams? Do it! Want to become a master bug catcher? Go scare the living daylights out of the curator, you sicko! Want to become a stalk broker and become destined for the guillotine from Twitter users? Go chase that high, stalks never go down!
Turnips are the root of all evil. Pun THOROUGHLY intended.
One of the most appealing parts (or forgettable parts if you’re a time traveler) is that the game exists when you are not playing. The concept of running in real time means that it is just as much your life as your actual life. Games like Stardew Valley may let you do the menial chores of a farmer, but you are still framed as some hero of the valley who can make every girl fall for you. In Harvest Moon games, you can sometimes even talk to gods. Animal Crossing lets you be a person. A regular old boring person.
And that’s okay.
So who gives a crap if I get my entertainment from holding hands with an owl that researches astronomy?
It’s like Hatoful Boyfriend but less weird.
Kipbey Key
Here is my story about how I came to be a ruler of an island. Now, I have my Bachelor of Arts in History (cringe, I know), so I think I’m qualified to say this. I am pretty sure that this game made me an imperialist, against my better judgment and wishes. Regardless, I took my jetsetter ass and flew myself to a new island with 2 of my (soon to be) best animal buds and a landlord with with his two nephews.
We called it Kipbey Key.
Sipping orange juice with my fellow bad decision makers.
I wish I could say that I did not become an addict who played this game about 8 hours a day, but we all know that I would not have wrote a (editor’s note: 3,779) word post about it if I played an amount like a sane person. Remember though, we are excusing escapism because of the pandemic. To be serious though, this game really did help me through a time where I not only felt completely and utterly alone, but also a time where I was scared to even leave my house.
To get off course for a bit, the first time I really left my house to even go anywhere was probably in May, about 2 full months after quarantine had first hit. I was scared to even see my own father when he would come to the house because I was so worried about the virus. I remember wearing a mask in the car with him. Life was terrifying. Even when I had to go back to work later in June into July, I was so scared that my office smelled like bleach almost 100% of the time.
We stan a Clorox King.
This tangent has a point, I promise. Essentially, Animal Crossing was the only time I was getting to go outside. I am normally an incredible homebody that does not actually want to do much, but suddenly when outside becomes scary because a virus might get in my lungs and kill me, I start to miss it! So I sunk my time into making my island. My wonderland. My escapist fantasy. I made Kipbey Key into more of a game land. It felt like a home.
I made a flag, but I did not make a national anthem. I promise.
I am admittedly not very creative when it comes to the visual arts. I can write songs and make blog posts, even if they kinda suck. However, I still put everything into making Kipbey Key into the home away from home that I desperately needed it to be. The first thing that I decided it needed was a spot to make a fire and watch the stars on the beach. I made sure my house was as close to the beach as possible, thus making one of my lifelong dreams come true… kind of. Right next to my house was a rock formation. I decided that this would be terra nova, the groundbreaking of the creation of my new society. In retrospect, it is still incredibly simple and kind of silly, but I was so proud of it. Now I have flower fields, a playground, and even a bamboo garden. I put a game room and a recording studio in my damn house!
Despite all of that, the times that I spend playing the game and just relaxing, I find myself back on that rock formation. Looking at the stars. Taking in the warmth of the virtual fire.
Did it really happen if you didn’t get a picture for the Gram?
A Little Help From My Friends
I am “very online” as the kids would say. I still have my friends IRL, but I spend an obscene amount of time talking to my friends from the internet. People make fun of me or tease, but I don’t really care. Those friendships mean just as much to me as almost every other one in my life. So in the way of communicating with friends, the pandemic never really affected that. In fact, it allowed me more time to talk to them.
But there was always a kind of… haze. Surrounding it. I knew people who were terrified and had to stay home. I knew people who were terrified and had to work. Suddenly, everyone’s life was in a state of flux, even the ones who did not seem to have much change at all. This went far beyond having to wear a mask when we went out. It’s hard to put into words, but things became different. Lives were lost, times were dark, it was very triggering to many and still is to this day.
One of the biggest effects on my life is how it cancelled GDQs. At the time of writing this, there still has not been an in-person GDQ since the pandemic started. If you haven’t read my previous post about how much GDQs mean to me, then I’d highly recommend it. I think it’s an overall good retrospective on my experience, and you can learn more about me as a person and the events as a whole.
This silly little game let me connect with my friends in a real world again. Of course it was not much of a “real world” but it was the closest we had. I went to everyone’s islands and took many pictures. I was posting on Twitter as if I was really traveling. I was basically scrapbooking my life and travels through a virtual space, but all of the fun still felt so REAL. I saw some fantastic things, I saw some terrifying things. I saw some sections of islands that I do not think society was ready for.
The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit. Forever and ever. Amen.
In turn, some of my best friends started to visit my island. I could not believe how many compliments I got from people much more artistic and creative than me. I would apologize immensely BEFORE anyone even saw my island, but they always left impressed. Even if the island kind of looked bad, I think it oozed the essence of Jer through its every pore. Some of my friends repaid me with emotional warfare.
“If you look closely, you can see the second his heart rips in half!”
Reconnection
I think one of the greatest parts of Animal Crossing was how it helped me to reconnect with friends I had since lost contact with. I won’t name any names for their privacy (and to possibly save them embarrassment), but there were people who I had really missed in my life that Animal Crossing let me connect with again. I randomly messaged them again because I wanted to talk Animal Crossing.
We visited each other’s islands. They took some flowers from me to start their own hybrid gardens.
This game succeeded in helping me make friends all over again. I am happy to say that these people are still in my life today and a good chunk of it can be attributed to Animal Crossing.
Nothing says “I’m glad we’re talking again” like sushi in a bamboo garden.
Does anyone remember the story about Elijah Wood? I really don’t know where else to put this story, but I just know that it needs to be in here.
To explain for the uninitiated (and if you read this far without knowing anything about this game, god bless you), the game has something known as the “Stalk Market.” Basically, you buy turnips on Sunday at a certain price and try to sell them for a higher price before they spoil the next Sunday. It can be a fun gamble for your island, but it can get a bit broken when you are jetsetting across the world in order to find the best prices at your friend’s island.
Sometimes word gets out. Word gets VERY far out.
Elijah Wood DM’d an Animal Crossing player because he saw her high turnip prices. She fangirled and allowed him on the island. He sold his turnips, complimented her island and then… left. There really isn’t much to it. Yet, there really is. Celebrities are so disconnected from us as people sometimes. The pandemic really showed that sometimes, people are people, and those people want to become rich as hell too. The whole story is great and you can see a snapshot of it from the original tweeter here.
Present Day
A week ago as of this post, I got my second shot. The CDC said I can stop wearing my mask. That scares the living bejeezus out of me, but it might be time to start moving on. The world is moving forward. Maybe it’s too soon, but time marches on unfortunately. Things may go back to “normal,” but they will never be the same. Mental scars will stay forever. Lives that were lost are memorialized. The way that we think about how we do things is now a different process.
“I’m doing my part!”
I’m a different person now. Do I like myself currently? Not in the least. I have made incredible strides forwards and backwards. As MC Skat Kat would say, sometimes it feels like I’m taking one step forwards and two steps back. I have inevitably grown as a person, but I still have much to improve on. I may have irreparably damaged as many relationships recently as I have gained.
Life goes on though, and we start again.
I haven’t played Animal Crossing in a significant amount of time. I went from being a travel blogger who posted about new fish and bugs every month to barely touching the game. I do that a lot with this game, even though I put in as many hours as some of my favorites, the burnout can set in quick, especially when it is the only thing I do for months on end.
But I would not trade those times for the world.
Nothing can make me forget the times I spent with my friends just making each other’s lives hell in the middle of the night. We are welcomed with the song of 3AM to remind us of just how dopey we are to be still playing at such a time…
…as we stay awake to see the sunrise and hear the glorious music of 5AM. A song to let us know that a new day had come, and it will contain the same brightness as the last.
I got to do so many things I wanted. I crashed on my one friend’s island while her mom was visiting (and she quickly texted me to tell me to behave). I accidentally visited other people’s islands while they weren’t expecting and had a great time. People came onto my island to sneeze on me, giving me the ACNH equivalent of COVID, and then fly back on home to their own disease ridden quarantine. I even got to meet my original Animal Crossing love again!
I now have a chair and shirt with her on it. I am not kidding.
The one question I have for myself (and you might too) after this whole post is… why write it now? Why wait until the pandemic is in the ending phases?
The truth is, I don’t really know. This has been cathartic for me to finally write again after 2 years of not being able to get anything out. I also think that, after so much time away, from both the depths of the pandemic and Animal Crossing itself, I have an ability to look at it with clearer eyes. Nostalgia is abundant in my vision, but I wanted it to be that way. This is, without a doubt, a time of my life that I will never forget. Animal Crossing is included.
Maybe I’ll visit Kipbey Key again sometime soon.
Until then, stay safe and healthy. If you read through this, I hope you got something out of it. Either understanding or enjoyment from seeing how my experience related to your own. I’d love to hear how your life was changed. If we can’t see each other in person just yet, maybe we can take in a K.K. Slider concert and just mellow out.
A community. Living in the moment. Me with all of you.
As always, if you have any comments, questions or concerns, feel free to use the Contact link and I’ll get back to you about it. Or you can leave a comment! I appreciate all the readers who have stuck with this list and I hope that my content is good enough for you to maybe drop a subscription. Either way, this was very good for me to get my thoughts out and I hope you enjoyed the ride nearly as much as I enjoyed putting you on it. From one fan to another (or a prospective new fan). This is for you.
~Jer
Filmvestigate 
enchanting! Breaking: Major Changes Announced for [Organization/System] 2025 nice
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