Reality Glasses: Ingress and Conspiracy Hipsters

Google's new massively-multiplayer game "Ingress" -- in which players are led to real places via their phone, playing against real players who also might really be the same place you are -- is the very definition of blurring fantasy and reality. If you take into account that Google is starting to promote its "Project Glasses" at the very same time -- both "Ingress" and "Project Glasses" (basically, "Internet Glasses") using similar info-overlays -- the line gets even more blurred.

the brave new world of "Augmented Reality"

But what was most immediately interesting about "Ingress" was how it appropriates widely-disseminated "conspiracy" theories and tries to sell it to a hip, young, mainstream audience.

The "trailer" for "Ingress" starts with these lines read by a narrator:

"This is not psychosis or some cognitive break, but an actual takeover of the mind."

Then we see an image of the corkboard full of clippings that has, through mass-media, become synonymous with "the conspiracy nut":



It then references two concepts that anyone familiar with the Alex Jones show or David Icke would recognize immediately. References to "The Resistance" (compare to talk of "tyranny," "Prison Planet," and so on):

And "The Enlightened" (compare with the standard refrains "Wake Up" or "I am just trying to wake you up" or "I have just become Awakened to the conspiracy"):

Then we have a shot of what looks like a triangle with an "eye" on the top, which has been bisected by another line -- considering the rest of the content of this "trailer," probably not a coincidence:

Here are two more lines that are constantly evoked on the Jones show and the like -- almost word-for-word:

Now a narrator says the following, accompanied with this image:

"Much of sculpture found in our modern cities is based on designs seeded in the human mind."

Of course, symbolic architecture is another huge "conspiracy" topic, as are...

Stargates.

Accompanying the above image is the following:

"Some places have an energy that not only attracts people, but events."

Then there is talk about mind-hacking, and ideas that cannot be let out to "infect" the world. Luckily, another narrator -- younger, hipper -- says that he knows that "many tools will be needed to fight this battle," and holds up a smartphone device:

Then the scene switches to "overlay vision":

And now let us compare with a screenshot of the Google "Project Glasses" "trailer":

"Ingress":

"Project Glasses":

These seem like very similar things to me.

Let's now skip a bit to the demographic "Ingress" is being marketed to (also taken from the trailer):

So we have two ideas here:

1. Google is marketing a "fantasy" game ("Ingress") that looks very much like a "reality" project ("Project Glasses")

2. Themes most associated with "conspiracy" theories (and related media, like talk shows) are purposely being used here, but the game is marketed to mainstream, young "iPad Generation"

Conspiracy Symbolism is the shizz...

Let's take on the second idea first. As a life-long reader/researcher of esoteric and "conspiracy" type topics -- which I largely hid from my peers because of its "kook" stigma -- I find it absolutely hilarious that now these same symbols and narratives are being purposely marketed to said peers. And that's all this could be -- a simple marketing thing, inspired all the way back by the success of the "National Treasure" movies and "DaVinci's Code" before that (and, well, "X-Files" before that).

It's the deep intersection between fantasy and reality within the game "Ingress" itself -- as well as between it and the very real "Project Glasses" (both made by the same company, remember) that I find extremely interesting -- and which muddies my initial take on the second idea (simple marketing) a little bit.

Is there something more going on here? Or am I just playing into the marketers of this game's hands, by expanding "the mystery" by assigning meaning to where there might not be any? <--this might be a very real possibility, yet I'm feeling playful and inquisitive and have decided to go deeper down the rabbit hole, though I might only find a logo and perhaps a t-shirt at the bottom (maybe also one of those "livestrong" type rubber bracelets).

In the next post on this subject, I'm going to examine the plot of "Ingress" further -- and point out its uncanny and similarities to a movie trailer that has just hit the Internet. The movie in question might seem like a very unlikely choice...but, considering the demographics we are talking about here, maybe not.

Read More