The Will of the Crowd Is Wrestling's Video Game Controller

Bruiseday is Ian Williams' weekly column discussing the biggest cultural stories in pro wrestling.

We live in a world made by pro wrestling, and in the world made by pro wrestling, there are two spheres: kayfabe—meaning the false world of actors, promos, and feigned injury—and shoot—the world of truth which makes pro wrestling something more than just another television show, where men and women really do fly through the air and lift one another over their heads.

In between those two spheres is where pro wrestling really works. You give yourself over to it, knowing what is kayfabe and what is shoot, but recklessly disregarding the distinction, until you find yourself exhausted and hoarse after a night of cheering at your local VFW hall. Other times, the joy is found in actively trying to find the border between kayfabe and shoot, dwelling on that ever mutable line—did he really hit his opponent, did she mean what she said in that promo?

That liminal state between real and false is where we dwell now. We've always been prone to be fooled, but never have we collectively thrilled to falsity in quite the same way before. The president is, of course, a pro wrestler of sorts, a lumpen orange shadow who darkened WWE's door long before he darkened the White House's. The current head of the Small Business Administration is Linda McMahon, former CEO of WWE. Kid Rock is probably going to be Michigan's next senator; his music was used by WWE for wrestlers' entrances, he's played WWE live events, and his entire career as a foul-mouthed everyman rock star despite growing up the scion of an upper-class family is a testament to how far kayfabe takes you these days. The Hulk Hogan-Gawker lawsuit will shape the way the news media in the United States operates for generations, maybe forever.

It's not just a conservative thing, much as the center-left would like to comfort themselves that they're the ones in the real world. Some liberals willingly swallow the hook of wild conspiracies peddled by the likes of Louise Mensch and Eric Garland; in fact, the latter's inexplicable Twitter appeal becomes at least somewhat understandable if read in Randy Savage's voice and interpreted as an old school 1980s promo. And it's global: Pro wrestlers run for office, and get elected, all over the world. Everything from reality television (which is pro wrestling, stripped of physicality) to the gaudy, militaristic pageantry of the NFL is touched by the hand of pro wrestling. It is almost certainly true that everything is wrestling now, but the question is why? Why does pro wrestling work at all?

For a little over two years, I've been writing about pro wrestling for VICE, first as a traditional freelancer and then each Tuesday as a freelance columnist. I don't have all the answers, but each week I tried to get to the "why" of pro wrestling. We now have House candidates who bodyslam reporters to the delight of their supporters, we know Trump cuts wrestling promos, but the question of "why" lingers unspoken, outside academic circles. Sometimes I would prod the question directly. Other times, it would be set aside for interviews, post-show analysis, and retrospectives.

But at all times, I'm wondering why this stuff works and trying to convey that pro wrestling matters. You may not be interested in pro wrestling, but pro wrestling is infinitely, hungrily interested in you. It is populist entertainment to its core, even as it has always been run by rich, amoral assholes. I will always believe that you can't do much better in pop culture analysis than to watch what's popular in pro wrestling. When Hulk Hogan strode into the ring with an American flag at the height of Reagan's poptimism, it meant something. When Dusty Rhodes reached out his hand to touch your hand, it meant something. When Stone Cold Steve Austin kicked the shit out of his boss on a weekly basis to wild cheers, it meant something. When John Cena delivered the news that Osama bin Laden was dead to a delirious crowd, it meant something.

Above: Dusty Rhodes' classic "Hard Times" promo. Courtesy of WWE

Waypoint is a site about meaning and that's why, for now at least, it's the home of Bruiseday, my weekly pro wrestling column. Pop culture touches us. It alters us, even as we alter and create it. Pro wrestling's popularity may wax and wane—and in terms of ratings, it's on a downswing, at least as far as WWE is concerned—but it's been here 120 years, tapping into the masses' sense of self, and it will never, ever go away.

Video games are the primary focus of Waypoint, but there's a commonality between the two (besides the poopooing of critics interested in more high brow fare, like Game of Thrones). Both video games and pro wrestling require active participation by their respective audiences and elicit unbidden responses.

If you've never been to a pro wrestling show, you might think of it like attending a play or watching a movie. But it's not. The output of the wrestlers is, in large part, a product of the input from the audience. A heel is only a heel if he gets booed, a babyface is only the hero if the crowd is behind her. Storylines have been and will be altered based on crowd reaction. The crowd response is the analogue to the console's controller. Despite the ways in which the wrestlers manipulate the crowd, getting worked is almost always done willingly, with ultimate power over the proceedings resting with the audience.

The reactions of a wrestling crowd, likewise, aren't like those of a movie-goer, either. They're stronger, physical, reliant on the feedback of crowd to wrestler and wrestler to crowd. Wrestling reactions are most akin to that moment when you jump in a video game and find yourself jerking a controller; you are being played by the game as much as vice versa, locked in a reciprocal relationship of affective manipulation. It's work to ignore the controller in your hands, just as it's work to let go of the distinction between true and false at a wrestling match, but it's work we willingly do. And it's work which isn't necessary anywhere else in entertainment, where we know that Godzilla doesn't hurt anyone and the ballet is over in an hour.

At all times, there is a baseline of fan activity in pro wrestling. It's impossible to be a passive fan. But that doesn't mean that we can't be even more active, more discerning. The past is proof that when we are, it matters: On this 10 year anniversary of the Chris Benoit murders, we should remember that public pressure helped change the way WWE interacts with chairshots and concussion protocols. Pro wrestling is on the margins of corporate stripmining of its employees health, and a wild frontier of joyous inclusivity, where women's matches are treated seriously and storytelling of a forward thinking nature are in its grasp.

Stories of our culture, all of it, are in every bingo hall and high school gym which hosts a local wrestling show. The stories are local, real, and multitudinous. Everything from the Progressive Liberal in Kentucky to Zack Sabre Jr's public enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn in the UK say something about a global culture, about what we all hope and fear, thrown in the spotlight of athletic drama.

And since the world beyond the mat has also become a world of wrestling, then we too should become more like wrestling audiences, aware of kayfabe political promos, recognizing when public and corporate policies are shoots which actually affect real people. Like the audience that stonewalls the company-mandated star and instead lifts the independent circuit underdog into the spotlight, we don't have to be the passive consumers of media and politics which is demanded of us. Wrestling points the way forward: We can revolt in our seats, and nobody gets over unless we have the final say so.

I don't claim any insider knowledge of pro wrestling. I have scant contacts in the industry. I've never wrestled and almost certainly never will. Bruiseday won't give you scoops or breaking news, and it will have its blind spots—pro wrestling is simply too big to cover in its entirety in once a week chunks. But this column will do its level best to be interesting, thought provoking, and to get to those questions of "why" which surround pro wrestling and the culture around it. We created pro wrestling, but pro wrestling has also ended up creating us. There's no way to understand one without the other. Not anymore.