Big Walk lights the way for non-toxic masculinity in games

After coming home from a friend’s bachelor weekend, I realize I can’t precisely tell my girlfriend what any of the guys do for work. I don’t know their partners’ names or Instagram handles. I think one of them recently moved back in with his parents, but I didn’t ask why. Unwittingly, I’ve found myself trapped in a meme. I am the guy who doesn’t talk to his friends.

All is not well with men, and certainly not men who play games. But there is an affirming core to my most speechless male friendships that I don’t think should be discounted — I love those guys! — but, surprise, surprise; its value is something I have trouble putting to words. Thankfully, it’s impossible to finish Big Walk and not intuitively grasp the joy of unspoken intimacy. By centering its design on bodies in play, Big Walk liberates physical communication from the confines patriarchal masculinity.

When my friends and I hang out, we don’t talk much, but we did once play pool volleyball for nine hours. After two consecutive service aces, John would gently set the ball across the net. His interest was in preserving the game and ensuring everyone felt included. Brett, sending the ball off into the grass, dribbled it back. Soccer was his game, not volleyball, and he wanted us to know he was still an athlete despite the occasional embarrassment. I, a non-athlete, fed the ball to our best spiker whenever it came to me. I hoped playing support would make me more likeable. These self-disclosures, though nonverbal, are highly legible.

But communication of this kind is masculine-coded and dismissed by others. Men producing ping-pong paddles should be avoided. Social play is for children and men; quiet conversation is grown-up and, therefore, implicitly feminine. Society expects, and trains, girls and women to be clearer communicators. Gendering communication this way, and particularly subordinating play as infantile or even patriarchal, denies physical expression to everyone.