The Switch Lite is Just Fine

The Switch Lite, like all Nintendo’s downgrade-revisions before it, is a perfectly fine addition to the current landscape of Nintendo gaming that we have. It’s not that far off from what we’ve seen in the past with the 2DS (even the 2DS XL), Gameboy Micro, DSi, and even the Wii Mini that sold for a short while. The fervor over it seems unjustified, but as with gaming in 2019, it’s expected.

Nintendo announced the Switch Lite on July 10, 2019 and with the announcement came scrutiny over how Nintendo did not simply make a Switch that has built-in joycons and somehow retains all its other features. The biggest differences between the two is that the Switch Lite does not have TV or tabletop modes, no HD rumble or IR sensor, is not compatible with LABO kits, and lacks the ability to change the joycon controllers. There are other smaller differences that ultimately tie back to the aforementioned changes, but, in a nutshell, those are the major changes. Gamers were not pleased with this – not at all.

Personally, I hate reading articles that simply utilize words like “entitled” to define someone’s characteristics and how their opinions and voice are guided …

You Don’t Define Blackness

Often, throughout almost every black person’s life, they will be told at some point that something they do is “white” or not “how black people” would do things. Throughout society in 2019, we can more or less universally agree that this premise holds no weight anymore. The idea of you being black or not has nothing to do with the things you enjoy or the ideas that you put forth – sometimes. Tech, however, gives you a different plate to deal with. In jobs, your opinion is utilized to make sure that your employer can cover the “black demographic.” Between your coworkers, things you suggest or contribute to add a level of “cool.” Even on online platforms, you must fit a narrative that what you’re doing is either hood and black or dorky and black – no in-between.

Talking about the internet and how it treats racial identity is tricky, if not foolish. The internet is not a mass of single-thought humans, nor is one place on the internet a hivemind of thought. There are people of all different kinds of backgrounds, mentalities, creeds all across the internet. All of that, in itself, is good. Objectively good. The problem arises …

Tech Around Me

Ever since getting my first Mac, I’ve always felt a sense of “difference” between myself and everyone I’d talk to. Back then, people would gather on IRC channels with the only sign of relatability between me and them being that we had chosen an Apple computer over the various amounts of other. Occasionally, we’d all talk about the new iPhones that were announced, the new OS updates, how certain apps looked promising, even themeing our systems – it was all great. I even feel a sense of nostalgia simply sitting here typing about it and remembering the moments that seem so lost as everyone has moved on with their lives. However, there’s always been a feeling of separation – at least for me – that I regret for allowing myself to feel and “fall victim” to.

It’s nothing heinous or dastardly – it’s simply that my race failed to mean anything in these moments. Not that I was seen as “the black guy” or that I was treated any differently, but that things were inherently different, odd, or simply misunderstood whenever conversations outside of tech were to take place. Meaning, my blackness and the culture therein would be something that …

by WordPress. © Shawn Wilkins 2019.