Is it Weird to Care About My Sims…?

Graphic by Anika Dua

So you cried when the sim that you’ve been playing for months passed away? Hm. And now you’re questioning your sanity because you’ve just placed real significance on a literal life simulation? Real, we get it. You’re certifiably nuts and you probably know that. But let’s be honest, the time that you poured into it was definitely real, and even though your beloved sim has just been transformed into a lifeless portable urn (or headstone, if they dropped dead outside), you still feel like you’ve just lost a close friend. 

We at Jerk are here to tell you: we’re right there with you babe. You grab that box of tissues and cry along with your sim’s family because (even though that sim can still very much return as a ghost) they’re never coming back. Hell, it may as well have been a death in your own family, which is more than enough cause for a full day to yourself, so class is definitely canceled. Go on, grieve. We have no room to judge you.

We also place unnecessary significance on weird shit too, and we feel real pain when those things are suddenly taken away. It’s normal to feel sentimental about intangible things, even if those things consist of pixels on a screen that you have total control over. Sometimes, when your sim passes away, you lose the will to continue playing that household. The way we see it you have two options: “New Game” or - and hear me out - move the fuck on. It’s definitely time.

If you choose the healthier second option, don’t get your hopes up too high! There are so many other stupid things to cry about! It doesn't end when your sim perishes in a fire trying to cook grilled cheese, or drowns after you sadistically murdered them in a swimming pool! Lucky for you, there’s hope in other media: television. Let’s be real, TV show deaths are some of the most emotionally damaging things to ever witness. We don’t want to throw too many spoilers at anyone, so we’ll bring up a few shows where (famously) everyone you love dies!

 Examples include:

The Walking Dead, which stops being good after season 8 due to the amount of character deaths that have occurred. Attack on Titan, a show where plot armor doesn’t exist, so please be careful (also there are so many other reasons to mentally prepare before you start this, so do your research. It’s worse than any sim's death, we swear). Perhaps most famously: Game of Thrones (your favs are not safe) and Grey’s Anatomy (if you have time to watch every heartbreaking season). 

Objects, shows, books, movies, video games - sometimes our fucked up little heads make silly mistakes and confuse fiction with reality! We’re here to say: that’s totally fine, babe. Just remember to get a fucking grip eventually, because it’s only appropriate to cry over fictional deaths for a maxiumm of two hours. Three, if you’ve been playing your current household for as long as we have.