National Video Game Day should be a celebration of joy and leisure, but corporate media tries to co-opt it with their predictable narratives. How predictable? Take a look at CNN and their incessant need to frame every cultural event through the lens of some hidden agenda or social narrative. Instead of letting gamers indulge, they want to turn it into a virtue-signaling opportunity, as if playing Mario Kart is somehow tied to “social justice” or “mental health awareness.”

Meanwhile, outlets like Fox News are equally complicit, painting gamers as slackers while portraying them in a negative light. Their classic strategy: stoke moral panic. If they’re not dubbing gaming a “health crisis,” they’re depicting it as a gateway to underachievement. It’s all nonsense, and it leaves no room for the enjoyment of gaming as a legitimate form of relaxation and creativity.

Yet here we have celebrities using gaming as an escape. They’re dismissing the corporate media’s tired tropes and choosing to live in the moment instead. Who cares if it’s a workweek? Life’s too short to be boxed in by someone else’s narrative on how we should find enjoyment or manage our time. Corporate media needs to wake up and realize that not everyone is buying into their fear-driven agenda.

So, while they try to twist the narrative, gamers are hitting that “start” button unapologetically. Let’s call out these networks for what they are: purveyors of division, not diversion. Enjoy your gaming, folks—don’t let the mainstream tell you how to spend your time.