I promise this becomes relevant. I came to Stanford pre-med with an edtech startup. As the company picked up pace, I stopped studying medicine to focus on product design. My dad wasn’t too excited by that, but he wasn’t too surprised either, and I got his support to keep it going. Around the same time, I had joined Robber Barons Sketch Comedy and got increasingly absorbed by the world of comedy, film, and entertainment. Fun stuff, but a hobby. Going into this year, my startup was fortunately acquired, and I made the bold choice to drop the startup life to pursue creative/entertainment full time. That was a choice that my family didn’t understand, and as a result, I’ve struggled to see my path as legitimate and my work as important. My greatest obstacle has been needing to justify myself every step of the way, and making my art flawless to make up for the fact that it’s mine.
I love games. I have thousands of hours on Smash Bros, Rocket League, Overwatch, and now The Finals, a fact I would have never imagined being proud of until I took this class. But, whether it’s my culture, family, or the general stereotype of success, my personal expression has been forced to the sidelines. That trauma built up around the same time I experienced the most media/games, and the result was a general discomfort with my own expression. I’m getting through it, and I wanted to let the teaching team know that this class has actually undone a lot of that trauma for me. Of course, it could’ve happened one way or another, but I’m glad it happened this way.
In one way, it was the visual validation of a subconscious misnomer. By getting to work with Krishnan and seeing someone who looks like me validate this form of expression, I subconsciously learned that people like me can create. That may sound obvious, but it’s not to my inner child.
It also takes just saying it. While my team was designing Yap Battle, my parents asked me what I was doing at Stanford. I answered honestly: I’m making a card game where dark kermit debates a kawaii VTuber on whether it’s inappropriate to drink the water while getting waterboarded. And I’ve been running. They liked that I’m running.
But as I say it, it’s true. I’m working with a dedicated team, grinding for hours on playtests, learning how to work with people so different from myself. Amidst it all, I felt closer and closer to discovering a potentially lifelong high. When people ask what I did today and my answer is that I made a video game about a chick and a plastic bag, many would scoff at it. But, it actually felt validating. Because it’s true! I’m doing it! My trauma can say whatever it wants about my belonging in expressive spaces, but it’s all beaten by the fact that I’m doing it. You can call anything stupid, but it wasn’t stupid enough to prevent that one person from doing it in the first place. Saying is believing, and I now believe much more that I’m a person who can make stupid stuff that only I love and get away with it.
In other news, I learned a lot about working with people. It’s difficult, but I learned just how useful it is to get into other people’s shoes. If I’m feeling unheard, agitated, or whatever with my teammate, I know one thing, and that’s that it’s true. Something is stopping this wonderful person from being the way they want to be, and that’s something unfortunate for everyone. I’ve been collaborating with more empathy than ever before.
Two summers ago, I did medical research. Last summer, I worked on my startup. Tomorrow, I’m flying to LA to intern at Stone Kite, a creative studio that sells their worlds/characters to video game studios. I know that, no matter my prior story, I’m allowed to do that because I was just in a classroom of hundreds of brilliant students who were doing just that. And frankly, I’d like to do whatever the hell I want! Thanks for teaching this class y’all and inspiring me how to be comfortable with my own expression.
