What Escapism Has Sown

What Escapism Has Sown

From The Left Page by Frank and Leon

April 13, 2026 · 1h 9m · Season 3

About this episode

The episode explores the implications of escapist fantasies through the lens of two video games, examining their relationship with capitalism.

We deploy Critical Harvest Theory in this episode, when we ask: What happens when we don't look critically at escapist fantasies? We then try to answer this question by looking at two video games: Stardew Valley (2015) and Citizen Sleeper (2022 & 2025) Going into the ways of how these games create their realities and end up surviving in or attempting to sideline capitalism, which will surely go well, right? Right? That, and more, in this episode about capital, land, time and space! Enjoy! If you can and are interested in early episodes and our bonus content, soon to be plenty more, check out our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftpage Also! If you're not there already, feel free to join our Discord! https://discord.gg/J2wgG3yrPN Outro Music: Don't Leave! · El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe. From the Album: Zareef ℗ 2006 El-Funoun

People in this episode

Hosts: Frank, Leon

Topics covered

  • escapism
  • Critical Harvest Theory
  • video games
  • capitalism
  • land
  • time
  • space

Keywords

  • escapism
  • video games
  • Stardew Valley
  • Citizen Sleeper
  • capitalism
  • Critical Harvest Theory
  • fantasy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Patreon, Discord

Books & works: Stardew Valley, Citizen Sleeper

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