Interviewer: “Can you tell me more about this digital superstition?”

SG: When i’m downloading a huge game update, like the one we are downloading right now, I never leave the cursor on the loading bar. if the cursor is touching the bar, it feels like its ‘weighing it down’ and making it slower. I always move it to the corner of the screen.

Context: Sophie is a frequent gaming partner of mine. She told me this superstition and taught it to me while we were waiting a patch to download. In order for both of us to be able to log onto the game quicker, I attempted it and it worked. She learned this from a famous gaming YouTuber who has propagated this belief to his subscribers.

Analysis: This is an example of digital folklore. Even with modern technology, humans apply “magical thinking” to processes we cannot physically see or exert control over. Anthropoligcally, this is a control ritual, and the personification of the digital cursor having this weight over the loading bar is a form of animism applied to software. In applying real world physics to an intangible object, we are making the virtual space more intelligible.