‘‘Wii’re Here for a Good Time’’: The

Sneaky Rhetoric of Wii-Themed

PartiesDerek Foster

In 2006, the Nintendo corporation introducedits ‘‘Wii’’ video game console in the United States,and it quickly became the most popular videogame system in the country. Two major featuresof the gaming system drove its popularity: Itintroduced motion-controlled gaming into themainstream and also introduced video gamepersonalization to many people through the cus-tomization of ‘‘miis,’’ the Wii avatars that repre-sent video game players. Together, these featuresrepresent Nintendo’s ongoing quest to ‘‘revolu-tionize’’ video gaming and create a family-friendlysocial gaming experience that anyone can enjoy.The corporation claims, ‘‘Wii is not just a gamingconsole, it’s a reason to get together with yourfriends and family and play today’s hottest games’’(‘‘What Is Wii?’’). Nintendo’s Wii is thereforeconstructed as more than a machine upon whichone plays games; it is a means to play games withother people and an excuse to be social. As part ofthe marketing of the console as an opportunity toget friends and family together, Nintendo createdthe phenomenon of the ‘‘Wii party.’’

What better vehicle to demonstrate the socialgaming philosophy of the corporation and thesociality of Nintendo’s gaming experience than aparty? These parties are not only opportunitiesfor entertainment; they also are opportunities foroutlets of self-expression as party throwers and

party goers alike can become the nice neighbor orgood parent or fun friend by hosting, attending,and participating at such festivities. However, Wiiparties have an additional ulterior—or ‘‘sneaky’’—function that extends beyond providing peoplewith tools for fun and self-realization. Wii partiesdeploy the narratives of a commodity in order toallow party participants to craft their own per-sonal narratives. In this context, the ‘‘Wii brand’’becomes very important. Ultimately, Wii partiesare significant not simply because they are themedaround a brand but because people’s performancesat such parties become constitutive of the brand.In order to explain Wii parties one must firstestablish what a Wii party is and how ‘‘theming’’ aparty on a video game helps establish a narrativeframe for such events. One must then documentthe character of Wii-themed parties and connectthe experience that is to be had at Wii parties tothe idea of Nintendo’s Wii brand.

What Makes a Gathering ofGamers into a Party?

‘‘Wii parties’’ can be understood as deliberatelyplanned entertaining social gatherings (or ‘‘par-ties’’ for short) whose social capital and capacity

Derek Foster is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University, St.Catharines, Canada. His current research interests focus on the visual and material rhetoric of ‘‘nontraditional’’ media such ascelebrations, commemorations, popular culture, and public memory.

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The Journal of American Culture, 33:1r 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

to produce pleasure depend on the presence(and reputation) of the Nintendo corporation’s‘‘Wii’’ gaming platform. The theme of the party/gathering depends upon the Wii (just as Oscarparties and Superbowl parties depend upon theirrespective entertainment spectacles). The premiseof a Wii party is that one invites others to marksome occasion by playing the Wii and that theoccasion will be made that much more memorable(and social) because of Wii-styled gameplay.Justification for this belief comes from the Wiivideo game console itself. The Wii console rad-ically altered the way people played video gamesthrough the introduction of the Wii-remote (orWii-mote). Nintendo integrated motion sensorsinto the Wii’s remote controls in order to repro-duce one’s ‘‘real’’ world movements in the virtualworld of the video game. Instead of memorizingand pressing a combination of buttons in order todo something in the game such as swinging a golfclub, one literally swung the Wii-mote and sawthe corresponding results on screen.

The Wii-mote was made so simple and intu-itive in order to allow anyone to play, which alsomade the experience of playing that much morefun. One would never confuse Wii-styled move-ments with the activity required to do the corre-sponding ‘‘real-world’’ actions, but one wouldalso never confuse the sometimes frenzied phys-ical activity of Wii gameplay with the ‘‘drowsycouch potato’’ existence enabled by its competi-tion (Cogburn and Silcox 18–19). Therefore, if theWii enfranchised new video game players throughits fun, interactive, and sensual gameplay, the ideabehind a Wii-themed party is to leverage thatsense of interactive fun to create an even moreentertaining social activity.

What does a Wii party look like (other thanpeople gathered to play the Wii)? Crucially, thereis no arbitrary number of participants thatdenotes a Wii party. Events such as Superbowlor Oscar parties can also range from intimatelyattended soirees to large-scale bashes. Three peo-ple getting together to play the Mario Kart videogame could be a party if the participants consid-ered it as such. It could simply also be threepeople playing a game or three people engaged in

a gaming encounter. The distinction is rooted inboth the experience to be had and the way it isdescribed: Games are meant to be fun but ‘‘in-volve concrete rules and use explicit strategies towin, while gaming encounters are interactionswhere the rules become increasingly arbitrary andare often subject to change in order to achieve themaximum amount of fun, enjoyment, and leisure’’(Bradley and Schroeder 405). Parties, in turn,are leisure-based activities designed to facilitatefun-filled, enjoyable social encounters.

To be succinct, a Wii game may be played forthe sake of the game itself, a Wii gaming encoun-ter involves playing the Wii for the sheer enjoy-ment of it, and a Wii party involves Wii gameplayfor the enjoyment (and benefit) of others. Oneattends a Wii party to presumably engage in agaming encounter (which involves playing agame). But playing a game on the Wii does notmean one is automatically engaged in a gamingencounter. One could simply be following thegame strategy to try to get to the next level or bestone’s previous high score. In a gaming encounter,the point is not to do well at a game as much as tohave fun playing it. However, even though bothgaming encounters and parties are meant to befun, not all gaming encounters are automaticallyelevated to party status. As a first step, invitingpeople to socialize while having a gaming encoun-ter can be the foundation for a party. Certainly,recording the fun that is to be had at the event andcirculating video or pictures online helps an out-sider recognize the encounter’s festive party at-mosphere. And, indeed, the fun to be had at aWii-themed party can be based on the mere idea ofWii gaming. One need not even play the gameat a Wii-themed party to enjoy the fun of such anevent. While the Wii party is premised upon agaming encounter, the additional elements thatparty throwers and party goers partake of (Wii-themed decorations, food, party favors, and evenapparel handed out at child birthday parties; Wii-themed drinks at Wii-inspired adult mixers) ulti-mately elevate the level of fun from a Wii-basedgaming encounter to a Wii-based social encountercum party. Still, not all ‘‘Wii parties’’ feature ex-plicit Wii theming.

31Wii’re Here for a Good Time � Derek Foster

Some parties may be more or less explicitly‘‘themed’’ according to the Wii. For a similar con-text we might understand how an ‘‘Oscar party’’ ispredicated around people gathering to watch theAcademy Awards, but some party planners will goto greater lengths to translate the ‘‘Oscar’’ motiffrom the Academy Awards ceremony to their ownsocial gatherings. One may indicate on invitationsthat there will be a formal dress code in an attemptto replicate the tone of the event being celebrated.Food dishes may be themed according to settingsor plots of nominated films and mini statuettesmay be handed out to winners of contests to guessthe awarded films. With Wii parties, those eventsgeared to children typically feature more overde-termined symbolic Wii motifs whereas adult-ori-ented Wii-based gatherings focus more on thesocial aspect of the associated gameplay.

Interestingly, many examples of Wii partiesdocumented online seem to consist of small groupsof people simply engrossed in Wii-styled gamingwithout any further Wii accoutrements. Thiswould seem to suggest that Wii parties are unlike‘‘regular’’ instances of video game play. Indeed,one could claim that all video game systems aredesigned for multiplayer games, and small gath-erings of Wii game players seem not unlike theclassic ‘‘game night’’ where video games (or evenboard games) were the source of entertainment.One could also point out that much of the onlinediscussion about Wii parties seems to have takenplace in 2007 in association with the launch of theWii console in the United States and petered outsince then. Given the variety of forms they cantake and the potential ebbing of interest in them,what makes the ‘‘Wii’’ party special, and how doesone know that they are even widespread enoughto merit investigation? These factors appearproductive rather than problematic; they clearlymark the Wii party as a discursive constructwhose worth is measured not in its statistical butits substantive significance.

In some ways the Wii party is at least as im-portant as a notional phenomenon as much as anempirical one. The discursive work performed byNintendo created the very idea of Wii parties,which in turn created conditions for throwing

such parties. Institutions such as the Nintendocorporation do not produce Wii parties. However,the Nintendo corporation has produced dis-courses about Wii gaming and Wii parties. These,in turn, produce ways of knowing what one cando with the Wii gaming platform. Consequently,knowledges, institutions, subjects, and practiceswork together to create the idea and the materialreality of Wii parties. The way in which thediscourse of ‘‘Wii’’ inflects these social gatheringswith the Nintendo brand suggests a qualitativedifference between inviting people over for‘‘poker night’’ and inviting people for a ‘‘Wiiparty.’’ Because it is such a flexible container forsocial events and video game fun, the Wii party isultimately less a specific material instance of cer-tain behaviors than a discursive artifact. Thus, onecan understand how ways of speaking about theWii enabled ways of speaking about Wii parties.Speaking of Wii parties provided a template thatallowed gamers to host Wii parties. These parties,in turn, provide examples of Wii-styled activity(and interactivity) that enable further ways ofspeaking about the Wii. They also provide theconditions for realizing subsequent forms of hu-man and human–game interaction. This loop ofdiscursive activity creates conditions of knowl-edge about subsequent game forms and socialforms alike, the significance of which goes farbeyond the existence of Wii parties.

TheTheming of Parties

To ‘‘theme’’ anything, including a party, is toorganize an experience around an overarchingmotif in order to provide people with an out-of-the-ordinary experience. Parties, then, can bethemed just as theme parks, themed restaurants,themed hotels, etc. Interestingly, ‘‘theming is nowmarked by a transformation—from bounded cul-tural object expressive of place, culture and thelike to a more micro-focused dimension that isspecific to groups of people, the individual,and modes of subjectivity’’ (Lukas, The ThemedSpace 3). Theming, in other words, can be used to

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personalize or spectacularize almost anything. AsAlan Bryman notes,

Theming consists of the application of a narrative toinstitutions or locations. Typically, the source of thetheme is external to the institution or object to which itis applied. Theming provides a veneer of meaning andsymbolism to the objects to which it is applied. It ismeant to give them a meaning that transcends or at thevery least is in addition to what they actually are. (15)

In general, then, one might expect themed par-ties to incorporate some larger-than-life elementin order to make the party additionally stimulat-ing. This might involve decorations and activitiesthat follow a superhero or a princess or dinosaurtheme. One might provide a cake or pinata thatechoes the symbolic decor and even ask people todress up as their favorite comic characters. All ofthese options bring in a narrative from ‘‘outside’’the natural environment of the party time andplace; themed parties use the readily availablethemes of popular entertainment in order to elevatethe entertainment and engagement quotient ofthe party. Like Bryman suggests, ‘‘theming helpsto differentiate one service or context from another’’(16). Theming a party is a means to make it morespecial than it might otherwise be and to get peopleexcited about attending. Ultimately, theming is usedto try and make the party distinctive and memora-ble. However, if theming a party potentially changesthe experience of the party, one must pay specialattention to the nature of the Wii-themed partyexperience. What is unique about Wii parties?

Constructing theWii PartyExperience

Like all other themed parties, the Wii partyis an opportunity to apply symbolic motifs toall sorts of decor and decorations. Online, one canfind examples of Wii-inspired cupcakes, dolls,party favors, invitations, and so on. However, theWii-themed party does not evoke external themessuch as ‘‘cowboy’’ or ‘‘rock and roll’’ or even‘‘Halloween,’’ in order to inject something exoticor romantic or exciting from outside of theeveryday. The narrative of a Wii-themed party is

not external (like bringing a person dressed as alife-sized Elmo, Elmo party favors, Elmo musicand videos). Instead, the Wii-themed party is the-med around the experience of playing the Nin-tendo Wii video game console. When Wii partiesare held in the home (as is assumed by most of thesites offering advice on how to throw a Wiiparty), the theme is the ‘‘Wii experience.’’

This experience is based upon Nintendo’slongstanding corporate mandate to expand thevideo game market beyond the historic cliche ofyoung males engaged in an antisocial activity(Sheff 292). Nintendo’s marketing of the Wii‘‘stressed simplicity, accessibility and a revolu-tionary return to the kind of simple fun long as-sociated with Nintendo as a brand’’ (Jones 127).Whether it is a revolution in video gaming orsimply an evolutionary step, the Wii brand is de-fined by its emphasis on sociality and interactivefun. For instance, one YouTube video of a WiiParty prompted the following comments: ‘‘Ohmy gosh! I was surprised that other people haveWii parties too! We just had our second annualWii party a couple weekends ago.’’ ‘‘The Wii is forfamily [sic] and you don’t need kickass graphicsto be able to enjoy that kind of entertainment.’’And finally, ‘‘Looks like lots of fun. I wish myfamily had a Wii’’ (‘‘Wii Party at Our House’’).Indeed, ‘‘There’s a good reason the Nintendo ads(and the gallery of short candid-looking ‘Wii Ex-perience’ videos at the Wii Web site) always showplayers actively playing more then they showwhatever’s on the screen’’ (Jones 149). Playing theWii is a potentially entertaining physical spectacleof kinesthetic movement and fully embodied in-teractivity. Consequently, the Wii party demon-strates Nintendo’s idea that ‘‘the player’s moves,the player’s body, are central components of thesystem’’ (Jones 149). With this brand philosophyunderpinning the ‘‘Wii experience,’’ Wii partiescan be seen as celebrations built around a productwith a built-in theme rather than a party that is anexcuse to bring in a theme.

Highlighting the use value of the Wii consolefor kids, friends, and families, a Web site set up byNintendo assures visitors, ‘‘with a few games,snacks and take home treats your party will be

33Wii’re Here for a Good Time � Derek Foster

legendary’’ (‘‘Wii Parties Are Great’’). It also sug-gests that these parties can be thrown anytime,not just for kids’ birthdays. The Web site does notrecognize that the Wii party is themed accordingto Nintendo’s own branding. Instead, presumingthat one is playing the game Wii sports, the Website section ‘‘Wii party planning 101’’ suggests that‘‘a theme is always good—try Nintendos char-acters or sports uniforms.’’ Beyond the regularparty advice to provide appropriate food, takehome goodie bags, invitations, the site recom-mends you have a ‘‘digital camera to capture allthe winning moments’’ and ‘‘move your furnitureout of the way before you start to play.’’

These two bits of advice highlight people’s em-bodied performances—the most significant com-ponent of the Wii party. With the Wii, ‘‘people areliterally gaming as well as performing gaming’’(Jones 149). As one Wii party planning site sug-gests, symbolic decor is not at all integral to the Wiiparty: ‘‘When it comes to a successful Wii party, it’sless about what you put on the walls than whereyou put the furniture. For instance, you may want. . . plenty of room for bowling, batting, duckingand weaving or whatever Wii activity the night maybring’’ (‘‘Wii Party Ideas’’). Clearly, Wii parties donot offer just the chance to play Wii games; they areopportunities to embody the Wii brand. Brymangives Disney stores, Coca-Cola stores, and Nike-towns as examples of ‘‘brand narratives’’ (40). Andjust as all of these are ‘‘temples for the celebrationof the brand’’ so too is the Wii party. The ingeniousaspect of Wii parties is that anyone can bring this‘‘brand narrative’’ to fruition. With Wii parties,Nintendo customers are given the tools and themotivation to provide themselves and potential fu-ture Wii gamers with experiences. Essentially, Nin-tendo produces the idea of a social gamingexperience and Nintendo consumers at Wii partiesproduce the reality of it.

Embodying theWii Brand

Wii versions of bowling and tennis and box-ing are ‘‘a limited set of representations chosen

by the developer to give physical form to a fan-tasy that is expected to communicate to the con-sumer what an experience might be like, not whatthe experience actually is; a hint is offered, but,only a hint’’ (Wright 247). Thus, the real experi-ence to be had at a Wii party is not so much thetheme of the game being played but the playingout of the theme of Wii itself. Wii parties presentan opportunity to embody and perform the Wiibrand. In Wii parties, then, the performance ofone’s gameplay often seems more crucial thanone’s ability to master the game. For instance, oneWii planning site notes, ‘‘half the fun of Wii iswatching people in action’’ and suggests thatprizes be awarded for performances such as ‘‘bestWii Remote wielder,’’ ‘‘best Wii style,’’ and ‘‘spa-zziest Wii moves’’ (‘‘Wii Party Ideas’’). However,it is fruitful to shift analysis from players per-forming for each other to players performing onbehalf of Nintendo.

Even as Nintendo recommends that peoplepick a Nintendo-based theme (such as a characteror a game) for their Wii parties, it seems germaneto suggest that the Nintendo brand is itself thetheme of such parties. This is an example of ‘‘re-flexive theming’’ whereby the theme and thebrand and its expression become coterminous.With reflexive theming, the organization does notdraw upon external devices for its narratives; in-stead, the thematic elements are internally gener-ated and then continuously reproduced (Bryman19). Even the name ‘‘Wii party’’ highlights thebrand and the technology that will facilitate thisexperience. One does not hear, for instance, of‘‘Microsoft parties.’’ And, while one may hear of‘‘Guitar Hero parties’’ or other occasions forgathering around and celebrating a specific game,the Wii party is not game specific. It is, instead, aform of sociality brought into being via a gameconsole. Nintendo wants to be seen as the socialgaming platform and its corporate discourse issymbolically and materially underscored by peo-ple’s performances of the Wii brand. Obviously,though, the reflexive theme of the Wii party isonly made real via party goers’ actions. Thetheme, ultimately, only works because of people’s‘‘performative theming.’’

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TheWii Party as a RhetoricalPerformance

Even at a Wii party, Wii-themed artifacts anddecorations signify far less than the performancesof people playing the Wii. While online sitesspecify how to make or Wii-themed invitationsand edible goodies, typically these are not fea-tured in online pictures or videos of people at Wiiparties. Instead, it is the game play that counts. Inthis capacity, a Wii party reinforces how ‘‘themingis not merely an architectural technology of thematerial world; it is a means of social interaction, aperformative practice, and even an existential state’’(Lukas, ‘‘How the Theme Park’’ 187). Clearly,playing video games at a Wii party is a rhetoricalperformance for the benefit of all.

While one might think of the themed partyas chiefly an opportunity to impress others andpersuade them of our thoughtfulness, it is also aspace where one can live and act out and realizeoneself. Indeed, as Greg Dickinson observes, ‘‘ourselves are under construction when we hoist a cupof coffee, buy a magazine, read a book, discuss theweather’’ or play video games (6). As one acts at aWii-themed party, one enacts relationships thatare not exclusively between the party thrower andparty goer or between game players. When partygoers produce their own kinetic spectacles ofgameplay they also reproduce the ‘‘Wii experi-ence’’ demonstrated by actors on Nintendo’s Website. As they act out at a Wii party they also enacta relationship between themselves and Nintendo.

This can be understood as ‘‘sneaky rhetoric’’:Video games and parties based upon these gamescan, like ‘‘movies, television shows, politicalspeeches and hip hop music, carry in disguisecertain thoughts, attitudes, or political and socialconvictions. That is to say, a text or message mayseem to be about one thing on the surface, but it isalso about another thing, if we know how to un-lock the text’’ (Brummett 1). Without Wii partiesand their physical evidence of Nintendo’s socialgaming philosophy, the ideology of the Wii wouldbe simply an ideal, a set of ideas about gamingthat remain to be put into practice. When one

throws a Wii party, however, the entire party be-comes a rhetorical performance in which peoplemove and touch and act and perform and displaytheir skills and social relationships. Consequently,Wii parties are examples of constitutive rhetoricwhich is to suggest they mobilize ‘‘signs, images,and discourses for the articulation of identities,ideologies, consciousnesses, communities, publics,and cultures’’ (DeLuca 10). Many aspects of theWii-themed party can be viewed as performancesthat actively shape both people’s identities at theparty and the wider culture surrounding themedparties. These include actions undertaken while atthe party and the social action of preparing theparty.

Performing theWii Philosophy

For attendees at Wii parties, three specificactions stand out as worthy of further discussion:(1) creating one’s personalized avatar called a ‘‘mii’’to play the Wii, (2) the performance of Wii gameplay while at a party, and (3) the spectatorship ofwatching others play at the party. All three of theseactions may be termed aspects of ‘‘performativetheming.’’ Clearly, people’s performances at aWii-themed party exemplify Nintendo’s idea(l) ofsocial gaming. Thus, the theme is not just symbolicor material elements but people’s performancesthat help to tell a story or, in the case of the Wii-themed party, help constitute and sell the brand.

Usually, the first performance of game playdemanded by Wii party patrons is the inventionof their ‘‘miis.’’ Nintendo expects Wii gamers toconstruct a representation of their selves called anavatar or, in Wii-speak, a ‘‘mii.’’ The principlebehind this is straightforward. People who playWii games will enjoy seeing a representation ofthemselves on the screen. As Wright suggests, thisreproduction of one’s likeness and mapping ofreal-world features onto game playing charactersthat can be recognized by other players serves to‘‘expand the possibilities for social contact andplay’’ (265). Of course, ‘‘the ability to projectoneself into the game is essential, as it is for any

35Wii’re Here for a Good Time � Derek Foster

form of entertainment’’ (Wright 266). But seeingother people construct their digital versions ofthemselves, making suggestions, and comparingreal and virtual selves is the initial social perfor-mance that sets the stage for subsequent Wii-styled interaction.

Subsequently, one must play the game. Here iswhere the actual performance of gaming becomesa form of performative theming. As Wright notes,‘‘playing video games requires a particular degreeof performative skill and interactive competency,not just hand-eye coordination’’ (255). But at Wiiparties, the theme is not based as much on thegame play as playing the game. Wii players exhibitmore than just competency in playing; by puttingon a performance for others, players both enliventhe party and give life to the brand-as-theme.Because of the nature of the Wii interface, peoplebecome kinesthetically involved with each otherand with the gaming console. Like Lonswaysuggested about another themed space, the Wiiparty is ‘‘narratively incomplete without its styledlives’’ (234).

Obviously, one cannot play the Wii at a Wiiparty all the time. In fact, most of the time islikely to be spent watching others play. Thus, itmust be acknowledged that watching others andwaiting for one’s own chance to play is a signifi-cant part of the performativity of a Wii party.People’s own recordings of Wii parties online of-ten focus both on the players and fellow partygoers who act as an audience for the gameplay.Thus, as a site of themed experience, the Wii party‘‘engages the body, shifts its attention, and does itswork visually, aurally, and haptically’’ (Dickinson,Ott, and Aoki 35). The Wii game is a visual andaural and haptic experience (gripping the remote,feeling it vibrate and beep as it responds to yourmotions, seeing the actions reproduced by youravatar on screen with the attendant graphics andmusical score). But watching others play, waitingone’s turn and participating in the party scene isalso a visual, aural, and haptic experience. As oneresponds to the cues of the game and the actionsof others, the theme of social gaming is repro-duced almost unconsciously. This is quite impor-tant. The Wii-themed party is, on the surface, a

themed party because experiences are organizedaround the Nintendo Wii. However, the signifi-cance of Wii parties lies in the experience of play-ing the Wii in front of and for others. TheWii-themed party, then, is not just a collection ofdecorations and accoutrements but a chance toembody a Wii-stylized way of living and playing.

Finally, the party planner must not be forgotten.Even the choice to throw a Wii party versus someother kind of themed party is a type of perfor-mance that highlights one’s connection to the Wiibrand. There are many ways of announcing this toothers, all of which further enact the ‘‘Wii way oflife.’’ For instance, at a Nintendo Wii party plan-ning page, the corporation suggests that one canincorporate ‘‘Family Challenge badges’’ at one’snext Wii party. These are graphics that are meant tobe posted on one’s blog, Myspace, or Facebookpage that make declarations such as ‘‘I’m a Wiimom,’’ and ‘‘We’re a Wii family.’’ Family challengecertificates are also ready made and ready to beprinted out in order to award individuals for theirvictories in game showdowns. All of these are at-tempts to connect the brand narrative to people’spersonal narratives. They are also examples of‘‘lived theming’’ whereby people typically ‘‘are un-aware of their own participation in an experientialsite that is not of their own making’’ (Lukas, ‘‘TheThemed Space’’ 8).

Nintendo’s positioning of their console playersas ‘‘Wii-branded people’’ shifts the material ele-ments of theming into the realm of the immaterial.This can be seen when party goers and party plan-ners embody and enliven Nintendo’s corporatebranding. The materialization of the Wii brandgoes beyond ownership of a Wii console and evenbeyond the performances of Wii gaming at a Wiiparty as people enact a ‘‘Wii style’’ for others. In asense, people who have planned and attended Wiiparties are ‘‘asked to ‘live theming’ in the sensethat it became a part of their consciousness. Theywere no longer individuals with personalities anddesires, they were living extensions of the themeitself’’ (Lukas, ‘‘How the Theme Park’’ 194).

Of course, no one really thinks that his orher experience at a Wii party is helping to con-stitute a branded identity; people usually do not

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consciously think of themselves as ‘‘brand exten-sions.’’ However, this is the sneakiness of Nin-tendo’s Wii marketing. Beyond people’s embodiedperformances, the Wii party is a heavily media-saturated phenomenon: Online, Nintendo’s mar-keting is recirculated in both news and personalaccounts of parties. Commentary for one You-Tube video of a Wii party suggests, ‘‘your Videosare a great way to learn about Wii!,’’ and evenmore presciently, ‘‘This video is like a Wii advert’’(‘‘Wii Sports Party’’). Sites like YouTube featurevideos of Wii parties where Nintendo’s own pub-lic relations exist alongside homemade montages.While at parties, people snap pictures with cellphones and posted them to blogs, social network-ing sites, and photo aggregation sites like Flickr.This creates a tangled World Wide Web of sourcesfor one’s own ‘‘Wii experience.’’

It should be noted, finally, that Wii parties arenot the only example of themed parties that en-courage individuals to ‘‘live the brand.’’ Decadesago, the Tupperware party was an innovative formof face-to-face social networking designed to en-courage better living through a product. It waswidely critiqued for corroding the sanctity of thedomestic sphere with the intrusive forces of themarket in a manner that Wii parties are generallynot attacked. It seems that the acting out and per-formative nature of play at Wii parties obscures thebranding that it shares with Tupperware parties.So, is this a case of ‘‘new wine in old bottles’’ inwhich the twenty-first-century digital gameplay ofthe Wii merely updates previous forms of sneakyrhetoric? Jones suggests that there is somethingqualitatively different about this phenomenon inits current context, even though everything thatwas old may be made new again. He notes, ‘‘LikeKaraoke, and pre-video-game party games fromthe previous century such as Twister, these games. . . are part of a larger trend towards a more spe-cific kind of ‘party’: the increasing popularity ofhighly social forms of game meant for group playand taking turns performing (ideally for an audi-ence of other players)’’ (Jones 144).

Certainly much like gamers playing the Wii,people made spectacles of themselves playingTwister at parties. But Nintendo’s branding sug-

gests that its products are more than spectacular;they are means of engaging in fun interaction thatbring people together in a world where they aremore inclined to go ‘‘bowling alone’’ (Putnam)than socialize with others. This is reinforced byNew York City party planner ‘‘David Wii’’ whotrumpets the Wii party as ‘‘a new type of way tohang out where grown folks can play some ex-citing games’’ (‘‘Wii-Comedy Thursday,’’ empha-sis added). Elsewhere, he trumpets, ‘‘Wii Bowlingand other fun party games [are] designed to max-imize your laughter, fun, and afterwork experi-ence’’ (‘‘Lee’s Wii Party’’). So, while Tupperwareparties presented the spectacle of the product, Wiiparties present a spectacle of people using theproduct. Wii events ‘‘play’’ on the social capital ofinteracting with others via the game rather thanhighlighting people playing games for their ownright. Whereas Tupperware parties used mid-twentieth-century social networking to sell moreproduct, Nintendo uses its product to sell itsbrand of sociality. Consequently, Nintendo is ableto claim that Wii parties actually can make peoplesociable again.

The Cultural Signi¢cance of theWiiParty

A themed party based around the Wii, admit-tedly a Japanese import, is a demonstration ofhow American culture is now global culture evenas Japanese culture becomes Americanized. Nei-ther theming nor themed parties are exclusivelyAmerican but they are increasingly characteristicproperties of American culture. As a report forMinnesota Public Radio documented, ‘‘AcrossAmerica, friends are gathering in groups to playgames together on the Nintendo Wii’’ (Gordon).However, the Wii party provides more than just achance for people to consume Nintendo’s Wiiproducts. Wii parties promote Nintendo’s Wiiway of life, a philosophy that gaming means bothplaying and socializing. Wii parties ultimatelygive consumers a chance to produce themed lives

37Wii’re Here for a Good Time � Derek Foster

and themed performances and thus promote theWii brand.

Like all themed spaces, Wii parties create theopportunity for fun-filled experiences for someeven as they create the conditions for greater profit-ability for others. The Wii party becomes a ‘‘con-sumption constellation’’ which is to say, ‘‘a cluster ofcomplementary products, specific brands, and/orconsumption activities used to construct, signify,and/or perform a social role’’ (Englis and Solomon185). Interestingly, Nintendo only creates the Wiiconsole; by throwing Wii parties and performingtherein, Nintendo users create the conditions forongoing brand identification. Consequently, thoughmost party goers may not consider it, participationat a Wii party is one way by which people ‘‘live thebrand’’ and a means by which, through their ac-tions, ‘‘the customer is the product’’ (Lonsway 235).All parties operate through a rhetoric of play.Wii-themed parties sneakily carry with them therhetoric of a corporation.

The point of the Wii party is to entertain, notto urge, influence or advise one’s fellow gamers inany straightforward fashion. Still, any party (andcertainly a themed party) can be seen as an oc-casion for identity building constituted throughrhetorical performances. Wii-themed parties,then, are very consequential. They are sites whererepresentations and technologies of video gamingbecame technologies of the self, where narrativesof who we are and what we want to become areappropriated and circulated, where commoditiesbecome tools of identity formation and where thebusiness of pleasure is very serious indeed. Payingattention to the rhetoric of ‘‘embodied perfor-mances of the self turns our attention away fromthe invention of formal and informal arguments’’(Dickinson 23). This move carries potentiallygreat rewards for ‘‘rhetorical studies’’ and otherdisciplines that examine consumer culture or pop-ular American culture. This is not a question ofdetaching rhetoric from its epistemological rootsas much as emphasizing how the overlooked ac-tivities of our everyday culture are frequently andemphatically rhetorical.

The purpose here was not to judge how effec-tively Wii-themed parties promote the symbolic

value of the Wii gaming console or whether suchtheming creates a good party experience. Rather,this analysis suggests the implications of themesbased upon products and new technologies andqueries the themed party as an experiential sitethat promotes such technology. Wii parties sug-gest that we may live in the ‘‘experience econ-omy’’ (Pine and Gilmore) where corporations sellexperiences and memorable events to consumersrather than just products. Nintendo’s corporaterhetoric underscores this: ‘‘You don’t just playWii, you experience it’’ (‘‘What is Wii?’’). As Wiiparties demonstrate, corporations do not justsneakily import hidden messages into mediatedentertainment; they can stage experiences wheremessages can come to constitute and provide thenarrative frame for events in our everyday lives. Itis not that there is a hidden message in the prod-uct that is the Wii video game platform. After all,Nintendo’s public appeal is based on a simplebrand of easy to understand fun. Rather, theproduct gets subsumed into the experience. Wiigame play and Wii parties transform the playerinto the product. And as players show others howthey play, they do the business of Nintendo forthem. In an experience economy, the rhetoric ofcorporations potentially is both everywhere andless easy to discern for those who are its targetaudience.

As is suggested, one must be aware of thesneaky rhetoric of corporations wherever it maylie. Just as the sites of American culture are pro-liferating both online and off, ‘‘as we shift fromgeographic to computer-mediated spaces, we areshifting focus from place to interaction, from lo-cation to locomotion’’ (Markham 801). Corre-spondingly, Wii parties entreat players to payattention to the kinesthetic more than just theaesthetic. The proliferation of Wii parties corre-sponds to the popularity of the Wii gaming sys-tem and as new gaming interfaces are introduced(such as the Wii fit), the character of Wii-basedparties also changes. Family challenges that con-stituted an early aspect of Nintendo’s Wii partymodel have now morphed into a Wii fit challengedesigned to encourage people to get active whilehaving fun. Nintendo’s social gaming philosophy

38 The Journal of American Culture � Volume 33, Number 1 � March 2010

has remained the same while leveraging new tech-nologies in order to stay socially relevant. Thekinesthetic social interaction that fueled the ideaof the Wii party (in order to sell more Wiisystems) now enables Wii workouts (and sellsmore Wii fit balance boards). But the point ofsuch an investigation is not to ask what themedparties mean (or to query their rise and fall in thepublic consciousness). One ought to focus, in-stead on what they do and investigate the conse-quences of this theming. Wii parties are a productof American and worldwide consumer culture.They are also opportunities to produce culture.While at a Wii party, participants become prod-ucts of the theme and adjuncts of the brand, liv-ing, acting, and performing according to theprecepts outlined by the Nintendo corporation.This is not a trap set by a nefarious company intowhich unsuspecting and unknowing consumersfall. Rather, it is an experience that is both enter-taining and engaging and one that people willfullyproduce as they playfully participate.

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39Wii’re Here for a Good Time � Derek Foster