Here at Aftermath, we only pick winners, as evidenced by our decision to become the first video game website ever (to our knowledge) to endorse a political candidate in newly minted NYC Democratic mayor-in-waiting Zohran Mamdani. The pick was a no-brainer: He speaks his mind, he wants to make the city cheaper, and he probably knows who Sephiroth is. But, contrary to popular belief, he’s not our first gamer mayor. On the latest Aftermath Hours, we relay some unfortunate facts.
This time around, we celebrate Mamdani’s win by bringing on a whopping TWO guests: First, Max Rivlin-Nadler joins us to talk about how Hell Gate – a fellow worker-owned publication – punched well above its weight during this election, organizing a forum that leading Democratic candidates (excluding Andrew Cuomo) showed up to and hosting an election night livestream that aired in bars across the city.
Then former Kotaku writer turned professional Genshin Impact advocate turned laid off person (hire them!) Sisi Jiang comes on to share their experience knocking on over 1,000 doors for the Mamdani campaign – part of a wider canvassing effort that resulted in an unprecedented turnout for a leftist candidate. Lastly, using the scant information available, we attempt to divine what kind of gamer Mamdani is.
You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, make sure to leave a review so that we can get Mamdani on the show, or at least pester his people until they let us ask him who he mains in Super Smash Bros.
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation:
Nathan: Some people have been making the assertion that Zohran is going to be our gamer mayor, simply because of his age and because he knows what FIFA is. But I have really bad news: Unfortunately, our first gamer mayor – at least, in terms of policy – is Eric Adams, who did actually invest millions into gaming-related initiatives.
Those include a degree program in game making, regular student Minecraft tournaments that were about combatting climate change, and most recently the NYC Video Game Festival, which took place in May and kicked off the so-called “Summer Of Games,” which encompasses a bunch of events that have happened in previous years, but packages them all together as a New York City initiative. Regrettably, considering his many other sins, Eric Adams has been kinda good on this.
Sisi: You know what? This is exactly what gamers deserve. We don’t deserve a good gamer mayor; we deserve Eric Adams, gamer mayor – the same mayor who said random shit like “All my haters are the waiters at my table of success.” That is the most gamer mayor behavior.
Chris: But I don’t think he knows games. If you tried to ask him Mario lore, he’d be like “Well, he’s the king of the Mushroom Kingdom.” He’d know enough culturally to lie about it, but it would all be just slightly off. [You’d have to tell him] “Mario’s not the king of the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s a different guy.”
Nathan: Even just the other day, he met up with Kai Cenat, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch. When he entered the room, you can hear Eric Adams saying “I just want my video game,” and it’s like, did you think you were gonna get a video game out of meeting with a Twitch streamer? Are you making a joke? The context is not fully there, but it’s a very odd thing for him to say when walking to shake hands with Kai.
Chris: It’d be funny if he knew who Kefka was, but he doesn’t know who Sephiroth is.
