In the original Super Mario Kart for SNES, there was a 31.3% chance any given item box struck by a driver in first place would contain a banana, a 29.1% chance any given item box struck by a driver in fourth place would contain a banana, and a 3.1% chance any given item box struck by a driver in last would contain a banana. The game kept stoned college kids entertained for the same reason as frat parties: They knew they had a slim chance of coming from behind.
Since Mario Kart debuted in 1992, Nintendo has been zhuzhing its item box algorithm and adding new items. In 1996, Mario Kart 643 introduced the blue shell, which detonates on the leader. In 2014, Nintendo released Mario Kart 8, which replaced its position-based item distribution odds with distance-based odds. This year, Mario Kart World doubled the field to 24 and reverted to position-based item distribution odds because position matters more in a crowded field.
The good folks at Nintendo put a lot of thought into this stuff because math is what keeps stoned asses on filthy futons. The game must be fun or, in the Weberian sense, enchanting — meaning the ritual of playing must feel genuinely connected to the outcomes. The alternative is a disenchantment, what happens when behavior feels uncoupled from results.
Most of the time, the conversation about wealth inequality is moralized because in extremis it is undeniably a moral issue. But it's not only a moral issue. It's also an enchantment issue. America's economy is more enchanting than most, but less enchanting than it ought to be, specifically for those running second, third, and fourth – the folks statistically most likely to have formed their sense of fairness on Toad’s Turnpike.
And it's not an overstatement to claim that Millennials internalized Mario Kart game dynamics. Since 2019, F1 has introduced a complicated system rubber-banding — the technical term for an item distribution system designed to keep the field competitive — in order to capture Millennial interest. Cost caps. Aerodynamic regulations designed for closer racing. Redistributed prize money. These all seem fair to people whose early exposure to racing involved turtle shells.
But rubber-banding is not inherently fair. As the game designer and media theorist Ian Bogost has noted, rubber-banding is designed to simulate equity without necessarily producing it. The probability that a first-place driver wins after two laps is far higher than the probability that any given blue shell reshuffles the final order. In Bogost's telling, the real winners are the invisible Koopas stocking the boxes — but without even going there, it's fair to conclude that the game stays fun when players feel like they are competing with every racer, not just the one immediately in front and behind.
The American economy doesn't feel like that. The top 1% of households holds 30.5% of all wealth. The top 10% holds 67%. The bottom 50% holds 2.5%. Powerful items are distributed to those at the front of the field with coins raining down on everyone else. This system doesn't just space the racers considerably — it creates a dynamic in which the racers in second, third, and fourth are unlikely to climb into first or fall into fifth, but are well positioned to use the power items at their disposal to assault each other. SAT prep. School district premiums. College admissions packaging. Private tutoring. All green shells bouncing through a fruit salad of bananas left by the item-laden leader.
Bananas take a lot of forms. The 2017 SALT cap, designed to hit upper-middle homeowners in high-cost states, was a banana. The Alternative Minimum Tax, which catches high earners using deductions while leaving the genuinely wealthy — who have tax structures that route around it entirely — untouched, is a banana. Private equity, which gobbles up suburban providers — vets, childcare centers, pediatricians — and hikes costs is a banana. These items have not been introduced at random. It's malicious game design. It's disenchanting4.
Though it’s possible to inject enchantment back into the system, doing so requires suspending one’s interest in fairness. At least that’s the approach Nintendo took when they introduced Bullet Bill.
Debuting in 2008’s Mario Kart Wii, Bill appears only when drivers in ninth place or worse strike an item box. He’s not a weapon. He’s a loophole. For eight second, he rockets unskilled racers through the game, scattering opponents. He is by any measure, the least fair item in the game. He’s also one of the most popular. That’s because racers aren’t just judging the game on fairness. They’re judging it on enchantment.
Nintendo considers both. We should too. Because if everyone stops playing, they’ll probably get up to something worse..
