disco, baby: something about "Disco Elysium" and the definition of disco

Have you ever drunk yourself to death (according to your own limbic system and some ancient reptilian brain), woken up afterwards unable to remember who you are, what you look like, or the kind of life you have lived previously? Harry has. Harry doesn't know who he is, and he has to solve a murder.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/disco-elysium-offers-a-dark-mirror-to-my-mid-life-crisis, dream sequence depicting the main character, Harrier Du Bois, viewing his own body strung up by a disco ball.

Disco Elysium is a role-playing game (RPG) centered on the investigation of a possible lynching in the fictional district of Martinaise. Of course, you don't realize this immediately. Instead, the game opens in a black void, occupied only by Harry, his limbic system, and the ancient reptilian brain. The opening of the game is trying to convince him not to wake up from his alcohol-induced oblivion. To Harry, that's about as disco as you can get. But what does disco mean exactly?

Harry, as well as numerous other characters throughout the game, repeats this word. In general, the phrase seems to be analogous with something like "this rocks," or "thats so rad." But many of the conversations in this game center on less-than "rad" topics, and yet they seem to still be "disco."

Disco Elysium deep-dives often into lengthy, almost mind numbing amounts of philosophical exchanges between characters (and sometimes, even with Harry just by himself. One of the built in systems of this game includes internalizing thoughts in exchange for random stat boosts). One such conversation, early on, is between one Joyce Messier and Harry. Harry asks her to give him the "reality lowdown," which include this concept of the Pale. This entropic thing is defined as a transition state of being into nothingness--it is a physical thing in the world of Disco Elysium. The Pale surrounds all of the land, and is slowly but surely expanding, and will undoubtedly cover every single centimeter of the world until nothing remains. When asked what the Pale feels like, Joyce responds that "it feels terrible. Absolutely terrible."

Harry asks if the Pale is disco. To which she responds: "the most disco thing you will ever see."

So then disco is unavoidable, then? Something so grand, incomprehensible in scale, awe-inspiring. The slow, drawn out, crawling end of the world is, well, disco. Disco feels like a dismissing of the uncontrollable in the face of the responsibilities that Harry faces. His life is pretty much already in shambles, what can he do? He can solve a murder. Contend with himself. Be better, or be worse. But that's disco too.

So then, disco is... absurdism? This idea that nothing matters, and who cares anyways? Just keep dancing, keep living your disco life because that's all there is. The universe is chaos and purposeless. And that is so disco.

"The limbed and headed machine of pain and undignified suffering is firing up again. It wants to walk the desert. Hurting. Longing. Dancing to disco music."