this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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I have no idea what woke even means anymore. It seems to mean "social awareness". Black lives matters kind of a thing. Equal rights for trans people too of course. That doesn't mean that everyone should support games being forced into having all genders, or races, or include trans people. Or all books or movies should be forced to have those things.
If you create something, it's up to you how you want that to be. You are the artist.
This is not equal to hating trans people, and anyone with some iq points realizes this. We can't turn every creation into a vehicle for trans rights.
And when the artists chooses to include all genders, or races, or trans people; what would you call the effort to force the artists from removing this from their art?
I didn't know that was what was happening here. Did the article say that?
That is what the culture war is. The effort to create an environment where publishers and artists have a harder time including aspects labeled "woke" because of a loud minority will harass the people involved, review bomb the products, dominate the discourse with bad faith arguments, and generally minimize the potential enjoyment of anyone who is the intended audience. This is what forcing an agenda upon artists looks like.
I think I'm on the other side - I think it's way too much woke agenda in a lot of popular TV shows we watch. Disney competely wrecked a lot of shows because they kept pushing in gender/race related things that felt competely out of place.
I couldn't even watch the acolyte. They wrecked it competely. Many web pages have described what's wrong with it so won't repeat that here, but hopefully you already know what I mean.
If you don't like something, that's fine. They made the product they want, they're free to do that, and you're free to not like it.
Just know that art has always driven social discussion, and it's always been met with heavy social opposition, just usually in the form of outright censorship. So historically artists had to be subtle in order to be critical without being censored. In order to see more edgy stuff you had to go to small, barely funded art house shows.
But then the internet happened, and suddenly artists weren't beholden to a small number of elite entertainment corporations. Art containing more openly progressive ideas can now be shared directly with the masses, the masses are now preferring progressive ideals more than ever before, and naturally corporations making entertainment products now have a financial incentive to cater to that demographic (often called "virtue signaling"). Today you see a mix of corporate pandering and actual art, even within the development teams of a mainstream product like Dragon Age or Disney. Some messaging feels honest, others feel ham fisted because it's pride month.
But the censorship of the pre-internet days existed for a reason. A lot of people feel uncomfortable seeing things that challenge their status quo. People tend to seek comfort, and they just want their entertainment to leave them be. But now that corporate censors are less of a barrier, and now that progressive ideals are proliferating, the people themselves are backlashing. They say things like, "it's way too much woke agenda, I'm tired of it. I want to watch a show without having the story be about woke issues." I think that's also normal.
I think the backlash is two fold: On the one hand, real art challenges the viewer, which can be exhausting when you just want to be entertained before you get a few hours of sleep and go back to work in the morning. But on the other hand, you do have what offen feels like a disengenuous layer of progressive pandering coming from corporations that you never saw before. And no one likes being pandered to, let alone not being pandered to.
I think this corporate pandering towards progressive ideals is new, the terms we use to describe everything are definitely new, but the tendency for art to expose people to progressive ideals and the tendency for the masses to be conservative and resist change are as old as humanity. And I view the two as a social evolutionary yin and yang, keeping each other in check.
But they aren't free -- Disney has total executive control. This is nothing new though; they used to use this power to censor queerness in shows before (e.g. Gravity Falls). They may still perhaps, and may do so again. Disney in general reigns in everything to make it a sterile corporate product and the artists involved have to swim upstream to make something they want.
We should all boycott Disney and take its capitalist grip off our culture. Then we can have vastly more diverse media, certainly with more queerness.
Dude I'm trans and hate the acolyte. It's cause it's shit not "woke"
There's plenty of "non woke" media that's shit too
Turns out if you write nothing but shit you get nothing but shit. This is a capitalism putting restrictions on the artist not our society.
It's happened time and time again they force trends and focus tested ideas into the writing room instead of true passion. It will happen no matter the context. Shit media will just be shit media regardless of "wokeness" that's just a current symptom of how we create media. It's all for profit not for the sake of art.
That's what you actually hate dude.
Good point, you are probably right :)
Out of curiosity, did you like Andor? Because it had all that stuff too but it was well written instead. Just think about how many women are lead roles on Andor for a second.
Yeah andor was amazing. Took me a while to get into it but once I did, I wanted to finish. :)
The fuck are you talking about? No one is forcing anyone to “have all genders or races or include trans people”
This you bro?
I don't think they meant literally. More in the sense that if you don't include them you're suddenly "anti-trans/gay/whatever".
Who does this? I am only aware of far-right bros angrily making lists of games that have black and/or gay characters.
those are the people 1984 is talking about, or rather to, I believe.
Edit: nvm, 1984 is among them perhaps.
There's a few, very vocal idiots every now and then who believe that every group/minority should be represented in every piece of media. A lot of the time they don't even belong to any of those minorities. And then there's the people who comply to cater to that audience, because they appear bigger in numbers than they are.
Don't wanna get "canceled" on Xitter, you know? /s
Anyway, I don't care personally. I haven't really seen a lot of examples in media where the creators made characters part of a minority, maybe even retroactively, just to please a certain demographic. The closest I can think of is J.K. Rowling's Xitter account. That was interesting to watch, to say the least lol
That's the anti-woke propaganda the text you're quoting is complaining about. If you listen to anyone right wing long enough this is what they'll bring up eventually. it's "fake news" basically -- very dangerous fake news.
Perhaps you misunderstood the poster?
Edit: nope, I did.
No he is misrepresenting what’s going on and telling on himself.
who
1984?
misrepresenting the anti-woke crowd? I think they literally believe that stuff, forced diversity etc.
Edit: nvm, I was wrong.
In what way? I don't even know what "telling on himself" means. I'm just expression my opinion about this. Why is that so upsetting?
yeah, I think there's been a terrible miscommunication somewhere. It might help if you clarify -- do you yourself believe that there is a sizeable contingent of people who want to force games to include all walks of life?
I have no idea. I don't read about games very much and don't follow what's happening. I guess games are like movies, we like to identify with the characters to feel the game is good. Sometimes it's hard if they are very different from us, and then the movie / game is very boring or even annoying.
I have never met a trans person and I've only known about 3 gay people personaly.. so why are they in every source of media?
As far as you know
Yeah good point
I thought I'd never meet a trans person and very few gay people in the agricultural college I attended when I went back to college. Turned out every damn one of the friends I made was somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum. So as the other person said "as far as you know"
Acceptance of gay and trans rights has allowed so many people to realize they're not so straight or not so cisgender and that's wonderful. People are finally finding the freedom to be who they are!
I support their rights, they are people, the genitals only mader in bed. I just don't want aliens in the far future watching our shows and thinking "god damn, it was femboy paradies!"
This is so hyperbolic I have to wonder where this thinking comes from?
These things are very tied together. Supporting people being who they are means supporting them if they want to publicly show their identity
What does that matter at all? Who cares what people in the far future think? What matters is what people think today, and representation helps people find their own identity and know that they're included in society
I used to think that. But the amount of people hiding it, or just coping, is probably higher than you think.
Like I live in a pretty small city with an average gay community, and all it took was one person coming out as trans for a bunch of others to go "oh you know what me too - let's do this," so now we have like a whole posse of trans men that I see at the gym all the time (with their gains and their cool names lol).
I'm not saying this is always the case by any stretch, but if someone is super butch or super femme, they might not be cis.
You have met trans people. It isn't in every source of media. You are experiencing warped perceptions. Show this post to someone you trust.
Get out of here jerkface! /s
It's part of an effort to normalize seeing it. I think it's probably good, but it's just a bit unrealistic sometimes and feels very forced. ':)