I think the main point of the post is that you can start a thread about a game and it will have a female lead for example, by the 4th or 5th page it's devolved into arguments about woke and DEI even if the game isn't woke and if anyone disagrees they get labelled shills, woke, apologists, 'part of the problem' etc.
Not saying this happens every thread but it is becoming more and more of a problem and makes this site less fun than it used to be.
I've seen that here too as well. Is the thread On Topic, that's the question behind it. Derailing threads is common, but sometimes going off topic is because the main topic has run its course. If it has not and there is contention between main topic and off topic then another thread is called for to split those discussions.
In any case, being on topic or not does not an echo chamber make.
Those terms have been weaponized as well, labeling ostracizing and jingoism, and so the entire internet and social media platforms are compromised so that freedom of speech does not exist anymore. We all know certain things cannot be said and bans are right around the corner. it never used to be this way. Im old school and cannot be offended, and once the floodgates opened for untrained society to encounter the internet, it all went to shit. Nowadays its just a propaganda venue where billions parrot things ordered from a grand design.
Ah yes, eternal September, I regret it and I was born after it. We really do need to make netiquette be required in schools. Here is how to get maximum use of forum conversations, how to not click banner ads, how to think critically, how to reply against ideas not personalities, how to see the best interpretation of posts, and when to spot and stop feeding a troll, etc.one of these days I'm going to write up a bunch of screens and publish them as a nonfiction book.
The ideas derserve to be mocked with as much aggression as is legally permissible because they're responsible for our species losing two decades of scientific and cultural progress.
I agree we have been going in circles at best. And when you are going the wrong direction, turning backwards is the first step to going the right direction. Does that mean you go backwards all the way to where you started? No! But you do need to make some changes somewhere or else you end up right back here in this (currently left hand) dead end alley.
OP also strikes me as a 'not everything has to be political' type, i.e. a normal person. Unfortunately the people who push this stuff do not agree with you.
There are many useful idiots who think agreeing with these things projects them as a good and virtuous person. But the 'true believers' believe that every aspect of your life should be viewed through a political lens, and that they in fact have a moral duty to do so.
Postmodernism, insufficient advocacy for change is automatically supporting the evil oppressor status quo. I think western society at large is getting sick of the obnoxiousness of this worldview. I at least am.
You make a fascinating hilarious and aggressive point. Keep it up because these nerds expect a level of softness and decency that allows them to keep annoying us. All of the passiveness we see here only paves the way for worse times, as the "strong men / good times" saying goes. Not all of us can guard the keep 247 but we can all do our part. o7
Yeah postmodern arguments is only too willing to take liberal discussions and norms and use them against those well meaning classical liberals to try to advance their agenda. Just like how certain cultures have a "do unto others before they do unto you, if they are stupid enough to fall for it then that is on them". It's un-Christian behavior but even for those for whom that word is an allergic word, it's an un-charitable toxic behavior that corrodes basic societal trust and is therefore to be condemned even if you set aside the religious take on it as I expect (without evidence) most of thr members here would prefer.
We're not anti-woke kind sir. We just hate having Woke politics jammed into the videogames we play, and then forcefully shoved down our throats, so that game devs with an agenda could please the powers that be and score ESG points and funding and please the sexual minorities and their mental illness, all the while ruining the games industry in the process.
I echo this, people express dismay at how the objects of their enjoyment are not only no longer targeted at them (meh we wish otherwise perhaps if we have good memories of a franchise), but weaponized against them and targeted at fictiously inflated parts of society called "the modern audience" so the creators of the newly targeted content can preen about how fashionable they are.
We don't want fashionable, we want good product!
U saying us being argumentative like its our flaw- i for one(being born and living in communist country as small kid where ppl couldnt voice their opinions, and it was punished by longtime prison sentences or worse
) think totally opposite- being argumentative is being able to think for urself, its being manly, its thinking logically and not being afraid to express it, its very good thing.
Especially for a guy, u dont wanna be sheep that follows some1 else w/o actually thinking about it(one of the reasons celebs promoting something, including politics, looks so cringe/wrong btw).
Thanks for sharing this true and underappreciated view here in the West. I got to spend a year in a former Soviet country and while I only got to interact with those who spoke English, they were staunchly what would today be called anti woke because they apparently saw where what at the time we called political correctness was going.
While I'm definitely not a fan of pushing DEI into absolutely everything, I also smh when people cry "WOKE!" as soon as a game has a female or colored protagonist (or just someone they find unattractive). There has to be a middle ground here.
Agreed, there can be too much attraction to woke stuff from a hate standpoint, it's worth remembering there are other aspects of games to talk about besides just how high the woke meter goes.
Who started it though?
I'm sure we've all seen the bible bashing nutjobs in the 90s and early 00s calling Harry Potter a demonic warlock or GTA being responsible for real crimes. But these people were always a joke. This time the pearl clutchers have come from the other side of the spectrum, but they have enforced their ideas and beliefs into everything you love. And they believe it is morally correct to do so.
Everyone thought Dolores umbridge was a moral majority Bible thumper and it turns out she was just a time traveling mod from a certain purple site!
It’s Marxism and it’s bigger than just the video game industry, allowing this cancer to spread will quite literally lead to the end of western democracy as we know it, this is a interview from 1983 with a KGB defector who is describing what’s happening today in perfect detail, ignoring it is not a option if you value freedom.
This is the meta discussion and I agree wokeness is a big tool of subversion today, but I'm not going to get into it beyond that because I know this is a gaming site not a politics site and I don't want to take things too off topic.
OP isn't wrong, we all need to try to be a little more accepting of others, especially when it costs nothing to do so. A little more "in the middle", a little less "ResetEra but in the opposite direction".
Being fair and balanced and looking at the ideas is well and good.
But I caution that we don't put that too high on a pedestal. I don't want what has happened in the past to other forums (where people took this attitude overboard and stuck with it so long that it chased away the point of the site itself in the name of looking polite) to happen to NeoGAF.
I joined here because this sites tone reminds me of my 06 heydays and I'm not wanting to be trapped with no choices except the Case Colt Ingersoll grandpas and the Agora Rd catboys (though you will find I have accounts on both sites), So I want to preserve the neutral tone where the focus is the games themselves, with proper discussion on even unpopular points of view without heavy-handed banning.
That is not and should not be seen as incompatible with having us be welcoming and cordial to users especially those with viewpoints we agree to disagree with.
I've been banging this drum for years at this point.
Just because there's two sides it doesn't follow that everyone one one side is wrong and everybody on the other is right, even when you have a strong view of which holds the righteous position.
...
The "win" we should be fighting for is civility and rationality.
I agree with this being the win. I'm new enough on the site that I don't know if the site is getting that win or not but I plan to continue trying to get us there or at least to do my part to do so.
Every place is, in a way, an echo chamber.
I agree with your post, I would say this as "all private groups are characterized by common ground" such as in this case a shared viewpoint. An echo chamber is a phenomenon where one only ever sees agreeing opinions that reinforce your existing world view, I would not say that this site is that one-sided currently, So for the sake of being pedantic I would say that common ground is more precise than echo chamber.
I've seen enough in this forum to conclude most people are culturally open minded and common sense people.
TLDR; I think gaf is fine.
I agree and I hope we all continue to appreciate the site culture being what it is and continue to help it move into a better future without falling to the left hand or the right.
Some people are so far to the left that a neutrally moderated forum seems absolutely wild to them.
GAF is fine. It's one of the last places around where you can have an actual discussion.
Agreed! I looked here for about a week before opening an account just to see what the controversial discussions looked like and I liked what I saw.
Nope.
Hormone blockers, body mutilation, promoting kids in drag shows, indoctrination, seeing everyting though the lens of race and sexuality, promotion of immutable characteristic versus merit, etc, etc.
Wokeness is a new secular religion that denies objective reality and deserves all the criticism it gets!
Postmodernism is caustic to our modernist worldview and these are some of its children, and while I agree with your posts point, I won't add to it to try to stay on topic (is gaf too one sided in anti woke) vs the broader (why woke is bad).
Didn't they used to call the type of thing the OP is saying "concern trolling"?
And potentially sealioning, but until the OP insistently repeats their points whilst ignoring our rebuttals, I'm not seeing that on my mental radar just yet. But if they are, then we stop engaging and feeding the trolls....but my troll I meter hasn't gone off yet, though I am watching it like Spock does his tricorder, looking for troll signs.
"GAF seems to be morphing more and more into an anti-woke echo chamber"
And what exacly does Wokeness have to do with gaming?
I hope NeoGaf keeps bashing these forced ideologies upon gamers, and the issue isnt LGBT characters, TLOU's main character is gay.
Gamers dont want forced, terribly written, woke prioritized, awfull looking games.
I agree, it's the "low quality and expecting that because the subject of the low quality work is a favored or fashionable totem right now, it is therefore beyond criticism and you are required to support it and love it and advance it, anyone who gets in the way of the glorious revolution is therefore tarnished" toxic phenomenon which is what this site rebels against (from what I have seen so far) more than direct animus of the fashionable totems themselves.
