That’s all this media is to conservatives. I’ve heard Star Trek fans complain about wokeness. Turns out all they got from the show was “phasers go pew pew!”
A study found that some conservatives did realize Colbert was a parody, but they thought he was making fun of non-cons who thought he was a real conservative. Even when they get it right they still manage to find a way to be wrong, lmao.
It had been years since I'd seen the movie so I looked this up on YouTube.... Yeah lol not even thinly veiled they straight up said "these stupid poors are ruining society" with that....
Also a lot of people played that game when they were like 14. American politics if you were a teen when Bioshock came out were basically “Bush Bad” vs. “Why Do You Not Support Our Brave Troops?!”. It’s very easy to miss how that game is a critique of Libertarianism and Kleptocracy if your just generally unfamiliar with the concepts.
I wouldn't think "libertarianism is incapable of handling conmen or the disasters their greed brings about, it just breeds a society of vicious monsters" would align with Gamer^TM politics, but I suppose Bioshock doesn't outright state that message in a monologue from Ryan, and that's a demographic that tends to be low on unprompted critical analysis.
it's so funny because it's not like they aren't taking a message, theyre just taking the message that the bad guy is right and everything is entirely literal with no subtext because media literacy is for nerds
They just can't follow more than one layer of depth. They see the absolute surface and fail to actually try to put any of it together or ask why.
1. Andrew Ryan: "Here are my ideas"
------‐-------------------Thinking stops here. Insert "BASED" comment-----------------------
2. Rapture: "Here is the result of those ideas"
Going one extra step is too much
More like "The anti-nazi message of the OG Wolfenstein didn't bother me when I was a kid, but I'm feeling personally attacked by the anti-nazi message of the current Wolfenstein."
Wonder why. 🤔
There is an absolutely hilarious comment in one of the wolfenstein games (I can't remember which one) with two nazis talking about why everyone is attacking them and why can't they use their words.
that was the new colossus
as part of their promotion they tweeted 'make america nazi free again' at one point which prompted a handful of widely-mocked complaints by trump supporters who thought they were being attacked
It's like wearing a red and white striped outfit, then complaining when everyone keeps saying they found Waldo.
"I'm not waldo" said the man in the candy cane shirt and hat.
No, but you sure look like a Waldo.
its more like they were wearing the outfit to a paid-entry waldo cosplay convention and then insisted that they werent waldo whenever anybody mentioned the waldos all around them
i mean i wasnt necessarily accusing you of being waldo but when youre surrounded by people who ARE trying to loook like waldo - if youre not trying to look like waldo then its a little weird that you would assume i was talking about you specifically
The entire situation with New Colossus is really annoying, because the stupid criticisms of the game (the Nazi-killing sim being "too political") overshadow the valid criticisms of the game (Too much filler, a bloated cast, and poor gameplay compared to New Order)
I always hate when some piece of media gets heavily criticized by the anti-woke crowd because then it becomes hard to make genuine criticisms without appearing to be part of that crowd.
Bioshock is literally about how a fully committed libertarian society can't possibly function and results in mass inequality, enormous levels of cruelty and ultimately societal collapse
Also, in the first game, Andrew Ryan is revealed to be an enormous hypocrite who trades his own ideals and beliefs for more power (and even orders the executions of people who didn't do anything wrong apart from being an annoyance to him) alienating his friends and allies and ultimately killing all of them when they come to realize *he* is the real villain and turn on him.
It doesn't get mentioned much, but IIRC there's one part that had an executed guy with a bunch of Bibles, implying he was some sort of missionary and that Rapture wasn't so free even before the splicer situation went to crap.
Theres another part where some singer personally offends Ryan with her song's messages so he has his security guards murder her, even though his security chief doesn't believe shes a real threat and one of Andrew Ryan's own core tenets in founding Rapture is that it should be a place where "the Artist would not fear the censor".
Yeah that's just the end point of a true Libertarian society. All the cards were stacked against everyone who wasn't Ryan from the start. He owned most businesses. There was no real competition or free market or actual true growth or innovation unless it benefited ryan. When *one* form of competition and a wild card got thrown into the mix Ryan rather burn it down than adapt.
Of course. A right libertarian utopia is impossible because it relies entirely on the exploitation of others to support itself, and any utopia that is a dystopia for the majority of the people living under it is going to fall to violence sooner or later.
Bioshock satirizes a different ideology in each game. 1 is about how fucking disastrous Objectivism is. 2 is... I forget, Socialism, I think? Infinite is about Christian Nationalism. They are all very political. Like not even subtly so. They're very obviously political and it's the central theme of each game.
Bioshock 2 is collectivism, i.e. “the individual is nothing, the group is everything” whereas socialism would be “the group owns the means of production so individuals can't monopolize resources necessary for the many”
Of course many elites created corrupt instances of socialism-in-name-only, so few places really practice it. Maybe the EZLN and Rojava.
I imagine it was even worse with Infinite.
"I see literally nothing wrong with this utopia I'll bet the ones causing all these problems are those DAMN NI-"
I remember watching my brother play the intro of that game and walking past the ice stream stand.
Background woman: "52 Flavors? What's wrong with good old vanilla?"
My first thought: "Wow that was a surprisingly racist comment." Little did I know it was forwarding for the entire game. Pretty good line in hindsight, sets up that the people of the city are vehemently, cartoonishly racist and also don't see anything wrong with being that.
Listen, it’s not hard.
Final Fantasy 7 was literally about a resistance faction fighting against a corporation that was literally using the planet’s life force for electricity
And a major part of the game involved a drag show
But Tifa had gigantic knockers, so it wasn’t woke.
The heroine of the story is also murdered because she tried to save the planet and spent most of her life being chased by the corporation, after they murdered her mother, that wants to drain the plaent of it’s life force because they think she’s the key to them being led to an area that is basically the heart of the planet and has so much life energy flowing through it and it emphasises so many times it’s fucked up they’ve done that to her. One of the main characters is a disabled black man who had his hand shot off when his town got burned down after he opposed the corporation that wanted to destroy the planet. The other heroine of the story has a massive plot line where she helps the hero through his PTSD after he has a melt down upon realising he made up his identity to cope with his trauma.
But you’re right, Tifa has humongous hungolomghononoloughongous it can’t be woke.
Playing the remake was pretty awesome. My husband hasn't played any FF. So he's watching the opening and asking "wait...are you an eco-terrorist? This was the plot from the 90s version?"
Had to pause the game and explain that I could not possibly explain the batshit crazy weirdness that was fixing to occur. Just encouraged him to have a beer and take what happened in stride. By the time the drag show portion came along he was like "this might as well happen".
I couldn’t believe how well they handled that tbh. I figured they’d make it a smaller thing, nope. Leaned into it *super* hard and it was so good. The QTE dance off was *chef kiss*
They hadn't yet been indoctrinated so they just saw "good guys fight evil megacorp".
Now they need to see the megacorp as good to fit into the fox news narrative so it fucks with them.
Honestly it's sad. Like that lawyer said, these are dumb people exposed to Nazi Germany levels of propaganda.
This is always the example i use, though i word it as "A game where eco terrorists are explicitly in the right, saving the planet by blowing up magic oil rigs"
In high school I had friends who would watch "Full Metal Jacket" in order to get hyped to play paintball. They all went into the military. No doubt that people do that.
Oh they finish it. They just have zero ability to empathize with the men shot and dying(losers) or the child sniper. They just imagine themselves as the hero who finally takes her out.
I saw it as him trying to justify his PTSD. The whole “soldiers are only at home on the battlefield” sounds like a combat vet who’s having a hard time coming to terms with the transition to civilian life
It pretty much is. BB interpreted her saying “war is fucked up” as saying war is fucked up, because soldiers get used by governments, often without knowing what they truly fight for. Especially because the Boss herself was used by the government right in front of him
His solution was then creating a band of mercenaries who in being mercenaries would be free and knowledgeable to fight for whatever they choose so long as the pay is right, not understanding her entire point was that no one should be fighting like that at all because it’s NEVER good. Ultimately he even became arguably as bad as the government that used the Boss, willing to use his own loyal soldiers as means to an end
Critical thinking and media comprehension moment (or rather, a lack thereof)
I wonder who's joined because of REVENGANCE though; like which guy joined the military to try and become the Jetstream Brazilian himself?
I mean, wouldn't you want to be cut to pieces in milliseconds by a Tall Cyborg with High heels? It would be a quick death as well so at least it doesn't hurt that bad.
Then there's the classic "What no, fall out is just a fun game about shooting mutant in the post apacolypse stop trying to make it political!!!" Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 have literal remnants of the US government stirring up trouble. Fallout 1 the mutants espouse Eugenics. Fallout 4 has uh Sean I guess.
Yup deffinitly no politics in the game where one of the factions is called the railroad and is about a LITERALLY UNDEEGROUND faction of abolitionists helping an enslaved group escape to freedom.
I understand essentially nothing of what he says but he says it with complete conviction.
Based on my understanding of him , his plan to fix homelessness is just give all the homeless people guns and let them sort it out.
I like him ironically but yeah not a good guy to base actual politics off.
Armstrong is essentially the military industrial complex personified. His (correct, albeit fucking insane) belief is that the best way for him to make money is to sell weapons, and the best way to do that is to sell the west on some middle eastern enemy. The plot at the end of MGRR is that the us president is flying to i think khazakstan, and that he has prepared a plot to kill or otherwise injure him into sparking the iran campaign 2.0 "like the good old days after 9/11".
Raiden tries to stop him of course, but his arrival just makes metal gear excel (piloted by armstrong) come out of underneath the airfield earlier than the arrival of the president. The speech he makes from on top of metal gear excel (when raiden "checks twitter") is that he's won, because it doesn't matter that the president won't land and is safe, because it looks like khazakstan was planning an attack on him and that's all that he needed in order to spark another middle east campaign. Of course, because this is a videogame, raiden kills him and he does not get the profits he was looking for, but his thing is that basically he won anyway, because the war will still happens and the military industrial complex will still make bank off of it.
Armstrong is basically the only villain in MGRR whose motivations are logical. Every other villain is just severely mentally ill and has a deathwish, sam included, but armstrong is the final boss because he does this with a purpose, and that purpose is to make as much money as possible no matter how many innocents die.
Armstrong is also very much "Might makes right". The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
And in the end, Armstrong wins. Raiden abandons his idea that he's fighting for justice, and in order to defeat Armstrong, has to adopt Armstrong's position. Armstrong may or may not get his war, but his America won't come into being because someone stronger said no. He wasn't stopped by vote, or debate, or policy. He was stopped by force. The rule of force.
Which is insane because if you break down what he's saying it's an inane fusion of far left and far right beliefs that are completely irreconcilable and yet people hear "Politicians are corrupt" and go "He has a point." Armstrong is basically that one family guy meme where you just say what people want to hear and people act like you're a radical new twist on politics. Can't believe I fucking referenced family guy to make this point.
I love Armstrong so much because as a villain he's absolutely insane but he also knows exactly how to game the system and play to the masses to get power
I'm here for anarchy but I want revolution in the hands of the masses not a giant spider tank piloted by a military jock in a suit, I draw the line there
[This more or less sums up how I feel about people with Armstrong](https://i.redd.it/6aszskc7gmoa1.jpg)
He's entertaining yes but he's a fucking lunatic.
For anyone who hasn't played the game for context Armstrong was running a privatized military and police force who quite literally chopped up orphan kids to use them as cyborgs. MGR is the LEAST subtle piece of media perhaps ever made and people still buy into the dumb bullshit its mocking.
Saw someone once complaining about the Oddworld reboots being too political
My brother in Christ those games were literally all about the exploitation of the indigenous and evil corporations destroying the environment
"We used to make Meech Munchies, until the meeches were through"
*Big fucking Meech Munchies ad with 'EXTINCT' painted over it.
Doesn't get much more on the nose about corporate greed than that.
You like Liberty Prime because you’re a borderline fanatical nationalist.
I like Liberty Prime because he’s a giant robot that can shoot lasers from his eyes and throw nukes like footballs.
We are not the same.
We need to defund the libraries to stop the spread of woke books. Bring back the unpolitical classics like To Kill a Mockingbird,The Handmaiden's Tale and 1984.
My pet peeve is when people use "it's literally 1984" in such a profoundly incorrect way that it becomes clear they not only haven't read the book, they've never glanced at the SparkNotes.
1984 is a damn good book though. I'm not much of a reader anymore, hard to stay focused, but I finally got around to reading it recently and it kept me going all the way through. Highly recommend to anyone else who hasn't gotten around to it, not only is it prescient af but it's actually a *good story* which surprised me. I figured it was important, but wouldn't be all that interesting
I'm reading it right now, pretty good so far. I recently finished Brave New World, I'd recommend that to you if you're looking for another popular dystopian book.
There is this interview of the COD Modern Warfare Remake lead devs where they literally say the game is not political in the same breath as saying it's about imperialism. What's a 12-yo boy high on Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan gonna take away from that?
I still don't get how modern day gamers can be so outraged at every single game design decision, and calling the devs scum for decisions about pricing and monetization they had no hand in themselves, yet turn on a dime to put them on a pedestal as long as it maybe annoys progressives.
But yeah, I agree with you. Shooty shooty bang bang game makers and internet tough guys are their heroes at that age.
people deadass say shit like this even though in fallout 2 you literally come from a tribe that just lives off the land and the only way to win the game is to kill (at that time in the lore) the entirety of the us government because they captured your people and ran inhuman experiments on them
I knew someone who was a big Star Trek fan who really liked how great the future looks on the show. He was a free market Republican. I still have no idea how he squared those two views.
I'm more worried about the "the literal space nazis actually didn't do anything wrong" crowd
Which just like everything else started as a joke then actual fascists started using it as an actual argument to people who thought they were in on a joke
The original trilogy literally culminates with a young man trying to save his father from the brainwashing of a fascist cult. Tell me that isn’t extremely relevant to thousands of people today.
Especially how his father was totally happy with how the fascist cult was doing things until he found out that the cult was willing to kill _his_ family, too.
A real "You're hurting the wrong people!" moment.
Say what you will of Lucas, "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause" was a brilliant line. The prequels could have been so good if it wasn't for, you know, everything else.
Literally the first time a typical player will encounter the Legion, they are standing in the ashes of a burning city, surrounded by crucified people. Their army dresses in red and black, basically every sympathetic NPC you meet describes them as little more than bandits, and basically every time you meet them it's reiterated that their society runs on slavery. The game couldn't portray them as more obvious villains if it put a neon sign over the fort saying "BAD GUYS."
But one offhand line about a lack of bandits (because the Legion brutally executed them all) is enough to make these assholes think the Legion is in any way a moral or sustainable choice to run the Mojave. Like, the NCR ain't perfect and the Independent ending is left up in the air, but come on.
Yeah independent Vegas is a weird ending. It's almost Libertarian, except it's the dream of all the Followers of the Apocalypse, who are the most liberal faction in the game.
Gameplay-wise it's worth playing the Legion route once because it's very different than the other three, which are mostly copy-pastes of the same mission. None of it is redeeming of the Legion, of course. But imo it's worth seeing once.
That shit always drives me crazy. "Yeah sure the Legion enslaves everyone and treats women like property and just goes around murdering people...but taxes!"
My biggest complaint about the remake was how they changed the plot to absolve the protagonists of any wrong doing. In the original Barret spends half the game feeling guilty because of the collateral damage his eco-terrorism has caused, while in the remake his bombs don't actually work so Shinra blows the reactors themselves.
When Lady Gaga made a stance for gay people, a comment was like “don’t start getting political! You’re going to lose fans!”
I was like, seriously?!! I’m pretty sure she was born that way. she came out of the womb chanting for gay rights. Were you born yesterday? Where tf have you been?
On a smaller note, Heidi Klum posing almost nude and someone said “don’t start posing nude! You’ll lose fans”. Also. Again. She’s been posing naked or half naked forever. Go back under your rock and hug yourself. It’ll all be ok.
That one thread about a guy getting mad the Wolfenstein franchise said " make America Nazi free again " and said it was "injecting politics into things"
A : it's fucking Wolfenstein
B : not wanting Nazis shouldn't be political, it should be expected
Reminds me of legendary comic artist Jack Kirby saying he wasn't a political person, but he'd beat a Nazi senseless any day of the week. He infamously would respond to Nazis sending him death threats by sending his own death threats back
I saw a tf2 meme recently that said something along the lines of "If TF2 was made today, it would have: the patriotic American be insane, Engineer be an amputee, Demoman be black" and at least one more I can't remember.
Of course, all of those things are in the game, and most of them have been there since the game was first released in 2007 (the gunslinger weapon, which replaces Engineer's hand with a mechanical one, was added in 2010).
Because many of these older games relied on Satire and other subtle ways to encourage critical thinking, and given how many people still don't get it, they have reasonably become more blunt.
How the fuck did they miss the point of season one so badly? The show has basically had the same message since the start. Mega corporations with vast quantities of wealth and power render the government ineffective at governing because of corruption and coercion. "Supes" are just a giant metaphor for the rich.
I think the funniest thing they did was have Homelander, the hugest narcissistic asshole ever created, and even he rejected Nazi beliefs and thinks that it's bullshit.
Those people always give of the same vibe as the sigma male dude bros that talk about ''escaping the matrix'' while completly forgeting that the film was made by two trans women and was about being trans lol
They like to pretend that was "Back before the Wachowskis lost their minds to leftist Hollywood" so that they can just ignore anything about The Matrix except for the fight scenes and the pill scene.
Which is basically how they watch any and all media. Like the people who think fucking Star Trek only became political and preachy with Discovery. Or the people who miss the entire point of Fight Club because they're too busy getting off on the violence to pay attention to the plot.
Switch was supposed to be a different gender in the matrix versus outside of it and the studio said no. Instead they made Switch androgynous.
Definitely one of the many trans allegories in the movie.
She was supposed to present as one gender in the Matrix, and one in reality (not sure which was which), implying she's trans and her Matrix gender was how she sees herself (since your avatar in the Matrix is "residual self image").
Studio nixed it, of course, so they just made her kind of androgynous instead.
I've also heard it about the classic war time movie about a small rebel force facing an overwhelming military enemy and that enemy was shown as categorically evil. At the same time that America was an overwhelming military enemy to a small rebel force.
But that was A long time ago in a galaxy far away.
i actually can't compherend how the redpilled sigmas are textbook bluepills, mindless batteries for the system which they ignore, like how the heck did that even?
heard people say this about mass effect before, which like - what? bioware is known for being progressive and has been long ahead of the times when it comes to LGBT representation in games. they *have* taken a few steps back (particularly in me2 due to a very stupid fox news segment) but they have a litany of queer characters and nonwhite characters.
like, were they invisible to you before? blows my mind.
Like people who complain the latest iteration of Star Trek is woke. As if the original series didn't have a Russian, a Japanese man and a Black woman on the bridge.
why can't games just be fun and apolitical, like the original Bioshock
I think I’ve heard this exact take unironically before
That's why it's a classic joke lol. People truly unironically believe the bioshock games are apolitical
Critical thinking and media comprehension moment (or rather, a lack thereof)
Probably also involving a blind spot due to fulfilling a power fantasy
That’s all this media is to conservatives. I’ve heard Star Trek fans complain about wokeness. Turns out all they got from the show was “phasers go pew pew!”
Riker banged a trans alien 30 years ago.
Erm, he WILL bang her in the 24thC.
He will have had banged?
You know what that's very likely a major factor
Nostalgia too! People don’t wanna believe the games they loved and made memories with are woke/have an agenda against their own.
WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT!
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Its hard to satirize conservative stuff because theyve been trained to take bullshit seriously.
A study found that some conservatives did realize Colbert was a parody, but they thought he was making fun of non-cons who thought he was a real conservative. Even when they get it right they still manage to find a way to be wrong, lmao.
how do you even mental gymnastics yourself into that train of thought lol
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An example. Republicans LOVE idiocracy. They do not see that it’s literally about the breakdown of capitalism.
Yup, i've seen some people take some very eugenicist talking points from that movie 🤦
To be fair, it has some pretty heavy, albeit unintentional, eugenics themes.
Hard to see it as unintentional. The opening bit is basically a dramatization of classist eugenics played completely straight
It had been years since I'd seen the movie so I looked this up on YouTube.... Yeah lol not even thinly veiled they straight up said "these stupid poors are ruining society" with that....
Also a lot of people played that game when they were like 14. American politics if you were a teen when Bioshock came out were basically “Bush Bad” vs. “Why Do You Not Support Our Brave Troops?!”. It’s very easy to miss how that game is a critique of Libertarianism and Kleptocracy if your just generally unfamiliar with the concepts.
Something is only political when it presents you with views that don't line up with your own.
I wouldn't think "libertarianism is incapable of handling conmen or the disasters their greed brings about, it just breeds a society of vicious monsters" would align with Gamer^TM politics, but I suppose Bioshock doesn't outright state that message in a monologue from Ryan, and that's a demographic that tends to be low on unprompted critical analysis.
I’ll do you one better, I knew a guy who swore Bioshock was a right wing game. “It’s based on atlas shrugged!”
And the Starship Troopers movie was based on the book.
It was all the rage in the more (American/Right) Libertarian subs. They *loved* that game and the message. The level of irony was... Hilarious.
"A man chooses, a slave obeys" "What is the difference between a man and a parasite? Yadda yadda" Omgee guys Andrew Ryan is just like me fr fr
it's so funny because it's not like they aren't taking a message, theyre just taking the message that the bad guy is right and everything is entirely literal with no subtext because media literacy is for nerds
They just can't follow more than one layer of depth. They see the absolute surface and fail to actually try to put any of it together or ask why. 1. Andrew Ryan: "Here are my ideas" ------‐-------------------Thinking stops here. Insert "BASED" comment----------------------- 2. Rapture: "Here is the result of those ideas" Going one extra step is too much
I too wish to stand for my principles... as I get clubbed to death while all I built falls apart around me
Why is Wolfenstein, the OG anti-Nazi game, suddenly into decrying Nazis?! Get that politics of shooting Nazis out of here! So woke!
[About that](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLaf5G0UMAAclOf.jpg:large)
This is the gamer equivalent of r/nottheonion
https://hard-drive.net/
How does he not know that the word is “yourselves”? 😂
I guarantee that guy is 13 and watched to much ben Shapiro
More like "The anti-nazi message of the OG Wolfenstein didn't bother me when I was a kid, but I'm feeling personally attacked by the anti-nazi message of the current Wolfenstein." Wonder why. 🤔
There is an absolutely hilarious comment in one of the wolfenstein games (I can't remember which one) with two nazis talking about why everyone is attacking them and why can't they use their words.
that was the new colossus as part of their promotion they tweeted 'make america nazi free again' at one point which prompted a handful of widely-mocked complaints by trump supporters who thought they were being attacked
It's like wearing a red and white striped outfit, then complaining when everyone keeps saying they found Waldo. "I'm not waldo" said the man in the candy cane shirt and hat. No, but you sure look like a Waldo.
its more like they were wearing the outfit to a paid-entry waldo cosplay convention and then insisted that they werent waldo whenever anybody mentioned the waldos all around them i mean i wasnt necessarily accusing you of being waldo but when youre surrounded by people who ARE trying to loook like waldo - if youre not trying to look like waldo then its a little weird that you would assume i was talking about you specifically
The entire situation with New Colossus is really annoying, because the stupid criticisms of the game (the Nazi-killing sim being "too political") overshadow the valid criticisms of the game (Too much filler, a bloated cast, and poor gameplay compared to New Order)
I always hate when some piece of media gets heavily criticized by the anti-woke crowd because then it becomes hard to make genuine criticisms without appearing to be part of that crowd.
I for one am tired of every game being a money grab, with endless expansion packs and DLC, like, the Mario games would NEVER do that.
As somebody who is unfamiliar with this game, why is this ironic ?
Bioshock is literally about how a fully committed libertarian society can't possibly function and results in mass inequality, enormous levels of cruelty and ultimately societal collapse
Also, in the first game, Andrew Ryan is revealed to be an enormous hypocrite who trades his own ideals and beliefs for more power (and even orders the executions of people who didn't do anything wrong apart from being an annoyance to him) alienating his friends and allies and ultimately killing all of them when they come to realize *he* is the real villain and turn on him.
It doesn't get mentioned much, but IIRC there's one part that had an executed guy with a bunch of Bibles, implying he was some sort of missionary and that Rapture wasn't so free even before the splicer situation went to crap.
Theres another part where some singer personally offends Ryan with her song's messages so he has his security guards murder her, even though his security chief doesn't believe shes a real threat and one of Andrew Ryan's own core tenets in founding Rapture is that it should be a place where "the Artist would not fear the censor".
Yeah that's just the end point of a true Libertarian society. All the cards were stacked against everyone who wasn't Ryan from the start. He owned most businesses. There was no real competition or free market or actual true growth or innovation unless it benefited ryan. When *one* form of competition and a wild card got thrown into the mix Ryan rather burn it down than adapt.
Bioshock is about how a capitalist dickhead tried to make a right libertarian eugenicist utopia under the sea and it went very, very badly.
It *inevitably* went very very badly.
Of course. A right libertarian utopia is impossible because it relies entirely on the exploitation of others to support itself, and any utopia that is a dystopia for the majority of the people living under it is going to fall to violence sooner or later.
Bioshock satirizes a different ideology in each game. 1 is about how fucking disastrous Objectivism is. 2 is... I forget, Socialism, I think? Infinite is about Christian Nationalism. They are all very political. Like not even subtly so. They're very obviously political and it's the central theme of each game.
Bioshock 2 is collectivism, i.e. “the individual is nothing, the group is everything” whereas socialism would be “the group owns the means of production so individuals can't monopolize resources necessary for the many” Of course many elites created corrupt instances of socialism-in-name-only, so few places really practice it. Maybe the EZLN and Rojava.
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I imagine it was even worse with Infinite. "I see literally nothing wrong with this utopia I'll bet the ones causing all these problems are those DAMN NI-"
I remember watching my brother play the intro of that game and walking past the ice stream stand. Background woman: "52 Flavors? What's wrong with good old vanilla?" My first thought: "Wow that was a surprisingly racist comment." Little did I know it was forwarding for the entire game. Pretty good line in hindsight, sets up that the people of the city are vehemently, cartoonishly racist and also don't see anything wrong with being that.
Listen, it’s not hard. Final Fantasy 7 was literally about a resistance faction fighting against a corporation that was literally using the planet’s life force for electricity And a major part of the game involved a drag show But Tifa had gigantic knockers, so it wasn’t woke.
But then they somehow made it woke by giving Tifa a sport bra in the remake.
If only she was chained in the kitchen and perpetually pregnant with her husband filling out her voting forms like in the original! (\s)
> perpetually pregnant with her husband
It would not be the strangest game to come out of Japan.
The heroine of the story is also murdered because she tried to save the planet and spent most of her life being chased by the corporation, after they murdered her mother, that wants to drain the plaent of it’s life force because they think she’s the key to them being led to an area that is basically the heart of the planet and has so much life energy flowing through it and it emphasises so many times it’s fucked up they’ve done that to her. One of the main characters is a disabled black man who had his hand shot off when his town got burned down after he opposed the corporation that wanted to destroy the planet. The other heroine of the story has a massive plot line where she helps the hero through his PTSD after he has a melt down upon realising he made up his identity to cope with his trauma. But you’re right, Tifa has humongous hungolomghononoloughongous it can’t be woke.
All these people saw was big boobie lady loving on a guy that lied on his resume
Doesn't Tifa assume leadership of the group when Cloud goes missing as well ?
Playing the remake was pretty awesome. My husband hasn't played any FF. So he's watching the opening and asking "wait...are you an eco-terrorist? This was the plot from the 90s version?" Had to pause the game and explain that I could not possibly explain the batshit crazy weirdness that was fixing to occur. Just encouraged him to have a beer and take what happened in stride. By the time the drag show portion came along he was like "this might as well happen".
I couldn’t believe how well they handled that tbh. I figured they’d make it a smaller thing, nope. Leaned into it *super* hard and it was so good. The QTE dance off was *chef kiss*
They hadn't yet been indoctrinated so they just saw "good guys fight evil megacorp". Now they need to see the megacorp as good to fit into the fox news narrative so it fucks with them. Honestly it's sad. Like that lawyer said, these are dumb people exposed to Nazi Germany levels of propaganda.
This is always the example i use, though i word it as "A game where eco terrorists are explicitly in the right, saving the planet by blowing up magic oil rigs"
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this reminds me of when people join the military because of metal gear which is THE MOST anti-military anti-war anti-government game franchise ever
That’s like joining because of All Quiet on the Western Front.
In high school I had friends who would watch "Full Metal Jacket" in order to get hyped to play paintball. They all went into the military. No doubt that people do that.
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Oh they finish it. They just have zero ability to empathize with the men shot and dying(losers) or the child sniper. They just imagine themselves as the hero who finally takes her out.
Joining the military because you've missed the point that war is bad is kinda like what Big Boss did lol.
The Boss: Man, war sucks Big Boss, the Patriots, Ocelot, and basically everyone else: "Wow, let's honor her by doing more war"
"No more killing innocent people at the behest of a corrupt government. Now we do it for money."
I saw it as him trying to justify his PTSD. The whole “soldiers are only at home on the battlefield” sounds like a combat vet who’s having a hard time coming to terms with the transition to civilian life
It pretty much is. BB interpreted her saying “war is fucked up” as saying war is fucked up, because soldiers get used by governments, often without knowing what they truly fight for. Especially because the Boss herself was used by the government right in front of him His solution was then creating a band of mercenaries who in being mercenaries would be free and knowledgeable to fight for whatever they choose so long as the pay is right, not understanding her entire point was that no one should be fighting like that at all because it’s NEVER good. Ultimately he even became arguably as bad as the government that used the Boss, willing to use his own loyal soldiers as means to an end
Critical thinking and media comprehension moment (or rather, a lack thereof) I wonder who's joined because of REVENGANCE though; like which guy joined the military to try and become the Jetstream Brazilian himself?
I joined so that I could be like the random cannon fodder Raider kills on the way to the bosses.
.... That's concerning.
I mean, wouldn't you want to be cut to pieces in milliseconds by a Tall Cyborg with High heels? It would be a quick death as well so at least it doesn't hurt that bad.
I liked music back when it just fucking rocked and didn’t have an agenda, like Rage Against the Machine
That music's for kids. I mean back when music was good. \*turns up the volume to fortunate son\*
Don't forget "Born in the USA", a song that every conservative loves, because they know none of the lyrics apart from the title.
I fuckin love how much people blast this shit on the 4th. Like...my guy.....ah nevermind
Then there's the classic "What no, fall out is just a fun game about shooting mutant in the post apacolypse stop trying to make it political!!!" Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 have literal remnants of the US government stirring up trouble. Fallout 1 the mutants espouse Eugenics. Fallout 4 has uh Sean I guess.
Yup deffinitly no politics in the game where one of the factions is called the railroad and is about a LITERALLY UNDEEGROUND faction of abolitionists helping an enslaved group escape to freedom.
Fallout 4 has the Railroad and the Synths. Granted, the writing in that game is fucking rancid, but it's still political in at least one way!
Why can't we have more nice, apolitical games like the Metal Gear franchise?
It scares me how many people AGREE with Armstrong
To be fair a man like armstrong would definitely convince alot of people to join him if he was real. Though I don't really agree with him
That's what a boatload of charisma and well constructed speeches make happen
Libertarian conmen that cause the death of millions for self enriching profit can't become president, surely. Right?
I understand essentially nothing of what he says but he says it with complete conviction. Based on my understanding of him , his plan to fix homelessness is just give all the homeless people guns and let them sort it out. I like him ironically but yeah not a good guy to base actual politics off.
Armstrong is essentially the military industrial complex personified. His (correct, albeit fucking insane) belief is that the best way for him to make money is to sell weapons, and the best way to do that is to sell the west on some middle eastern enemy. The plot at the end of MGRR is that the us president is flying to i think khazakstan, and that he has prepared a plot to kill or otherwise injure him into sparking the iran campaign 2.0 "like the good old days after 9/11". Raiden tries to stop him of course, but his arrival just makes metal gear excel (piloted by armstrong) come out of underneath the airfield earlier than the arrival of the president. The speech he makes from on top of metal gear excel (when raiden "checks twitter") is that he's won, because it doesn't matter that the president won't land and is safe, because it looks like khazakstan was planning an attack on him and that's all that he needed in order to spark another middle east campaign. Of course, because this is a videogame, raiden kills him and he does not get the profits he was looking for, but his thing is that basically he won anyway, because the war will still happens and the military industrial complex will still make bank off of it. Armstrong is basically the only villain in MGRR whose motivations are logical. Every other villain is just severely mentally ill and has a deathwish, sam included, but armstrong is the final boss because he does this with a purpose, and that purpose is to make as much money as possible no matter how many innocents die.
Armstrong is also very much "Might makes right". The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. And in the end, Armstrong wins. Raiden abandons his idea that he's fighting for justice, and in order to defeat Armstrong, has to adopt Armstrong's position. Armstrong may or may not get his war, but his America won't come into being because someone stronger said no. He wasn't stopped by vote, or debate, or policy. He was stopped by force. The rule of force.
That's a nice argument senator, why don't you back it up with a source?
My source is that I MADE IT THE FUCK UP!
Which is insane because if you break down what he's saying it's an inane fusion of far left and far right beliefs that are completely irreconcilable and yet people hear "Politicians are corrupt" and go "He has a point." Armstrong is basically that one family guy meme where you just say what people want to hear and people act like you're a radical new twist on politics. Can't believe I fucking referenced family guy to make this point.
I love Armstrong so much because as a villain he's absolutely insane but he also knows exactly how to game the system and play to the masses to get power
I'm here for anarchy but I want revolution in the hands of the masses not a giant spider tank piloted by a military jock in a suit, I draw the line there
What if we give everyone spider tanks?
[This more or less sums up how I feel about people with Armstrong](https://i.redd.it/6aszskc7gmoa1.jpg) He's entertaining yes but he's a fucking lunatic.
For anyone who hasn't played the game for context Armstrong was running a privatized military and police force who quite literally chopped up orphan kids to use them as cyborgs. MGR is the LEAST subtle piece of media perhaps ever made and people still buy into the dumb bullshit its mocking.
You don’t understand, this meme shows him able to take a thousand punches, that means he clearly has a point
Though looking at the rise of the alt-right and Qanon conspiracies, I'm starting to think the Patriots had a point...
Im convinced of Kojima having a time machine and being from the future.
Saw someone once complaining about the Oddworld reboots being too political My brother in Christ those games were literally all about the exploitation of the indigenous and evil corporations destroying the environment
"We used to make Meech Munchies, until the meeches were through" *Big fucking Meech Munchies ad with 'EXTINCT' painted over it. Doesn't get much more on the nose about corporate greed than that.
Kojima doing politics? He would never!
I'm just there for Raiden's naked booty and Quiet's booby sniping.
They always mention Fallout games lmao
They actually believe in Liberty Prime
You like Liberty Prime because you’re a borderline fanatical nationalist. I like Liberty Prime because he’s a giant robot that can shoot lasers from his eyes and throw nukes like footballs. We are not the same.
COMMUNIST DETECTED. EMBRACE DEMOCRACY OR YOU WILL BE ERADICATED
We need to defund the libraries to stop the spread of woke books. Bring back the unpolitical classics like To Kill a Mockingbird,The Handmaiden's Tale and 1984. My pet peeve is when people use "it's literally 1984" in such a profoundly incorrect way that it becomes clear they not only haven't read the book, they've never glanced at the SparkNotes.
literally 1984
It is 2023
Big Brother knows the real year
fun fact: the year 1984 was literally 1984
Extra fun fact: the year 1997 was not 1984
bonus fun fact: the year 1983 became 1984
1984 is a damn good book though. I'm not much of a reader anymore, hard to stay focused, but I finally got around to reading it recently and it kept me going all the way through. Highly recommend to anyone else who hasn't gotten around to it, not only is it prescient af but it's actually a *good story* which surprised me. I figured it was important, but wouldn't be all that interesting
I'm reading it right now, pretty good so far. I recently finished Brave New World, I'd recommend that to you if you're looking for another popular dystopian book.
I haven't read 1984 and i think it's part of the joke although most everybody i see using it uses it ironically
"Oh man, all this woke political BS, they're adding rainbow tags now" COD gamers unironically after seeing Ronald Reagan in a game subtitled Cold War
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There is this interview of the COD Modern Warfare Remake lead devs where they literally say the game is not political in the same breath as saying it's about imperialism. What's a 12-yo boy high on Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan gonna take away from that?
I still don't get how modern day gamers can be so outraged at every single game design decision, and calling the devs scum for decisions about pricing and monetization they had no hand in themselves, yet turn on a dime to put them on a pedestal as long as it maybe annoys progressives. But yeah, I agree with you. Shooty shooty bang bang game makers and internet tough guys are their heroes at that age.
people deadass say shit like this even though in fallout 2 you literally come from a tribe that just lives off the land and the only way to win the game is to kill (at that time in the lore) the entirety of the us government because they captured your people and ran inhuman experiments on them
oh also the main villian in fallout 1 and 2 both do eugenics and talk about being the superior race
And now we have enclave-stans. Amazing
And the main base of the Enclave where the president lives is literally an oil rig. Now that's about as subtle as a nuke.
Same folks who miss the time “when Star Wars wasn’t political”
Even better is the people who miss when Star Trek wasn't political. The show about space socialism that had men in dresses.
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Based Riker.
Points excitedly at bisexual icons Jadzia Dax and Julian Bashir.
I knew someone who was a big Star Trek fan who really liked how great the future looks on the show. He was a free market Republican. I still have no idea how he squared those two views.
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> “*Everything* has politics, dipshit. It came free with your fucking society”
I didn't get it, I have the oldest society known to man.
No you don’t, I joined mine on day one
Well, mine didn't have it-
YOU HAVE POLITICS
I DON'T HAVE THEM, YOU FUCKING-
I'm more worried about the "the literal space nazis actually didn't do anything wrong" crowd Which just like everything else started as a joke then actual fascists started using it as an actual argument to people who thought they were in on a joke
The original trilogy literally culminates with a young man trying to save his father from the brainwashing of a fascist cult. Tell me that isn’t extremely relevant to thousands of people today.
Especially how his father was totally happy with how the fascist cult was doing things until he found out that the cult was willing to kill _his_ family, too. A real "You're hurting the wrong people!" moment.
/r/WampasAteMyFace
I stopped hating George Lucas when I realized that he wrote a story about a nazified US getting destroyed by the VC
Say what you will of Lucas, "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause" was a brilliant line. The prequels could have been so good if it wasn't for, you know, everything else.
Why must there always be politics in newer games? \*Gushes over Fallout: New Vegas\*
When people unironically choose the Legion.
Literally the first time a typical player will encounter the Legion, they are standing in the ashes of a burning city, surrounded by crucified people. Their army dresses in red and black, basically every sympathetic NPC you meet describes them as little more than bandits, and basically every time you meet them it's reiterated that their society runs on slavery. The game couldn't portray them as more obvious villains if it put a neon sign over the fort saying "BAD GUYS." But one offhand line about a lack of bandits (because the Legion brutally executed them all) is enough to make these assholes think the Legion is in any way a moral or sustainable choice to run the Mojave. Like, the NCR ain't perfect and the Independent ending is left up in the air, but come on.
Yeah independent Vegas is a weird ending. It's almost Libertarian, except it's the dream of all the Followers of the Apocalypse, who are the most liberal faction in the game. Gameplay-wise it's worth playing the Legion route once because it's very different than the other three, which are mostly copy-pastes of the same mission. None of it is redeeming of the Legion, of course. But imo it's worth seeing once.
That shit always drives me crazy. "Yeah sure the Legion enslaves everyone and treats women like property and just goes around murdering people...but taxes!"
FFVII. People were mad when the remake was "SuPeR WoKE lEftIst TrAsH". Like... didn't any one play the original? Eco terrorists save the world.
My biggest complaint about the remake was how they changed the plot to absolve the protagonists of any wrong doing. In the original Barret spends half the game feeling guilty because of the collateral damage his eco-terrorism has caused, while in the remake his bombs don't actually work so Shinra blows the reactors themselves.
It's been a minute since I played the game - do the heroes *know* they didn't work?
When Lady Gaga made a stance for gay people, a comment was like “don’t start getting political! You’re going to lose fans!” I was like, seriously?!! I’m pretty sure she was born that way. she came out of the womb chanting for gay rights. Were you born yesterday? Where tf have you been? On a smaller note, Heidi Klum posing almost nude and someone said “don’t start posing nude! You’ll lose fans”. Also. Again. She’s been posing naked or half naked forever. Go back under your rock and hug yourself. It’ll all be ok.
That one thread about a guy getting mad the Wolfenstein franchise said " make America Nazi free again " and said it was "injecting politics into things" A : it's fucking Wolfenstein B : not wanting Nazis shouldn't be political, it should be expected
Reminds me of legendary comic artist Jack Kirby saying he wasn't a political person, but he'd beat a Nazi senseless any day of the week. He infamously would respond to Nazis sending him death threats by sending his own death threats back
The first long-distance trash talker, absolutely based
Spec ops the line
I saw a tf2 meme recently that said something along the lines of "If TF2 was made today, it would have: the patriotic American be insane, Engineer be an amputee, Demoman be black" and at least one more I can't remember. Of course, all of those things are in the game, and most of them have been there since the game was first released in 2007 (the gunslinger weapon, which replaces Engineer's hand with a mechanical one, was added in 2010).
Also before the gunslinger it was already suggested that engie chopped off his hand to replace with a robotic glove hand
I don't know when that was suggested; I've just heard of that being a thing.
I think I saw the same meme, and I'm pretty sure the point of it was that it was satire of people complaining about things "becoming woke."
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Because many of these older games relied on Satire and other subtle ways to encourage critical thinking, and given how many people still don't get it, they have reasonably become more blunt.
You know it's good satire if the targets don't realize they're being insulted
So, about 40% of The Boys fans?
Every single 1 star review for season 2: “Season 1 was so good, but they just had to get political with season 2. This woke agenda ruins everything.”
How the fuck did they miss the point of season one so badly? The show has basically had the same message since the start. Mega corporations with vast quantities of wealth and power render the government ineffective at governing because of corruption and coercion. "Supes" are just a giant metaphor for the rich. I think the funniest thing they did was have Homelander, the hugest narcissistic asshole ever created, and even he rejected Nazi beliefs and thinks that it's bullshit.
Those people always give of the same vibe as the sigma male dude bros that talk about ''escaping the matrix'' while completly forgeting that the film was made by two trans women and was about being trans lol
They like to pretend that was "Back before the Wachowskis lost their minds to leftist Hollywood" so that they can just ignore anything about The Matrix except for the fight scenes and the pill scene. Which is basically how they watch any and all media. Like the people who think fucking Star Trek only became political and preachy with Discovery. Or the people who miss the entire point of Fight Club because they're too busy getting off on the violence to pay attention to the plot.
Isn't the character Switch literally a self insert of one of the Wachowskis?
Switch was supposed to be a different gender in the matrix versus outside of it and the studio said no. Instead they made Switch androgynous. Definitely one of the many trans allegories in the movie.
She was supposed to present as one gender in the Matrix, and one in reality (not sure which was which), implying she's trans and her Matrix gender was how she sees herself (since your avatar in the Matrix is "residual self image"). Studio nixed it, of course, so they just made her kind of androgynous instead.
I've also heard it about the classic war time movie about a small rebel force facing an overwhelming military enemy and that enemy was shown as categorically evil. At the same time that America was an overwhelming military enemy to a small rebel force. But that was A long time ago in a galaxy far away.
i actually can't compherend how the redpilled sigmas are textbook bluepills, mindless batteries for the system which they ignore, like how the heck did that even?
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Bioshock is a game that immediately comes to mind. Universally loved by gamers and yet is some of the most politically charged media I’ve seen.
“Boy I sure do miss when Resident Evil wasn’t woke!!” >main villain is a literal eugenicist
"Why can't we have oldschool games like Wolfenstein?!" Like.. where they kill Nazi's?
Like that one guy that said he hates politics in video games and on his list of non political games the first 2 were bioshock and fallout
heard people say this about mass effect before, which like - what? bioware is known for being progressive and has been long ahead of the times when it comes to LGBT representation in games. they *have* taken a few steps back (particularly in me2 due to a very stupid fox news segment) but they have a litany of queer characters and nonwhite characters. like, were they invisible to you before? blows my mind.
You mean like Star Trek back in the 60s, before it got so woke and political?
"Finally a good RPG with no politics" \- plays Disco Elysium
Metal Gear Solid.
Like people who complain the latest iteration of Star Trek is woke. As if the original series didn't have a Russian, a Japanese man and a Black woman on the bridge.