This post has content warnings for: saltposting, this is a vaguepost of someone's comment elsewhere on the site, junk food as analogy, self-harm, disordered eating.
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in reply to @bazelgeuse-apologist's post:
Junk food as an analogy for "thing that you can enjoy I guess but am quietly implying is morally inferior to this other thing" is a big 0/10 for me. Like... as if people don't know society's impressions of junk food and just read between the lines.
It's the "what about your health" argument - the "oh I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just guilt tripping you into doing the thing I think is better, but you can't get mad at me because I didn't saaayyy you were bad for it, I even said you could do it, I just care about you, really!"
Anyway, metaphors that make me want to eat fifteen pâté sandwiches out of spite (and also because they are tasty and easy to make)
Yeah like, they could have just said "it's perfectly fine to enjoy cozy games but I wish more of them were xyz" instead...
(eat sandwiches!!! maybe not all fifteen at the same time but)
Yeah, that's both an unhealthy way to think about food, AND a shitty way to think about a genre of games. Basically saying that a whole genre is low-brow, when I really don't even think that's the case in general... It just sounds like "since this game is about nice pleasant things that means that it's not serious art". Nah fuck off with that.
I don't know if "junk food" even means low-nourishment or if it means cheap and easy to consume or prepare, (often it means both of those things at once) but "cozy" games are neither of those things.
I think the original context was a reply to a post criticizing the concept of cozy games, in the context of criticizing an article written by A Bunch Of Videogames People attempting to codify What Makes A Cozy Game. And I definitely agreed with the point that some of the criteria the article set were kind of weird in a bad way (as is the whole concept of trying to Codify a concept like coziness!) and that it's unfortunate that cozy games are so often heavily flavored with white affluent American Dream flavors. But I also got this vibe of like... idk, looking down on cozy game enjoyers or implying that they should Be More Critical About Their Interests, and like, fuck that attitude, actually?
Like yeah, please think twice about supporting the TERF wizard author. Please understand that you can like the fascist villain without insisting to everyone that his genocides weren't that bad actually because He's Tragic. There are definitely times and places to be critical of one's interests. But I really don't think enjoying farmsims is one of them! And going up to people and going "akshully your favorite healing-from-the-world pasttime is Morally Inferior because it glorifies white affluence" is just, idk. It's rancid.
(Disclaimer that I have no idea if like, that was the actual intent of OP or if I'm just sore, but I'm sore because I absolutely have seen "you need to be Critical Of Your Interests" made into a fandom beating stick.)
Oh yeah I know the post you're talking about, I left some comments on it too. Sorry I didn't mention. I definitely disliked the original document defining coziness and I also didn't agree with the broad strokes condemning a genre that sometimes rests in unchallenged familiar territory of colonial family values and capitalism.
!!! Oh yeah, I remember your comments now! Your comments about wanting to play a farmsim where you can fuck had me rolling, thank you for them. (And no apologies needed; I was the one who didn't recognize your username!)
And yeah, like. I want to see more cozy games like Spiritfarer that don't shy away from hard topics and that venture outside of the standard white affluent aesthetic while keeping that feeling of having Achievable Goals that you can work towards at your own pace. But I also think that if someone wants to make a bog-standard farmsim like Stardew Valley or whatever, they should be allowed to do so without being subjected to a cross-examination about whether their game is feeding into Liberal Values or whatever - especially because that sort of thing always comes down harder on small marginalized creators ime.
Especially when people acknowledge this stuff is needed escapism at this point - how many jokes are there online about how you can live out your greatest fantasies in games like "owning a house" and "finding a job"? It's not like people are playing the Sims and going "wow I guess the housing crisis is a myth! :D" lmao