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I peaked and I'm kidding myself

Writer | narrative designer | IGF-nominated "experimental dungeon master" of Neurocracy


MrMandolino
@MrMandolino

i can't stress enough how frustrating it is to see people go "bold of americans to assume everyone on the internet is american" without realizing that the internet is pretty much an american colony

the EU and its privacy laws are the first time i've seen a non-american organization being able to influence how the entire internet behaved. but aside from that, every single social media if not website i use is american or has to follow american rules else you're cut off from being able to offer services on the internet.

there's this famous stereotype that america is perfectly fine with violence and europe is perfectly fine with nudity, which does have some roots in reality - hell, porn artist milo manara (and what he does is porn, "elevated erotica" is just a fig leaf to pretend you're too cultured to like porn) is celebrated as a national hero here every time there's a comic convention. but on the internet, a hint of nips in one of my drawings and i am persona non grata because the united states of america uses global capitalism to impose its own set of moral restrictions.



mtrc
@mtrc

Hey folks! If you enjoy my writing, I have a new series on Rock, Paper, Shotgun starting today about what generative AI is, how it might affect games, and what's coming next. It's a short series, and part one is up today, focusing on the language we use to discuss AI:



mcc
@mcc

1950s-1990s: Queer people are excluded from mainstream spaces; create our own, alternative spaces (bars, magazines etc). Due to oppressive laws, these spaces may be partially or entirely "underground".

2000s-2010s: Queer people are now included in mainstream spaces. Stripped of a specific motivation for existence, dedicated queer spaces die off.

2020s: Amidst rising intolerance, new oppressive laws and "Mastercard", queer people are now excluded from mainstream spaces again. Dedicated/alternative queer spaces begin to re-emerge. (But in a weird and possibly mostly online way, because in a parallel development non-online spaces have been killed by high-rent blight and COVID). Depending on how bad the new laws wind up being, these spaces may turn out to be partially or entirely "underground".



jen-and-aster
@jen-and-aster

The latest harassment campaign occurring over a Steam profile and community posts should be less surprising than it is, TBH. Valve's hands-off approach to moderation, along with creating a forum for every single video game, has led their Community tab to be one of the most toxic hubs on the Internet. Turning off the forum feature in Steam wouldn't fix the toxicity, but it'd sure as hell give it one less space to fester unchallenged.


jen-and-aster
@jen-and-aster

Another observation: nearly every "great" article we've seen linked across Cohost, Bluesky and Twitter is only adding fuel to the fire. We've seen a lot of writers taking the harassment campaign at face value, explaining "No, this isn't how the industry works at all." The thing is, we know that. The harassers and YouTube personalities at the forefront of this know that. So why are you addressing their vitriol by what they're saying, when their words mean something else entirely?

The way these fascists are wielding woke translates to "There are too many Black/queer/women characters in video games." Would you deem it necessary to challenge their claims if they were saying what they meant? No, because it's obvious that they're wrong, and it's equally obvious that they're not going to be talked out of it!

By addressing their words in this manner, you're debating on their own terms. And you never debate a fascist on their own terms, as history has proven time and time again. Yet here these outlets are, repeating the same mistakes from nearly a decade ago, refuting their "concerns" rather than shutting them out entirely. It's especially infuriating when some of these outlets were around for the same old shit, making the same, decade-old mistakes!

The next time you find yourself tempted to address the people engaged in this harassment campaign, ask yourself this. Do you really want to debate someone who sees anyone under the "woke" umbrella as subhuman? Or would you rather do literally anything else with your life?