I'll start things off.
This is old shit, but if you remember when Gamergate was at its height, a lot of them complained about "walking simulators," games like Gone Home, Dear Esther, etc. with very little in the way of typical gameplay mechanics like challenges that have to be overcome through skill or failure states. Gamergate dipshits seized on a white-hot, psychopathic hatred of these games, spinning the lack of skill required into bizarre conspiracy theories about game journalists promoting these as a plot by non-gamers to pave the way for the infiltration of gaming by "anti-gamers." Also because a lot of these games are about minorities, who of course GG assholes considered by default to not be "real gamers."
The thing is, I don't like walking simulators either. I've only played a few, but the only one I even kind of enjoyed was The Beginner's Guide (and even then, I don't think I would've missed out on much if I'd watched a longplay instead). The medium is the message, as the old saying goes, and the ability to engage through interaction with the mechanics is what sets games apart from other media. Walking simulators (and visual novels, but that's a different gripe) don't take advantage of this in a way that gets me invested. To me, a walking simulator feels like the equivalent of a movie that consists solely of a guy sitting in a chair and reading a story out loud.
The difference between me and a GG dipshit, of course, is that my dislike of the genre doesn't hinge on ridiculous conspiracy theories or hatred of minorities, and also that rather than wage some crusade to kick walking sims out of the gaming club, I just don't play them. In any case, though, the association is strong enough that it's something I tend to avoid bringing up.
As a Dane, it's so fucking weird to see what is basically my country's biggest Marketing gimmick be used by weird Americans to signal to each other that they are proper Ubermensch. Like in Denmark, Vikings are mostly used to sell stuff, like butter, or ground pork, or lifeboats.
Whoa hey dont sell us Americans short here. We also use the vikings to sell stuff. Selling stuff is the one thing, besides being extremely racist and violent, that America does
Yeah, but I think it's kind of a different idea here. In Denmark, Vikings aren't used to sell stuff based on supposed "masculine values" or anything like that. Originally we used them to cope with the fact that the British had burned most of Copenhagen to the ground, and taken our Navy, since we decided to side with Napoleon, rather than the coalitions against him. So in Denmark, vikings have historically been used to reminice about a long lost past when we actually mattered and had conquered England specifically. But the violence and racism / nationalism wasn't really empathized, at least from what I remember.
that's interesting to consider. in the US, so much of what passes for identity and culture comes from whatever tenuous or imagined connection white people have with a perceived immigrant past. aside from the racial component, it's like a reaction to knowledge that All American™️ culture is a construct of a corporate marketing campaign that succeeded mixed with the standard pastiche of over consumption, which can be hard to parse out. some people here cling really hard to a culture and place they are completely disconnected from and celebrate it in ways that i'm sure would be nonsensical to its inhabitants, even though it's only been 3-5 generation since they left.
it's hard to explain being inside of it in a way that does it justice, so it's helpful to see what these symbols and ideas mean or even how they are used in their places of origin since modernity.
OK
I see what you did there, Dane. I cannot seem to find the emoticon for setting your flag on fire, so just pretend it's :here:.
:rat-salute: I mostly described as such since I had no idea what the english translation of this particular product name would be. It's ground pork liver, and pretty much every danish kid grew up eating it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liver_p%C3%A2t%C3%A9
You don't find rubbing pork products in people's faces with a Viking logo to be just a teensy bit Islamophobic?
no lol, this is deffo a touch-grass moment
I mean, Denmark is wildly islamophobic, but for entirely different reasons than the products we consume. Pretty sure the viking shit has been used for a lot longer than we have had any significant number of muslims living here, since the viking-revival really began in 1870 after we got our shit shoved in for about hundred years at that point.
I don't know what to tell you sometimes people advertise pork products