Honestly I wonder how much if the "controversy" and "boycott" were real and how much of it was just cynical manipulation by marketing companies. I know most of the trans women in my circle only gave a shit about the game in so far as they wish people would shut the fuck up about it.
which means it was always going to look like an L for le woke sjw left and people would clown on us for it
I think it's important to understand that it's not about whether we look like we took an L or not. Appearances are utterly meaningless and pandering to optics is liberalism.
There has been a growing trend of transphobes feeling far too comfortable being transphobic and a significant widespread backlash about it is a valuable warning signal to others about what may happen if you spew transphobia. It sends significant signals of support for trans people across society that has a chilling effect on transphobes fearful of being caught in the crosshairs of these supporters, a culture-war form of terror if you will. It also sends those same signals to trans people themselves, who have widely been extremely happy about that support, which makes their lives just a little bit nicer in this hell. Lastly it did damage the game at least a little bit, there are objectively people that didn't buy the game because of the backlash, a little damage is good and it will hopefully also translate to damage of all future elements of the franchise too.
There was no real attempt at a "boycott". This all started simply because a few of the mods on GCJ decided it would be extremely funny if we banned everyone that said they were buying the game. That's it. Momentum built up off of some articles being written about the shit we were doing so we leaned into it even harder to spite them and cause even more articles. At no point was any boycott intended, if anything it was merely a tool for us to identify and purge fake-allies from the subreddit that was interpreted as a boycott by the right without any understanding of what goes into keeping a leftist subreddit left-wing. The primary tool we use to achieve that is purges and we particularly like to latch onto anything that identifies reactionaries in funny ways.
Public support over buying a wizard game is irrelevant though. That's the point. Optics here are irrelevant, the power is the only thing of importance in culture war and this manifests itself through the effects.
Liberal guilt. Many who have rejected the discourse will not forget that they did so and will regret it.
Cultural terror. Repression of transphobia because of fear of backlash. "Cancel culture" was coined by the right as a means of pushing back against cultural terrors.
Ripple effects. This won't be forgotten when the next thing comes along. And the thing after that. And the thing after that.
JK Rowling effects. Many were entirely unaware of her links to literal actual nazis now. Huge amounts of awareness was spread about this.
I am so tired of us abandoning political tactics because we’ve decided “that’s liberalism.”
The point is that it doesn't matter in the online space. It's literally irrelevant. It has always been irrelevant in the online space. Optics will play as much of a role in the rising far-left as it has played in the rising far-right in the online theatre.
Even if I were to accept that in some cases a thought for optics is useful I would tell you that you can't obsess over it, that there are tradeoffs that must be made and that the net value is what must be considered overall. A loss in optics can be a gain in other things and I'm pretty damn certain that we gained more than lost on this one. The pushback against it was impotent.
I actually agree that letting them sell the idea this was a boycott was a tactical loss but I don't see how it's a loss overall.
The only loss you're suggesting that occurred here is the ability for the right to say "haha you lost" on the terms that they set for it to be a boycott that would wreck the game.
This is not what it was. And they certainly don't gain anything from that.
What have they gained? What have we lost?
It emboldens those already against us, gives pause to those who tepidly support us, gives a bad first impression to those unfamiliar with us, and makes a lot of us feel discouraged about our mission. It’s not just optics, it’s propaganda and propaganda matters a lot.
I think we disagree on almost every one of these points.
It has emboldened the pro-trans side in my experience, significantly more than before where they would have been utterly fearful of speaking their mind about a game like this or standing up for themselves. I don't give a shit if it gives pause to tepid supporters, tepid supporters aren't supporters they're cowards that haven't picked a side when one side is genocide and the other is not. I don't see how it has discouraged a lot of us, activity is sky high and a massive quantity of people feel hugely empowered by having had their first experience of getting their message (however distorted) into media. The experience of actually being able to move the media and journalists is itself a win. The experience that through the use of collective shitposting you can actually have real effects on discourse is a real one.
I view this is having been the left collective tentatively trying to figure out how to perform its own gamergate.
All I can say is that right now, with all these anti-trans bills getting passed, transition being criminalized, trans people getting erased from public life, and a barrage of propaganda equating us with pedophiles, this is the least positive I have ever felt about our standing as trans people.
All of that is not a result of this though.
I think you are allowing despondency caused by other things to colour the judgement you are applying to this particular thing.
but it pisses me the fuck off that our team just wasted a month fighting over a fucking PS5 game.
I don't see why you think any time at all was "wasted" on this. This is treat time. Treat time would have been treat time regardless of whether or not that treat time included a culture war within it.
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Don’t worry, the 30 seconds I spent making this post are not stealing away the time/energy I spend on praxis
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Honestly I wonder how much if the "controversy" and "boycott" were real and how much of it was just cynical manipulation by marketing companies. I know most of the trans women in my circle only gave a shit about the game in so far as they wish people would shut the fuck up about it.
I disagree a little bit, but I get where you’re coming from and respect your viewpoint :cat-trans:
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I think it's important to understand that it's not about whether we look like we took an L or not. Appearances are utterly meaningless and pandering to optics is liberalism.
There has been a growing trend of transphobes feeling far too comfortable being transphobic and a significant widespread backlash about it is a valuable warning signal to others about what may happen if you spew transphobia. It sends significant signals of support for trans people across society that has a chilling effect on transphobes fearful of being caught in the crosshairs of these supporters, a culture-war form of terror if you will. It also sends those same signals to trans people themselves, who have widely been extremely happy about that support, which makes their lives just a little bit nicer in this hell. Lastly it did damage the game at least a little bit, there are objectively people that didn't buy the game because of the backlash, a little damage is good and it will hopefully also translate to damage of all future elements of the franchise too.
There was no real attempt at a "boycott". This all started simply because a few of the mods on GCJ decided it would be extremely funny if we banned everyone that said they were buying the game. That's it. Momentum built up off of some articles being written about the shit we were doing so we leaned into it even harder to spite them and cause even more articles. At no point was any boycott intended, if anything it was merely a tool for us to identify and purge fake-allies from the subreddit that was interpreted as a boycott by the right without any understanding of what goes into keeping a leftist subreddit left-wing. The primary tool we use to achieve that is purges and we particularly like to latch onto anything that identifies reactionaries in funny ways.
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Public support over buying a wizard game is irrelevant though. That's the point. Optics here are irrelevant, the power is the only thing of importance in culture war and this manifests itself through the effects.
The point is that it doesn't matter in the online space. It's literally irrelevant. It has always been irrelevant in the online space. Optics will play as much of a role in the rising far-left as it has played in the rising far-right in the online theatre.
Even if I were to accept that in some cases a thought for optics is useful I would tell you that you can't obsess over it, that there are tradeoffs that must be made and that the net value is what must be considered overall. A loss in optics can be a gain in other things and I'm pretty damn certain that we gained more than lost on this one. The pushback against it was impotent.
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Can you quantify that belief in something other than sales?
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I actually agree that letting them sell the idea this was a boycott was a tactical loss but I don't see how it's a loss overall.
The only loss you're suggesting that occurred here is the ability for the right to say "haha you lost" on the terms that they set for it to be a boycott that would wreck the game.
This is not what it was. And they certainly don't gain anything from that.
What have they gained? What have we lost?
I think we disagree on almost every one of these points.
It has emboldened the pro-trans side in my experience, significantly more than before where they would have been utterly fearful of speaking their mind about a game like this or standing up for themselves. I don't give a shit if it gives pause to tepid supporters, tepid supporters aren't supporters they're cowards that haven't picked a side when one side is genocide and the other is not. I don't see how it has discouraged a lot of us, activity is sky high and a massive quantity of people feel hugely empowered by having had their first experience of getting their message (however distorted) into media. The experience of actually being able to move the media and journalists is itself a win. The experience that through the use of collective shitposting you can actually have real effects on discourse is a real one.
I view this is having been the left collective tentatively trying to figure out how to perform its own gamergate.
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All of that is not a result of this though.
I think you are allowing despondency caused by other things to colour the judgement you are applying to this particular thing.
I don't see why you think any time at all was "wasted" on this. This is treat time. Treat time would have been treat time regardless of whether or not that treat time included a culture war within it.