I've noticed this growing trend over the years where a lot of people are obsessed with being perceived as morally pure and using their purity clout to smear and belittle other people for not having the same obessive attitude towards their treat consumption.
The biggest example I can think of, that recently happened, was that Harry Potter game where people got doxxed and had their streaming careers destroyed for playing it.
the game sold more than 12 million copies and generated $850 million in global sales revenue.
I refuse to believe that even a fraction of those 12 million people even care about Rowling's shitty opinions or even think about trans people, yet online moral guardians had a month long freakout and acted as if just mentioning the game was making trans people unsafe and felt the need to exclude and punish anyone who admitted to playing it.
You see the same delusional behaviour around every American culture war issue where somehow, your consumption of media or certain treats somehow carries a moral gravity to it.
Where your virtues are defined by which brand of capsule coffee machine you prefer, which superhero franchise you watch, which flavor of the month movie you watch or what type of video games, cartoons or books you enjoy.
It feels like every moral issue in the online world is defined by your treats. And what you are as a person is exclusively defined by what treats you spend money on. As if abstaining from reading a fucking Harry Potter book is going to impact the very real violence LGBTQ people are exposed to in the real world.
The moral fanatics who spend all their time waging their holy wars on the internet, never interact with people in real life activist communities.
I've never heard my offline comrades even mention Harry Potter, Keurig capsule machines, rainbow beers, that pedo-movie, niche online identities or other brands that get these online moralists to froth in their mouths.
And yet, on the internet, you have to constantly tread on eggshells, lest you upset some twitter-obsessed rageaholic with an axe to grind over some imagined issue that isn't even known about in the real world.
With my offline friends and comrades, we just hang out and shoot the shit like normal people while doing our activities together. No one's trying to start a flamestorm over what brand of clothing we wear or what movies we like.
The phenomenon of viciously punishing anyone for not being as obsessed about their consumption as the Arbiters Of Morality is such an absurd thing to see when it accomplishes absolutely nothing and doesn't even impact anything or anyone in real life.
There seems to be a huge disconnect between actual real life activism that actually does something and the weird online activism where people sit in their caves and scream at the shadows in front of them.
I don't even know what point I'm trying to make here. I'm just typing some thoughts that I've had stuck in my head for a while.
Your example is pretty bad, streaming a game is actively advertising it, and there was a popular consensus among trans communities on the internet that people should not do that. It's about solidarity.
Also who had their streaming career ruined? All the streamers I am aware of who streamed it still seem to have careers. The cases of doxxing I am aware of also turned out to be lies. I'm just not sure the thing you are talking about actually exists.
Sidenote, but sort of related - what about games like COD and Battlefield? And other military games to a certain extent.
I don't hear a lot of discourse about cancelling those games, despite the fact that they're mostly 'russia china bad, USA good', and COD even went to the lengths of turning real life US warcrimes into Russian ones in the Highway of Death level. They've both done Vietnam war expansions, but I suppose one could argue that the games technically didn't support either side.
Other milsims like Americas Army it's more clear cut, but even then, how much of a fuck should we give?
I'm a little Battlefield pig. Sorry folks. I just can't get enough of it. They could make a level about committing warcrimes against communists, and I think I'd probably still play it.
I think CoD and BF are just so obvious that nobody bothers to bring it up, similar to how we often complain about libs more than chuds. We know the games are a recruitment tool and general propaganda for the US military. The audience for those games are also generally pretty young kids or old guys, neither of whom are going to get into beef on twitter.
Nobody got their career ruined by the backlash to the Harry Potter game. That was a lie told to you to make the very reasonable complaints that members/supporters of the trans community had about people buying the game seem unreasonable.
Now, there was never going to be an actual, meaningful boycott of the transphobic wizard game. Harry Potter's cultural significance is far more powerful than a niche of twitter users. But that doesn't make them wrong in their critique of those who supported the game, nor does it make them wrong for voicing that critique.
On the internet anyone can say anything to anyone else and that means that people who don't like something you're doing can and will admonish you for it. That's not a "punishment" for enjoying the wrong treats, that's a person exercising their individual right to speak. Even if it's a lot of people, that's not a punishment because a punishment requires a unified organization which a mob of twitter randos is not.
The biggest example I can think of, that recently happened, was that Harry Potter game where people got doxxed and had their streaming careers destroyed for playing it.
The only "case" of that anyone seems to point to was someone who had already retired from streaming, came back to stream it, then stopped again, and who also inadvertently outed herself as a pedophile on twitter by using the wrong alt to talk about a lolicon porn magazine which seems to have been the more impactful thing to happen in those few weeks. Though even there I have no idea what happened after, and for all I know the most already-on-the-outs and cancelable case ever just came back like nothing happened and still has a career.
Name and shame 'em. Pikamee/Henya is a pedophile. Literally everyone at Vshojo is aware and supportive of this shit.
Gonna be honest I couldn't remember the name beyond a vague sense that it started with a p.
Nobody got meaningfully "canceled" for playing or streaming the Harry Potter game. "Girlfriend Plays" cried on stream for 10 minutes after some trans advocate chatters called her out. She was back playing the game with those chatters banned an hour later.
Whoever told you those people were canceled is a reactionary trying to make trans people seem unreasonable.
Obviously, real life praxis is greater than anything online.
The problem is the treat consumption danger is a problem on the right. Have you not seen videos from amerikkka of people shooting cases of beer or whatever? This is an actual threat towards trans people and allies. The HP money actually goes to fund JKKK Rowlings anti-trans bigotry. Additionally she and TERFs and bigots can point to it as support for their terrible ideas.
The terminally online people coming to blows over treats are actually a danger on the other side. Not only in US but the New Zealand mosque shooter, for instance. Reactionary elements are doing actual real-world violence and writing manifestos.
This isn't "visibly drinking a bud light in public in praxis". Posting online about these things isn't as effective as explaining the very real threats to people in real life.
Similarly, I hope you are 'screaming at shadows' online and not dismissing IRL comrades for talking about these things. Part of doing ground work is informing those not terminally online about real violence bleeding through from online reactionaries willing to kill over treats.
The
at people online that is coming through in what's stuck in your head seems misdirected. Reducing all of it to 'flamewars over brands accomplishing nothing' is enabling reactionary elements to control messaging in a significant space.Again, online isn't nearly as important. This seems directed more at Libs doing virtue signal posting. And if any 'leftists' stop at posting and aren't helping IRL then they aren't having the impact they think they are.
If this is aimed solely at moralists, yes there's a point to be made. However much of this has real-world impact and has a place to be discussed as a part of overall pushing back against reaction. Rewording this to recognise the actual harm being done while also critising performative support without actually doing ground work would do this rant a favour.
A fraction of the people buying the HP game were vocally supporting anti-trans/anti-wokeness talking points and using it to pipeline fascism. Overblown, arguably, but dismissing it out of hand is enabling them.
Similarly, buying the HP game and chick-fil-a and all these right-wing virtue-signal products and saying "no ethical consumption" does not grant absolution. This is like wearing socks and saying ' no homo' to have treats while going out and screaming that the gays are coming after your kids and western civilisation and the rules-based order.
Is my reading comprehension really bad or did you just make an effort post about trick or treating?
Lol, I've been binging on Matt Christman's podcasts.
Treats = commodities like movies, videogames, home entertainment systems, coffee machines, funko pop figures and such. Basically, relatively unnecessary things bought for pleasure or entertainment.
Neat! I might have to give that a listen. Just curious, what’s the ‘pedo movie’ you referred to? I worked several years in child abuse prevention advocacy, so it’s interesting to me what people get worked up about. Like how people will either hold Lolita up as a paragon of romantic literature or throw it in a fire for promoting pedophilia. Both of the those positions really miss the point of the work.
You are mad because you spend so much time on the internet reading about things you think are stupid and marginal. They have both not enough imoact and way too much impact.
- These things arent stupid.
- You are making the choice to read them.
Consumption is one of the few ways people are taught to express themselves. Parents teach it, schools teach it, ads teach it, media teaches it, kids teach it to each other.
But anyone that unironically says people are getting cancelled, including over the wizard game, need to touch grass and possibly get publicly shamed for going down a reactionary path.
This seems like typical liberalism of having the optics of self masturbatory progressiveness without having to do the hard work of challenging the status quo and actively fighting to change society
With my offline friends ... No one's trying to start a flamestorm over what brand of clothing we wear
Your friends aren't as lib as you think they are. I get insane amounts of shit from techbros for buying from Shein
Personal consumption is on the surface one of the most direct and simple things a person actually has power of decision over, and social media in particular makes us aware of each others personal habits and consumption decisions with fandom stuff, and so you get a breeding ground for this kind of social pressure.
As well as the fact that people are so disempowered outside of the personal sphere, which provokes a feeling that you need to accomplish literally anything or you're gonna go insane.
It's just weirdo online behaviour based on primarily American issues and "treats". Don't give it much thought. For instance, I know a few fellow LGBT people in real life that like Harry Potter because they read the books as a kid, and don't have the faintest idea about what JK Rowling says about us on twitter or whatever. I'm actually the odd one out because I never read the books. Some of them probably don't even know that there was a new Harry Potter game, even if they like videogames. And I really don't want to be the asshole that brings up how much of a bigot JK Rowling is, and ruins their childhood memories or something similar, so I don't.
weird online activism where people sit in their caves and scream at the shadows in front of them
It does get overwhelming when there are so many angry people on the internet having intense arguments about relatively trivial things and it seems like everything is bad, harmful, or offensive from some angle to someone. I basically try to not take everything on the internet personally. If there's someone online hating on e.g. a tv show that I like, I'm free to just disagree and keep enjoying it. If I'm not judging people for trivial things, then I don't have to worry about other people judging me for trivial things. I mean they might still judge but I don't have to care.
I salute your grass touching on this one
