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How A Small Video Game Narrative Studio Wound Up At The Heart Of A Massive, Anti-Woke Conspiracy Theory - Aftermath (aftermath.site)
submitted 8 months ago by Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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Sweet Baby Inc doesn't even remotely do what many think it does, but on the modern internet, that doesn't matter

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[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 51 points 8 months ago

Funny how all the mainstream gaming media (+ this 2-paragraphs long blog post [?]) only now decided to cover this story, when the curator list on steam exceded 200.000 subscribers and so SBI run to Kotaku to do damage control, and these mainstream media are only quoting PR slogans from SBI website, or interviews with SBI from fucking Kotaku, or try to ridicule the whole idea by calling it conspiracy theories, or calling hundreds of thousands of players haters, white misogynist, racists and all the usual stuff, but none of these mainstream media actually reported on this story in depth, show what SBI management have been actually saying before all of this came to light, what their founder and employee have been tweeting (tweets now conviniently hidden or deleted) or how THEY (yes, they - Sweet Baby Inc) have been trying to weaponize their followers to ban not only the curator's list on steam (even while publicly admitting knowing it doesn't break any steam rules) but also trying to ban the list creator's account (in spite "because he loves his account so much").

I know lemmy is not a place to argue such stuff because it seems even woker than reddit and everyone is in this little bubble, but if you're curious then look up those who's been covering this subject from the beginning, for example:

https://thatparkplace.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSJPFQdZwrOutnmSFYtbstA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQeRaTukNYft1_6AZPACnog

Bottom line is - I can decide for myself what to spend my money on, thank you very much.

[-] Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca 61 points 8 months ago

Ah yes, Reddit, the epicentre of all wokeness.

The mainstream media picked up on it when actual intelligent games producers chimed in to try to defuse the situation you fragile little man babies were trying to stir up.

It is nothing but conspiracy theories.

If you buy into the bullshit conspiracies then you are a hater. Or a moron. Or both. All 200,000 of you.

If you think the curator isn’t a bigot and/or racist and/or misogynist you’re a fucking idiot.

The CEO of SBI being full of hyperbole doesn’t change any of that.

You say you can “decide for yourself” and then list a handful of links to people pushing their own agenda.

[-] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago

Judging by your post it seems both sides of this issue are toxic. This seems to just be a microcosm of US identity politics at play, with you just hurling insults and outrage at each other over... not a lot it seems?

A boycott of games that a diversity consultancy was involved in, some low quality journalism from Kotaku, and a lot of outrage on both sides?

The whole thing is a pointless time waste.

[-] Amphobet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 39 points 8 months ago

What does "woke" mean?

[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 33 points 8 months ago

What does "woke" mean?

WOKE:

Wisdom
Openness
Kindness
Empathy

It is a state of awareness achieved by intellectually sensitive individuals who have empathy for the plight of others, especially those suffering from injustice and oppression such as racism or systemic bigotry.

This term is also used by people without functional empathy in an attempt to insult and mock those people with empathy.

But “woke” does not mean “persecution”. “Woke” just means that casual racism, sexism, religious and gender bigotry, and general lack of human empathy are no longer acceptable in polite society.

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 months ago

That's an interesting backronym.

[-] cyberic@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 8 months ago

Thanks for this, I had no idea it was an acronym. I thought it had to do with the phrase, "wake up sheeple."

[-] blackstampede@sh.itjust.works 17 points 8 months ago

It's not an acronym.

It originally meant "awake" in English, kept that meaning in the American black community after it fell out of use among whites (e.g. "I was having trouble staying woke on the drive"), and was repurposed as slang. The slang meaning was "to be aware of prejudice or racism", with the implication that many blacks were "asleep", i.e. accepted excuses for racist systems, believed that racism wasn't a big deal anymore etc.

I'm not sure whether the word was adopted seriously by leftists generally before the right, or immediately became a catch-all label on the right, but either way, it's become the latter.

Conservatives and some left-critical leftists now use it as a broad term that refers to things like DEI initiatives, anything trans, etc.

[-] nothead@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

The term as it is defined today was invented by a militant black terrorist group called the Nuwabian Nation, a subsect of the Moors (sovereign citizens focused on their African heritage).

The word has been used by black Americans for at least a century as a synonym form"awake", but its definition as a political concept was first used publicly by the founder of the nuwabians, Dwight York.

[-] blackstampede@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago

This is not correct.

The word "woke" as a political term predates that group- York started trying to found a group in 1967, and "woke" was first used to warn black men of threats from racially motivated whites in 1931, by a singer named Lead Belly, then even more directly as a political term in 1971 in a play called "Garvey Lives!"

Whether York used it that way or not, it's clear that he didn't invent the usage.

I'm pulling most of this info from Wikipedia and Google to save anyone else reading the effort.

[-] HolyDuckTurtle@kbin.social 35 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I love how parkplace is literally the kind of single-minded insanity this article talks about (which is significantly longer than 2 paragraphs btw)

Like, skimming through their articles and you get stuff like this https://thatparkplace.com/wish-actor-harvey-guillen-says-he-believes-disney-will-make-a-queer-princess-in-his-lifetime/ where they relay the quotes then immediately jump to:

If this does indeed happen it’s likely to lose The Walt Disney Company millions of dollars as seen with Lightyear.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Yes, it is perfectly possible that the studio's writing work might be a bit shit, I dunno. If you find they are consistently involved with writing you don't enjoy, then sure, whatever. The point of this article is the absolute insanity this kind of stuff gets taken to, like it's a massive conspiracy rather than just the work of another studio managing the struggles and interests of our age.

To quote the 2+n paragraph article:

It’s a conspiracy theory that checks all the boxes: It conveniently explains pretty much everything happening right now, ties it back to organizations of which people are understandably suspicious, links it to a much larger ongoing panic (DEI), validates preconceived notions like “go woke, go broke,” sprinkles in a few kernels of truth regarding powerful interests, and – most importantly – provides a clear and identifiable enemy. It’s also almost entirely bullshit.

[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago

significantly longer than 2 paragraphs btw

This is all I can see

Pethaps it has some ads or paywall which causes adblockers to hide remaining content.

skimming through their articles and you get stuff like this

Why referring to other articles and not the ones releated to this subject? I honestly didn't know any of the linked authors before but it's great they did talk about the stuff the mainstream media failed to mention.

[-] chloyster 17 points 8 months ago

I've got an ad blocker on mobile and yeah the article goes on wayyyyyyyy longer than what you show there

[-] ampersandrew@kbin.social 24 points 8 months ago

It's not a story when it's a couple of conspiracy theorists making horrifically inaccurate deductions. It's a story when it's hundreds of thousands of people led on by a bunch of horse shit.

[-] ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 23 points 8 months ago

woke

Gaming's problem isn't wokeness, but are overbloated budgets and scope.

[-] Contramuffin@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago

The complete lack of a period makes your comment really hard to understand

[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 3 points 8 months ago

Fair point, I wrote it on my phone lying in bed in the morning, didn't think it would be this long.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 19 points 8 months ago

when the curator list on steam exceded 200.000 subscribers

They have a discord too.

These are the same people who say things like "I don't care if someone's gay, just don't make it your entire personality." Meanwhile I don't know what the fuck these people talk about in a "SBI worked on these 16 games" Discord group.

Oh, and apparently they had to delete every post in their discussion forums and lock them to make sure they didn't break Steam's rules. Because that's a sign of a group of reasonable people...

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 15 points 8 months ago

show what SBI management have been actually saying before all of this came to light, what their founder and employee have been tweeting

And you don't show that either. As someone who is trying to understand the issue people have with SBI, can you show something the founder / employees have actually said? I'm not going to search through a random webpage / Youtube page to see if they actually have something relevant.

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

They locked their twitter account. So internet archive is your friend.

The guy below me seems quite slow. I'm not OP.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 19 points 8 months ago

You are trying to convince people that they said inappropriate things. Again, I am not going to go somewhere to do your job for you and dig through some random archives in case there might be something relevant. Especially if I think you're making it up.

Internet archive is your friend, if it's as easy to find as you claim then it would make your arguments significantly more persuasive if you just included a direct link to an archive of whatever it is you are concerned about.

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I have better things to do fortunately. It's pretty clear from other posts that you already made up your mind. So there's no use. We can end the conversation here.

Also I'm not trying to convince anyone. I just wanted to help you.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 13 points 8 months ago

I'm not trying to convince anyone. I just wanted to help you.

Pro tip: dO yOuR rEsEaRcH!!1! Has never convinced or helped anyone.

I am willing to have my mind changed if someone were to actually show me any evidence of SBI being bad for some reason. The Steam group says nothing other than "SBI worked on these games," implying they are bad but not even making the step to say why. When I try to ask people why I should care if SBI is involved I get:

  1. "I don't have to explain myself" which is true, but does nothing to discredit the claims of bigotry.
  2. "SBI is woke" which we all know is the dog whistle of the bigot, and
  3. "Do your own research" which is the desperate cry of people who believe things without evidence or sources.

Showing me one of these "terrible" tweets by SBI would sure shut me up if it was anywhere near as terrible as claimed.

[-] BleatingZombie@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

I swear people don't understand the burden of proof and you're one of them

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Can you reference how exactly I hold the burden? Did I state anything that I have to back up? I only said their twitter is locked. I never said anything else. Looks like the room iq is quite low here.

For the people downvoting. I'm not op. I never claimed anything.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 months ago

Can you reference how exactly they said you hold the burden? The only said you don't understand burden of proof, (due to your statements implying that the person making bold claims doesn't need to provide any evidence of those claims.) They never said anything else.

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I swear people don't understand the burden of proof and you're one of them

Lmao. I'm losing braincells here lol. Where did I say or imply "the person making bold claims doesn't need to provide any evidence of those claims".

My only intention was to help you find those tweets if you were interested. Some of you behave so chronically online. Get a life.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago

Where did I say or imply "the person making bold claims doesn't need to provide any evidence of those claims".

Right here:

They locked their twitter account. So internet archive is your friend.

OP made them vaguest of all claims ("SBI leadership said awful things") and I simply asked them for specifics and a link. You know, to "provide any evidence for those claims."
Your reply to me was basically "look it up yourself", which is not how the burden of proof works.

Lmao. I'm losing braincells here lol.

Some of you behave so chronically online. Get a life.

It's always projection...

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

How did I imply it? Can you also reference where I refer to OP. I replied cause op's comment was posted 2 days ago and it was clear they weren't going to reply.

This is just a misunderstanding in my opinion. So let me make it clear that I'm not on op's side. I don't care if sweet abby inc is in a game I play. I do care about Kotaku tho. I have a hard time believing their stories.

I only called you chronically online because you have at least 50 comments on this topic in 2 days.

So I'll end the conversation here. Idk why it was even dragged on this long.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I only called you chronically online because you have at least 50 comments on this topic in 2 days.

I only called you chronically online because you're laughing like a lunatic every other sentence, and apparently going into my profile and counting each individual comment I've made on a given topic. That's not the behaviour of someone who touches grass.

[-] Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 1 points 8 months ago

That's not what chronically online means. It's the internet , people say "LMAO" a lot. Scrolling a profile for 5 sec thread is not that hard and 50 is a guess. You seem quite troubled using the internet. You don't need to take everything here to face value. I get the feeling that you don't know when to stop so I'm just gonna block you for now.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I get the feeling that you don’t know when to stop

Says the person who's being going at this just as long and needs to announce his leaving, twice, instead of just leaving.

[-] Grain9325@lemmy.ml 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Don't forget the employee who led a harassment campaign against the curator, came back from Twitter suspension just to disrespect Akira Toriyama's legacy.

[-] hamid@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

suck my balls

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[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 21 points 8 months ago

Man, that guy really knows how to write interesting articles. Love his work!

[-] poke@sh.itjust.works 27 points 8 months ago

Are you the author?

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Gee, I'm sorry for my outburst. I just felt that something more than an upvote was required.
But don't let me shine on your piss parade, by all means.

I'm just happy to read a fairly in depth article about yet another of your over-the-pond silliness. So much time for rage, I don't get it.

[-] poke@sh.itjust.works 5 points 8 months ago

I was being genuine since the comment read to me like it could have had some tongue in cheek, didn't mean to cause any harm and did not mean to have these kinds of votes attached, sorry.

[-] fibojoly@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 months ago

Fair enough. I see the thread is definitely controversial, and with the salty ones coming out the woodwork, it's hard to tell what's what. To be fair, it was a bit fanboyish. I probably deserved that :P Still think he's a good journo, even if I don't agree with everything he writes. We need more like him and less like Kotaku.

[-] kugmo@sh.itjust.works 21 points 8 months ago

based streisand effect

this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
160 points (100.0% liked)

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