So Trump has won the 2024 election. This seems to be one part of a big political realignment.
How much of that do you think will be reflected in pop culture? Are we finally going to see video games, movies, TV shows, etc. without Marxist propaganda, anti male or femininity plot points or mechanics, pronouns, or the blatant belittling of the aspects of traditional heroes?
On video games, will developers be less incentivized to do things like make them online only, hire firms like Sweet Baby Inc, put more time and care into the Day 1 releases, and be in a better position to make them more like how they were in the 2000s?
Or will we just see more of the same?
Bitter, angry people doubling down on destructive and divisive ideas being forced into mediums that were supposed to just entertain and uplift people. Destroying the mainstream pop culture world with a "better to burn out than fade away" philosophy.
I thought this is a great time to start a discussion like this.
Could Trump's victory and the ensuing political realignment mean an end to cultural wokeness and a return to putting one's customers first? I'd love to see your guys' thoughts on this topic.
I think they'll double down.
The people who push this shit aren't going anywhere. They've still infested studios and publishers. They're still rabid leftists.
Maybe some less subverted and committed companies outside the entertainment industry might scale back their DEI but Western entertainment is rotten to the core.
Same. I actually look forward to seeing them double down. The moderates/fence-sitters who are still redeemable will open up their eyes once they witness the radicals go into overdrive.
Hell, it's possible that by doubling down, they may not be able to hide their association with consultancy firms, which would only give people more reason to hate them.
They just installed another of their boys as president. Did everyone suddenly forget two wings of the same bird because you all are HYPED trumptards now?
There is no reason to think that the Left will concede any ground unless they are made to. They're true believers. The only way to beat them is to crush them utterly and strip them of power.
In Vidya you'll see this happen if HR departments start laying themselves off, when the Pedopride flags stop appearing (everywhere), and you have no idea about the GameDevelopers' opinions because they aren't posting on social media.
And that's only going to happen if they keep losing money, and alternative non-Pozzed games are kicking their asses.
Which isn't going to happen unless HR gets purged first. HR is ground zero of the infection.
I expect open war before the end of his term. I say this based on a brief conversation tonight with some leftist gaming buddies. They have learned nothing and still think that they're the good guys and that they're giving the right a fair chance. The very concept that they scream "far right" at anyone who isn't a rabid progressive is an utterly foreign idea to them and they get overtly hostile if you even suggest the possibility.
These people are angry, hostile, detached from reality and quick to lash out. I don't think there's any way the tensions in the room are going to go down. We'll have more assassination attempts and the rank and file will become more openly hostile to members of the general populace they suspect of being rightwing.
Absolutely not. A backlash against Trump's win in 2016 is a major cause of the problem, and they'll double down this time because they've learned absolutely nothing.
This is the best time for them to double down ... for us ... because there's currently a growing backlash against this crap. If they keep pushing now, which I think they will (Ubisoft just did a few days ago), they'll alienate even more players.
We are not in the cultural institutions, we are just rebuking the institutions politically. Gaming isn't funded by the government, and isn't well connected, so the problem in gaming is a genuine infiltration by Leftists.
These "bitter, angry people" are Communist terrorists. They are Eric Harris and Dylan Kleebold being the Principle and Vice Principle of Columbine High. You are still not going to be able to get them to leave. You have to bulldoze the institution with them inside, and they won't give you another option. Just don't be afraid to do it.
The rest of us who don't have institutional power have to keep building and gatekeeping anti-parallel institutions. When the economy finally falters, gaming will go with it, and our anti-parallel institutions will be the ones where all growth will come from.
I think we've been seeing more awareness around groups like Sweet Baby Inc and how they're little more than vehicles to bully and con developers into making games woke.
Therefore, it seems less companies have become inclined to work with them and games with clues of their involvement have been underperforming left and right.
Do you think this could at least translate into more customers becoming more vigilant about signs of wokeness, avoiding products with those things, and using word of mouth to promote better design and marketing philosophies?
Sort of like how the election fraud of 2020 was so absurd, unprecedented, and massive that people frankly didn't know how to deal with it. But then we learned what to look out for; and come 2024, better safeguards were put in place and it didn't work as well for the Dems this time.
Sure, remember how wokeness got here in the first place. Wokeness promotes being an "educated consumer". They buy "fair-trade, organic" whatever because of their political alignment, even though it's more expensive. That's why marketing teams use it as a sales pitch to the C-suite.
The problem is that the entire marketing industry is now comprised entirely of corporate Antifa; so they will straight up lie about whether or not gamers want SJW politics.
In gaming we don't have the ability to make institutional safegaurds. We actually have to straight up defund the bad institutions, and ask good institutions to make apolitical good games, or make anti-Leftist declarations.
This has been the problem. The customers have been there since 2014, that's what GamerGate became. We really need separate institutions at this point.
It is in Europe. Big corporations get subsidies and some smaller games solely exist because of government grants. That hilariously bad game from IIRC Norway where your superpowers are literally to get triggered and yell "RACISM!!1" comes to mind.
And in Canada. They give tons of subsidies, which is why so many companies are headquartered in Montreal.
Okay, fair enough. CDPR is funded by Poland. I was primarily talking about America.
The gaming equivalent of Uwe Boll movies.
Boll got money because Germany had a system to get tax credits if you invest in movies. He got his money from investors who used it as a tax write-off.
These days companies get money straight from the government to produce propaganda and conform to their ideology. Amusing anecdote: in Germany if you want government money for cultural/media projects one of the requirements to qualify is that you have to use recycled toilet paper.
I think the true believers will be more heavy handed with the propaganda, but wokeness overall will be less spread. They lost the coof momentum, trying to reach muh wider audience is futile when people can actually go outside and chose to not watch your shit, so media have to actually offer something that appeals to normies.
Execs have realized wokeness is brand poison, the plan was to make themselves look like socially responsible™ corpos and steamroll detractors by labeling as chudcels, but they can't anymore, they have realized not only chudcels are way larger of a group than they expected but in many cases chudcels are their actual costumers.
I don't think people understand how far the rot has gone up the chain.
A Vice President Executive Producer at Ubisoft doubled down a few days ago with the most harebrained nonsense imaginable: https://thatparkplace.com/assassins-creed-shadows-boss-claims-dei-is-killing-game-not-only-doubles-down-on-it-but-also-attacks-critics/
It's not about what the institutions choose to do. Even if they genuinely wanted to increase their appeal to chuds, they wouldn't know how and they'd still try to keep their precious leftist catechisms in play. Lauren Hissrich genuinely cared about making a good Witcher show, and how did that turn out?
It's more about what the right wing opposition chooses to do and how hardened they become. Sweet Baby Detected and the culture of ruthlessly chasing down leftists in video games is the way we will change the industry. "I don't care what your views are as long as we agree to get along" is the former naive culture that doomed the industry.
Finally there is the option of creating genuinely competitive right wing alternative platforms and studios. This will produce the most lasting change, and I believe it will happen, but it also requires the most investment, time, and talent.
Are there any examples of creators or specific works that have gotten this parallel culture started, in your opinion?
For example, I've heard great things about Sound of Freedom.
Eric July's Rippaverse & Rippasend come immediately to mind.
Vox Day's Arkhaven Comics & Castelia Books imprint are the quieter and longer-standing figure in the background.
Torba's Gab is similarly positioned in the social media space.
All three have been building infrastructure.
In addition to Erithal's comment, Zachary Levi is in the process of building his own movie studio and the Daily Wire has been building up their filmography.
Of all the efforts I think Eric July and Zach have the most promise because (paradoxically given my earlier comment) they're explicitly oriented toward craft instead of ideology. Gatekeeping is vital, but most successful creative projects begin with a love of the craft itself, not a love of what the craft can do for you.
It'll still be an ongoing war, some victories and some defeats are expected.
What's heartening is that more and more people seem to be fighting back as time goes on.
This kind of thing won't just "go away" though. Its the result of machinations that have been going on for over a century now, and there are certain pandora's boxes that have already been opened that can't be returned and shut. However, there will probably be a period of time where things are pretty good and we'll get some good products in certain fields.
They'll double, if not triple-down. From the smattering of leftist crash outs I'm seeing, the mask hasn't slipped out of shock like 2016. They've ripped the mask off and thrown it to the ground and are now rocketing fully into their passive-aggrssive, holier-than-thou elitist peronalities. Keep finding ways to undermine leftist power, no matter how small in scope or scale.
No clue. They're in a extremely awkward position. We're getting the dregs of projects started during peak TDS and they were trying to back off from it. Now the "creatives" are going to want to double down and the accountants are going to want to continue backing off.
We probably won't really know for a year or two. At least for the big guys. Crazy indies will continue to be crazy.
But our bigger issue is going to be planning on where to go after 2028. If Trump's admin just focuses on these 4 years, I'm afraid cohesion is going to leave with Trump. Way too many people seem to think this is a permanent victory. On the bright side, the DEI Detected kind of consumer movements are here to stay. The more grassroots things like that in play, uncoupled from Washington, the better.
I think we will just see more of the same of Hollywood and the AAA gaming industry burning itself to the ground. The cancer has metastisized to the "brain" already, so to speak, so the people deciding how to save these companies are the very people who should be fired to save the companies.
Also, the commies have extra motivation to sacrifice their employers on the altar of resisting muh fascism now that the god emporer has returned to his throne. I am pretty pumped about it honestly. Nature needs a good fire occasionally to clean up the dead remnants that are blocking new growth.
I do hope that Trump's 2024 win can trigger a mass cultural awakening where even normies can recognize wokeness and become more motivated to reject this ideology, having seen what can happen when it infests other parts of life firsthand.
I think that good media can be more than just escapism.
It can help people find motivation to do big and great things in their real life; find and act upon confidence, selflessness, and savviness they see in their favorite characters, and introduce them to unique trades and ideas that inspire them to find something they love in life that can give them real value. A reason to wake up in the morning; a way to find talents or trades they can then convert into successful paths in life and perhaps unite with others who have a similarly motivated mindset.
Therefore, I think there's tremendous value in people becoming more aware of wokeness in media and promoting works that don't include it. Everyone needs examples, real or fictional, of people and ideas that inspire them to find their best selves and do great things in life; and sadly, it seems like most post-2020 pop culture just doesn't do that.
They are pissed and will try harder (and fail harder)
Our videogames and movies will suffer.
But those things aren't important so it's not a big deal.
The Usual Suspects(tm) will just do more of the same (and likely harder) undoubtedly. Hopefully most of them get Concorded, Disneyed, Budwisered, etc.
What we need to do now, though, is grow and build. The election means some time has been bought, but to take advantage of that we need to offer and support alternatives. Get Woke Go Broke is all well and good, but we need to make sure Get Based Get Rich (I know it's terrible as a slogan) also takes off.
They'll double down, get crazier, and waste billions.