In early days of Youtube, criticism and "negativity" was the main thing. Seeing sacred cows get analyzed and broken apart and told why it's overrated and why you're an idiot for thinking it's as good as it is was par for the course.
This style of discourse is the norm here....because this forum isn't normies.
Now on Youtube any criticism of even a video game is delivered with 1000 caveats or an extreme level of irony like "can you imagine actually going against the grain like some sort of chud". There's a guy something Mayo who is hugely controversial for daring to make a video saying Arkham Knight sucks.
Videos like that were common place back in the day. Razorfist is well known for it, and while I never liked this other guy, Zero Punctuation was also known for it.
Even mainstream channels like Gametrailers, Screwattack, if they had an opinion that was against the grain, they'd just say it.
Try finding a video of "insert game sucks" and not be inundated with ironic videos where they just parrot the consensus.
The really unsettling thing is if they're unwilling to go against the grain on video games, how weak and prone to "agreeability" are they on actual taboo issues?
This is why I say feminine. Don't make waves, this opinion could hurt somebody....what if that's someone's favorite game, me critiquing it without 1000 caveats could leave them crying into their pillow, I can't have that.
I remember listening to podcasts back in the day, like PS3 era and people would talk about how in Japan they give everything a 9 out of 10 and games journalism is useless because of "politeness society". Well we're basically there on Youtube. People who's livlihoods aren't even at stake are afraid to say something sucks or why something sucks.
You get called edgy for saying something like "Half Life 2 is overrated or boring".
You could make dead baby jokes on early Youtube and you still wouldn't be called edgy.
If you're as soft as tissue paper, everything feels edgy to you.
When Youtube launched, there was a "response" video function. If someone responded to a video, the response video was listed directly on the original video's page.
Naturally, once feminists started getting their shit flung back over the wall at them, they screamed misogyny and harassment and the feature was removed.
A psychicpebbles classic.
Because the vapid bimbo "reply girls" had nothing of substance or use to say, they only ever showed their tits and vapidly meandered about whatever garbage was rolling around in their heads or whining about the most minor inconvenience that shouldn't have happened to them because "muh pussy" while they watched someone else's video. Of course people flung shit back at them, they added nothing, absolutely nothing and stole others work. I'd be pissed too. And the most grating part of all is these whores still have a fanbase of simps even after mostly disappearing because they couldn't build a fanbase without watching others videos anymore, well they can on Twitch but those bimbos at least pretend to have something of substance to say.
You nailed the exact reason I'll stop watching videos instantly. That thing where they preface every fucking syllable with 100 different versions of "don't be offended, PLEASE!"
Wish these guys would just nut-up and say the thing they think, without acting like they'll have a mafia style hit in response.
I find that sort hedge-betting and disclaimer speech to be inherently slimy and off-putting, but it's not limited to the left or Gen Z.
How many times have you heard a pretty staunchly right leaning person, in the midst of giving a monologue about why women shouldn't be cops or soldiers or something say something along the lines of 'listen, I'm not saying women are bad. Women are capable of many things and I respect women who are strong and capable enough to do....'? How many times when hearing one say something about the black crime rate do they then say something about 'I know that it's not all black people, there are plenty of fine black patriots who aren't like this and...' And so on.
There is the seemingly very deep need to introduce the counterargument to one's own argument, while making the argument, inside a great deal of people on the right. A sort of preemptive attempt to stave off any criticism by bringing it up first, acknowledging the criticism has a point, but doesn't apply here to you, before being able to full make one's own argument. And it's really disgusting and pathetic.
We never see the Left use this technique. I've never seen a communist say 'listen, I know that capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than any other economic system, but...' or 'The vast majority of White men are actually pretty decent, civilized, law abiding, and hardworking people, however...'
It's only the right that always pays lip service to the enemy's points and gives them the stage for a bit before moving on to make their own points. Next time you're listening to anyone on the right, even someone 'ultra based', pay attention and listen for it. As soon as they start making a broad point that is largely correct, they'll stop, catch themselves, and bring up the 'Not all...' and 'I'm not saying that...' counterpoints before moving on. Once you notice it, it's impossible not to see.
I agree with that when it comes to race and sex, all generations are pozzed and qualify with many caveats, but the only difference is that effect is seen in all generations because race and sex are the sacredest of the sacred cows. There's a pavlovian reaction that people since the 1960s at least have had.
The difference is, a boomer, gen x, or older millenial doesn't carry that constant qualifying aspect into non-pavlovian territories. If they were to review Judas Priests discography, they'd say "and this album sucks, there's like 1 and a half good songs on it, I don't know what drugs they were on, but they either needed more of them or less of them....Terrible album"
Whereas a Gen Z reviewer would go into all these knots about how everyone has different tastes and maybe they had a different vision and "I don't know, it's not for me, but what do you guys think, maybe you gel with this album...."
The phenonemon you're talking about is universal for our most sacred cows in the west, but millenials and older didn't take such a pansified approach to everyday things that don't matter, like tearing down a TV show or something.
Gen Z approaches every critique like they work for the company and are one of the PR representatives.
Everything is becoming sanitized corpo speak due to the heavy censorship of internet. It gave rise to toxic positivity bubbles. Saying the truth when things are bad is now considered trangressive.
As a pessimist, the world is slowly turning into hell where I can't speak my mind or get punished for it.
This is why all the chuds watch Synthetic Man. DerangedDoomer isn't bad either and he is a zoomer.
Just a guess, but algorithm and monetization plays a big part. Early YouTube was "oooo I can make a video and share it." Now any kid that does it wants to be a rich and famous YouTuber, that's their goal. The novelty of making a video isn't even there, that's normal life to them.
They are pussies also so there's that. What was the post a few weeks ago, magic spells I think. Say "racist" and it's kryptonite.
Arkham Knight does suck, the retards trying to retroactively rewrite opinion of it and Final Fantasy 13 (for some ungodly reason) don't matter. It's an objectively mediocre game, it looks incredible, probably the best looking game I've ever played and runs buttery smooth even on console, but everything else is so absolutely inferior to the other Arkham games it's absurd. I was (and still am) a massive Arkham fan and people such as myself were saying how much it sucked when it came out, you remove the Batmobile segments and it's still a mediocre game, the boss fights are boiled down to stealth and spamming the grappling hook on the gargoyles, stealth segments with the Batmobile, and fighting waves of enemies for one of the biggest reasons, they also made it braindead easy for even the lowest common retard on even the hardest difficulties (not saying AA or AC were hard but alot harder). Also, I'd recommend SyntheticMan for reviews now, though he's sometimes too nice like he was to Baldur's Ga(y)te 3 and will refuse to play a game because it looks too anime-like (he muted me from chat for suggesting Second Story R and Octopath Traveler 1 haha).
I used to like Synth but I realized our taste is games is entirely different with almost no overlap, so his reviews have no meaning to me.
Yeah, that's fair. He does tend to gravitate towards "baby games" and avoid some genres and games. I can see that, I enjoy him for his unfiltered opinions but I can see why you wouldn't enjoy him anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47YPs-qwNQU
Hey Michael, try going to the left...
Yeah, it's ridiculous but it's happening. Somehow these retards think Final Fantasy 13 is a great game now, not just a great game but a great RPG in general, one of the best of not the best Final Fantasy game (2 or 12)
I don't begrudge his baby games. It's quite refreshing for a non-pozzed game reviewer to openly like games like that instead of posturing as 'ultra hardcore difficulty pro-gamer sadist' for the internet toughguy points. There tends to be a kneejerk reaction to signal in-group allegiance by being as opposite of the other side as one can be. Since faggot game reviewers can't finish a tutorial level without yellow paint and a hint every 8 seconds, some based reviewers feel like they need to present this sort of 'I play nothing but Dark Souls on hardcore for 28 hours straight' personality. I find that 'the difficulty of the entertainment on a screen is an expression of my self worth' sort of attitude nauseating. I appreciate Synth doesn't really give a shit about that and just likes his Kirby and Donkey Kong. I just don't really care for those games myself.
I fully agree, I like him personally because he plays whatever genre he can even if he avoids some, because for me, that's what I love most about video games, the variety. Like during the PS2 era you had Socom, Splinter Cell, Burnout, Final Fantasy, Twisted Metal, Tekken or Melee, Need For Speed to name a few seperate genres or sub genres within genres, and it was all good, to me video games are at their best when there are multiple genres having games made for each genres and taking risks even if the games suck ass, not this current industry standard of amorphous blobs where every game has similar mechanics or rips off a game from 10 years ago but the studio updates it for the even more modern audience, the games can be good but what's the point if they're all so similar to each other.
My number one problem with Arkham games was the combat. When i played those as a kid i never really paid attention to finer details of game-design but replaying them later i noticed an awful mechanic where the enemy starts the punching animation, starts moving towards you (mostly by being magnetized, without moving legs in sync) and if you dodge at this moment the game moves him towards you still because he's still being scripted to hit you. If you just wait half a second for the hit icon to appear you can safely dodge. Once i noticed this i couldn't stop noticing this mechanic in every other game with this combat system and it pisses me off endlessly. And the fact that no one talks about it is even more infuriating.
Totally agreed on Arkham Knight. I haven't played it since launch on PS4 but I remember the whole game waiting for it to "get good" and it never came.
Also Arkham Origins is good, I don't know why that games hated. I think people give too much allegiance to "this is the official studio and the other studios games are crappy imitations. It was like call of duty. Infinity ward was seen as the A team and Treyarch as the B team. For a short while it was "yeah whatever I guess it's fine, but when the next modern warfare comes out, that's when it will be the real one we want.
Then it got flipped once Black Ops became so popular and Infinity Ward was seen as the B team.
Same with Dark Souls 2 which is the one I think is the most interesting but was written off because it didnt have the main director as Dark Souls 1 and Demon Souls.
Well same with Origins. Because it wasn't rocksteady and didn't have Kevin Conroy or Mark Hamil it was dismissed. I don't care about the story, just the atmosphere and gameplay and so origins is excellent. It might even be a tad more fun than Arkham City, but it's pretty close either way. I certainly like the atmosphere better in Origins. It feels like Batman Returns how Christmasy it is.
Symptom of access media; they want to make sure they aren't closing the door on themselves for freebies.
Matt McMuscles is a great example. He has a whole series called "The Worst Fighting Game" where he tears apart hilariously bad fighters but everything new he reviews is great, bar none.
3/4 of youtube, at least, is AI slop now. Unless you subscribed to a channel more than a year ago, maybe 2 or 3, they generally aren't worth watching.
The opinions are the same because they all used the same normie LLMs to generate their script.
Oh absolutely. Even the so-called counter-Lefty culture content creators grovel CONSTANTLY about how just because they hold a specific opinion doesn't mean they're against [insert demographic/topic here].
Endymion and Legendary Drops do it ALL the time. They're constantly prefacing everything they say by trying not to offend anyone. The only one who holds his ground with a sizable audience is SyntheticMan but he's shadowbanned beyond the borders of Tartarus.
You're absolutely right -- it's a feminine culture because majority of these blokes have grown up without fathers, they do not know what it means to be masculine, and to hold frame on issues without conceding ground or being undeservedly gracious to the people who hate them.
Yeah, it's really demoralizing seeing supposed anti-woke people go "and, like I'm cool with trans people as long as you're a consenting adult...you do you....I just think it shouldn't be forced on people so much".
It's like the furthest right on youtube anymore are like libertarians who don't have any cement, set in stone principles. The conservative sphere of Youtube makes the center left libertarians of the early 2000s look like bastions of right wing principles by comparison. That's how far the overton window has swung.
The problem is "anti-woke" came from hating the left, not having specific principles
Someone who only ever cared about preventing grooming, but otherwise is actually fine with the existence of trans people is going to say that no matter what, while most of the people who use this site are going to say that trans people should not exist.
Sounds to me like it's your algorithm roll. I vividly recall a video of someone railing against evolved mode for upcoming XIV expansion.