S

Reblog to make it die faster

U

Reblog to make it die faster

R

Reblog to make it die faster

G

Reblog to make it die faster

N

Reblog to make it die faster

U

Reblog to make it die faster

thnk thy'r nt! 'v nly plyd bl shft s fr nd thght t ws fn, nd hv yt t ply ppsng frc

thoughts on the half-life blue shift and half-life opposing force? both take place in black mesa during the time of half-life 1

I think they’re neat! I’ve only played blue shift so far and I thought it was fine, and I have yet to play opposing force

I'm aware these posts are from last year but people are saying it a LOT more nowadays and I have a question.

Who is this post about? Who are people talking about when they say "media literacy is dead/dying!"?

Because it always seems to me they're either talking about a boogeyman that encompasses random internet comments, or someone with an analysis you disagree with.

Yes, I agree that a creator having characters that does bad things is not necessarily the creator endorsing the character's actions. However, what are we stigmatizing here? What point is this rhetoric trying to make?

People absolutely have the agency to create characters that are not morally pure, but is there not something to say about people handling dark subjects in a harmful and insensitive way? Maybe that's obvious to you, but why is that never mentioned in these kinds of posts or as a caveat to the rhetoric? I feel cautious of the idea of someone saying "media literacy is dead" in response to any situation where someone is being critical of a creator for their work. Would that someone actually be "media literate", or did they just weaponize trendy rhetoric to shutdown someone being earnest and well-meaning?

I'm sure there are many anecdotes of people harassing a fiction writer for characters' actions the author doesn't actually condone, but is it really that huge of a problem to warrant people saying this so frequently and loudly? Is this really the biggest problem of media literacy going down? Because to me this sometimes feels similar to cancel culture fearmongering.

If media illiteracy is this huge of a problem, I doubt this is the main or most pressing issue of it. I think on some level there are people who are just as media illiterate themselves who are shouting this just so they can make themselves feel better than other people.

Maybe I'm missing something, but from what I see with this rhetoric it feels very shallow.

we are in a media literacy crisis

without cheating or shazamming or anything tell me where this is from

Shit Weirdo Cis Men do

I'll be talking from my perspective, and this isn't really exclusive to or something all cis men do but I am not going to overthink titling this and it's mainly them 99% of the time. I'm not talking about like, broader patriarchal issues, I'm sure some of these would have some sort of tie to that but I'm not including "war crimes" or "hating women" or something.

Gonna number these just because I like listing things.

They have a hard time asking for clarification normally.

If I say or make an observation or take that they don't understand or agree with from their perspective, they don't tend to ask for clarification or respectfully disagree. Like they have to come at me as if what I said was the most insanely stupid thing they've ever heard in their entire life, instead of just asking what I mean like literally anyone else would. I'm tempted to think it might be related to some kind of subconscious belief that if they don't understand something they're either stupid or that thing is incoherent, and so because they're insecure and don't want to be stupid they have to rush as fast and as harshly as possible to make what they don't understand out to be some insanely incoherent thing. And I'm sure I'm not 100% clear all the time, I am neurodivergent and I admit I have trouble articulating myself in most situations, but you can just ask things normally I promise. If you have a contradicting perspective you don't need to degrade me for my own, if I'm wrong or my perspective is short-sighted you can just say that. It's not a sin to be wrong and if we're not talking politics or ethics or anything with real weight, it's just absurd. Just talk with me, not at me.

2. Saying "controversial" to mean "horrible person" or "possibly a horrible person"

It seems to me they use "controversial" to refer to people and things that more progressive-y people would call "problematic", but with a tinge of separation. And I don't mean separation just in the sense of "this is alleged", but also to distance themselves from the criticisms and allegations being made. Which I would find befitting for journalism and impartial reporting purposes, but when I find it odd is when it's used either to: A. explicitly state, imply, or in any shape or form lead someone to think that people who care about this are somehow overly sensitive and getting worked up over nothing, or B. To show off how apathetic they are about social issues as if it's cool and carefree. Or both of those.

I'm not watching this but this fucking title is atrocious from how it positions things so that people are inclined to think it's "sensitive snowflakes getting angry over nothing" when in reality it's "this youtuber is possibly a predator".

A similar example was with the tf2 youtuber "Zesty Jesus", people were saying "he's honest about his opinions and people are just sensitive". Do one inch of research and you find the clip where he sees a door in a tf2 map that says "Trans S. Wright" and complains about putting "politics in video games" and also that he's said other transphobic bullshit (he claims not to hate trans people but a lot of bigots deny being bigots).

3. They hate how Capitalism effects art and the entertainment they consume but they can never realize the problem is Capitalism.

Gamer men LOVE to complain about video game companies, whether it be microtransactions or low quality releases, but they never think about the root of the cause. Hmm, I wonder if there's a reason companies care more about the money than the quality of what they do. Oh well, must be random greed! I'm gonna demand the CEO quit, it's totally just random individual malice and not related to the innate structural issue that incentivizes and enables this exact thing. It sometimes feels like they're anthropomorphizing the companies, really.

This extends to MANY things, and I think a lot of the time it's that they sense something offputting and Do Not Like it but their immediate critique is so superficial and devoid of critical thought that it loops back around to seeming like they're only hating to hate. Wow, you hate "modern art"? What do you think is "terrible modern art" and what do you think is "good art"? Oh, you just hate abstract art and think realism is the only valid thing to paint. There's something to be said about pop art garbage made by hacks like Roy Lichtenstein that are made to get passed around in auctions by Yuppies and other rich jackoffs, and you may think you're also shitting on pretentious and stupid high society shit but that kind of take is such ignorant baser crap.

And movies! Oh, they cannot for the life of them love anything new that comes from beloved franchises. And it is true that a lot of franchises put out horrible cashgrab crap, but you're complaining about women and anyone who isn't white. There's something deeply absurd to me about how they will complain about movies with completely legitimate problems to criticize and yet they will blow the fuck up over the stupidest shit and have the most inane and bizarrely out-of-touch responses. Okay, you hated the prequel Star Wars films. Why are you threatening the actors and their families? Okay, you hated the 2016 Ghostbusters remake. Because there's women?? And this one, another Star Wars example, sticks out in my mind as so very insane and it will never leave my mind. I believe it was "Davis Aurini" who said of the new trilogy of Star Wars films that if the main cast of the films had representation for all these people, who was representation for white men? And he then pointed to BB-8, the small white ball droid, and said "The little white cuck ball." That will never leave me.

I feel that this similarly applies to music, but I feel that's something I would articulate another day.

That's all I remember at the moment. I know just three might feel silly for a list but I think it would feel forced if I tried to think of more things to include at the moment. If I think of another I'll reblog with more probably.

attack on titan

hey writers if you want to make a metaphor for racism, please maybe remember that racism is literally based on nothing. Africans weren’t enslaved en masse because the Robo-Musa threatened to destroy the world, they were enslaved because it was economically rewarding and politically convenient. If at any point your allegory for racism includes “so <oppressed group> did this major catastrophe and” then you have not only missed the point but you are literally reinforcing the ideas that racism have let racism self-perpetuate (that e.g. black people are naturally dangerous and violent and must be contained or begrudgingly accepted by the Nice White People)

i thought King David what a boomer ass answer

who is the first david you think of when you hear the name david

I cannot emphasize this enough, this is a completely unambiguous good and is a perfectly valid response that needs to be utilized more.

every few months i reread this article to remind myself that there is in fact a limit to how far bosses can push their employees before getting literally beaten to death

This was my first exposure to the Journey song "Separate Ways"

"My first exposure was my parents" "My first exposure was Stranger Things" "I've always known this song because I am a normal well-adjusted person who absorbs pop culture normally and doesn't live under a rock"

Homestuck.

Horse bless you, Mushie R.

Unrelated to the post but adding onto it because it's Arnold Schwarzenegger-related.

When people joke that his last name sounds like a Certain Racial Slur. It's so stupid to me because 1. really? "Haha, this real name sounds a hateful and hurtful word", and 2. that's not even how his his surname is fucking conjugated. It's Schwarze-n-egg-er.

Let's go through the etymology, for fun. Schwarze "Black", -n which conjugates the previous word so it makes grammatical sense, -egg, which essentially means "ridge", and -er which is basically saying "a person from there" in this context (like "New Yorker" to New York).

So it's essentially saying, a person from Schwarzenegg, which is a village in Switzerland, which the literal translation would probably be "Black Ridge". Of course, a quick google search would let you see that he is NOT from Switzerland, but this does suggest it's likely someone in his family history most likely was, similar to how many common last names are derived from occupations (Smith from Blacksmith and whatnot).

El oh el, that's all. Just something interesting, so that's a boom shaka laka for me.

yeah Arnold Schwarzenegger for this scene we're gonna need you to be naked, that's just how time travel works, you're gonna have to be completely naked for this scene it's just how time travel works in this movie we're gonna need you to be naked

"Here's media that most queer people enjoyed growing up" and it's just a list of media that was mainly enjoyed by a specific subset of white queer people who have never interacted with a transfem person in their life.

Yeah, yeah, talk about Steven Universe I guess. You know what I, personally, have seen a fuck ton of transfem people enjoy? Dragon Ball Z. As far as I'm concerned everyone in that show is a trans icon.

Yeah I'd eat a person, too. I just wish it wasn't so unhealthy.