Wednesday, March 30, 2016

A sensitive subject...


This is going to be a short one, but I feel very relevant. Recently you may have heard a change that occurred over the video game Overwatch, and the outrage that followed it. Someone on the forums put out an emotional complaint against the Tracer's "butt pose" she seems to have (likely optional and customizable to something else) at the end game. Blizzard said "Okay, we're sorry, its being changed". Later they also added this was totally the plan all along, as if they didn't just respond to one person on the forum. Now nobody but blizzard themselves can say for sure if this was a genuine change set to happen, but the internet has picked its sides to have yet another struggle over political correctness. However the one comment I see as a rebuttal all the time is misrepresenting things a bit. Its the "Oh look at all the sensitive babies being sensitive about change" or "The don't get offended crowd is being offended again". As a light quip, its a funny and clever bit of irony just as a backlash against a backlash always is. However just settling on that defeats the entire purpose of the discussion in the first place, and its being used as if it were the answer. Worse yet, the humor has worn off after all these attempts at a serious use.

For starters if it isn't already obvious, its an immediate reverse of the idea of people saying "Oh great, sensitive PC babies want to change X and Y." People actually do really say that quite a bit. However the point the reversal misses, is that despite its mean tone the anger doesn't exist out of a will to just degrade someone else. Its instead an angry response to the fact that somebody else got the very makers of the game itself to change the game. It might even be bigger; it might be a response to how many times they've been seeing this happen lately. Outrage culture is a thing now. Have something you don't like? Petition it to death! Send the artists hate mail and threats! Tell them what scum they are, and pretend their fans are neo-Nazis. Parade around like you're change will save a victim you never knew (or never existed, but you said they were victims anyway). Cry about it, bring your children into it, and tell them how sad they make you feel for society for daring to do... whatever it is they did to earn your wrath. Finally if there's somebody actually upset that you're upset, you can totally avoid the issue by pointing out that they're upset first. We see this all the time now, and while outrage as an emotion is still useful if not totally natural and human, seeing it integrated and manipulated within social media has brought out some really weird gray areas and convoluted debates. In the end though, that's what the backlash against the backlash is saying though. They don't want to be a part of that shit, and they want ask that you just stop bothering them. Then they wake up one day and find a new game is being changed because there was an outcry or even just the fear that their would be an outcry, and so you've indirectly bothered them.  Its the basis of the whole culture war and very idea of the words "culture war" in a nut-shell. "Don't interfere with the culture I want to consume" is the statement being made. To confuse that as "Don't be sensitive or I'll have to be sensitive" is ironically being insensitive and lacking understanding yourself.

Of course there really are some creeps that take it too far, and just sit on the sidelines waiting for controversy to jump on. On a case-by-case basis, that's a good time to pull out the fact that outrage culture has sadly reached both sides of the fence. There's emotions to manipulate and profit from on both sides. However here's some food for thought: You lose nothing by asking that games don't censor themselves. You can get up and walk away if that offends you. You do lose something when they do. So naturally, I'm a little more sympathetic and able to believe the "stop being super PC" backlash is a bit more legit than those just complaining about the art of a game they choose to play on the forum. Besides, it takes action to get that sort of action. You can't treat the anti-SJW group (or whatever you want to call them) as an offending team quite as easily. Its reactionary, not the initiating problem.


Finally, someone might be wondering about my thoughts on this specific outrage. Well, I have very little. I'd love to play Overwatch, but can't yet, and I patiently await its real release. I didn't even know Tracer had a "butt pose" until this happened, and I probably wouldn't have made a big note or big deal about it had I known beforehand anyway. I don't take much care in the end-game animations, and I think for whatever this added or stole from the perceived identity, the many taunts, quotes, and short animations for the character probably make up for it anyway. I think the original post that may have gotten it removed was a bit over-emotional, but wasn't some hardcore sensitive SJW, or whatever, to begin with seeing as they defended Widowmaker (a character who's actually sexualized). I think judging from some of the later pleading bits of the post, they were a confused parent who wanted to influence the game's art direction to help his/her younger daughter's favorite character feel a little more "right" for her.... even though that's not how good parenting works at all. And maybe Blizzard really did want to change Tracer. Although they shot themselves in the foot by apologizing to this one emotional individual, they really could have had the change planned. In the end this isn't my battle. Even as a guy who's sick of outrage culture myself, I don't see this as a worthy battle to go die on a hill over. I just wanted to chime in long enough to hopefully add a bit more understanding into those that are arguing. I guess what I might be "sensitive" about is arguing etiquette or whatever. My point is, that those who are rallying against the sensitivity aren't just doing it to be outraged back, they're doing it because they're tired of seeing artists, their go-to source of entertainment, or culture itself being manipulated by the first cry of outrage which is becoming more and more common to see as the internet grows.

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