Sunday, October 8, 2017

The New Kerfuffle: Why the Politics and Marketing Should not Mix

In light of the uproar about the marketing campaign behind Wolfenstein: Shadow of the Colossus and the misrepresentation of the uproar by the mainstream media to be some neo-Nazi shenanigans and Micah Curtis's somewhat understandable response, I'd figure I put my two cents on this issue and let me warn you this can get political but I have to say it.

Now before continuing, I must stress that I am clearly against Nazism and its ilk (talking about the Nazi Party, the SS, the Waffen-SS, and some likeminded Wehrmacht fellows), like 100% against them and that I'm perfectly okay with killing them in video games since well they are what that guy from South Park said, "very very bad people" (paraphrasing here but you get the idea). Even if they have some good ideas like opposing capitalism and communism (and pro-animal rights), it doesn't matter since those small bits of good will never outweigh their bad ideas and their actions since they believed that solving the problems of mankind was to either exterminate and/or enslave those that are "racially" inferior; small wonder why they are rightly considered the slime of humanity and often considered the villain by default. Though I'm not too gung ho on the Nazi-killing business these days since it's been done before and that I have other equally evil targets to go after than a common dead, evil horse; I mean they are the ultimate generic villain to use in pop culture (though at least it's justified mind you given what they are and did) that at least almost no one in the world can get offended at (compared to say Communists but that's another story for another time) and rightly so. In addition, I'm fine with this more darker and mature direction the new Wolfenstein series takes in that they remind us that the Nazis aren't just some people with different uniforms on the different side of the conflict but really bad people just as they are in real life (though they lack a lot of interesting contraptions in their arsenals), though to be honest they are somewhat more relatable (or rather barely) than demons but it doesn't matter at this point. Same can be said of vice versa, but it again it doesn't matter, they are acceptable targets after all and that's that.

Now to this marketing controversy; and as you know, a recent tweet said, "Make America Nazi-Free Again" and of course the internet is in an uproar; outsiders may look at this as a sign of "rising Neo/AlterRighter/Nazism" and get upset or at least groan but a closer look reveals that the community has a problem with just the marketing, not the fact that you fight Nazis. I mean the gaming community is pretty much A-Okay on that and rightly so; it's just that headline that clearly copies Trump's campaign slogan of which actually originated from Regan's old 1980 campaign slogan (making wonder if we should make him "evil" because of that phrase). And to be fair it's somewhat understandable to be not comfy with that phrase of "make something great/something again", far too often it's been used to mock Trump and/or equate villains in fiction with him because the mainstream media says so. Thought at least Mr. Curtis on reddit argues that the phrase is part of pop culture now and the least people can do is use it in a neutral and maybe positive way and I think he has a good point; it'd make me more comfier to see it used less to spite Trump. As for my view on the marketing line about "making America Nazi-free again", I just wish they gotten a better line since that one would end up dating itself, like "Take Back America from Nazi Tyranny" or "Free USA/Smash the Reich" or something like that.

Edit: In hindsight, I think the marking line in question is probably the least offensive the idiotic twitter handler spouted given the game's objective of freeing the USA from Nazi tyranny.

But of course I need to get into the bigger scope of things regarding the politics going on as of this writing; see, this admittedly unnecessary freak out over this tweet is a symptom of this idiotic tying in current politics in the US to the dystopian setting of the game by the mainstream media and their sympathizers, especially the likes of Polygon and their ilk as well as the leftist attempts to label anyone to the right of far-left as a "Nazi", thus ending up diluting the meaning of the term and taking Godwin's Law to the extreme. And as you can see, it really isn't helping, considering how VASTLY different the Trump Administration (for all of its flaws...especially that d--k Paj) and an ACTUAL Nazi occupation of the USA are, and it isn't just Wolfenstein getting unnecessarily politicized (at least in the marketing section), Man in the High Castle and A Handmaid's Tale are getting this too and it needs to stop. All this does is show how immature the media are when it comes to handling current politics, making me take them very less seriously to the point of mocking them (there's a good reason I made two maps making fun of this idea of Trump causing a MITHC situation though and I'm not bothering to upload them to AH.com ever) but thankfully I'm too smart to waste my time with these idiots, especially their followers who retweet whatever garbage tries to tie Trump to X and watch stupid late night "comedies" bashing him nonstop (of which make me question their statuses as "adults" if they're over the age of consent); hell, I rather deal with people who retweet stuff about Metal Slug Ass-tack and make stupid videos about something something MSA crank-artichoke deck of cards stuff over anything politics related but I digress. However, I have one thing to say to all of you mainstream "news" sites (both gaming and non-gaming) and the people  believing the idiotic narrative of [insert dystopic work of fiction] being "comparable" to Trump and the USA: go f--k yourselves! Please, take your dumb, kiddy grade fantasies of today's USA being something something dystopic and shove them up your asses and put a spin on them.

Now I usually don't say stuff like that but I must stress how little patience I have for this politics nonsense, especially when we should be more concerned with stuff like ISIS, radical Islamic terrorism, alt-left antics, figuring out the motive of the Las Vegas shooter, and when the hell will SNK (the company) make something non-KOF and non-mobile? Those are more important than trying to "relate" how Trump being president is to something truly bad like actual Nazi Germans taking over and messing up the U.S. of A.

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