this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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This is just my take on things. Feel free to agree or disagree.
Woke nowadays has a different meaning depending on where you are on the political spectrum, but I think most gamers think of it as corporate virtue signaling with often counterintuitive "not actually progressiveness" and ends up just stereotyping minorities. For example the DLC character in Kill the Justice League is an old lesbian stereotype and rarely represents what modern lesbians actually look like. In fact lesbians don't have to "look like" anything, but then you wouldn't know they're lesbians, and the companies don't understand how to do this.
Gamers can tell when a company is trying to "be progressive" while also having no idea how to do it properly, and it all comes off as incredibly cringe (Like DragonAge: The Veilguard) But when the developers are capable of telling a story, and integrate their modernized views into it, while making a great game (like Baldur's Gate 3) it no longer is "woke", just great.
Games with progressive views have existed for a very long time, and have generally been well received. But they never really started this "fake progressiveness corporate virtue signaling" until recently and I think gamers really only care about this happening. So it isn't about and never was about the political messages themselves. And proof of this lies in the fact that the same people who complain about woke games also complain about censorship in other countries (like the Arcane lesbian relationship being erased in the Chinese release, or game companies logos not having rainbows only in middle eastern countries).
I know a lot of people see in black and white, and you're either pro woke slop, or you're racist/sexist/transphobic. But reality is that most gamers (even those who complain about wokeness) actually are progressives. They actually don't care if someone is gay or trans or not. They only care about how that is portrayed, how belittling the message is, and how honest it is.
If that’s the case, then they’re just criticizing bad writing, like all of us are.
But it’s not necessarily the case. There was an adult animation that came out endorsed by Ben Shapiro that was meant to be all about conservative values. To show they’re not backwards, the protagonist has one gay friend. And, from that alone, the target base complained about the show being “woke”.
So the term is both wrapping a long way around towards the simple term “bad writing” and instantly called upon anytime demographics include minorities. I’d go for the Occam’s Razor explanation. It’s just hate.
They're criticising a specific type of bad writing. There are many ways a story can be written poorly. "Bad writing" isn't being honest about why and how the writing is bad.
That said, there are definitely far right people who regard well written minority characters to be woke. I understand the user above to be explaining that that's not everyone who uses the term, and I agree.
the post you replied to brought up a counter-example... but is it really?
i think it probably is yet another example of "poorly written character exists only to be gay"
so basically just reinforcing the point GP made