Still no cure for Foot in Mouth Disease.
Before anyone goes full WHARRGARBLE about the term "SJW" being used here, please keep in mind that it is not the same as when drunk-uncle or some Fox News chud uses it. This is pure internet circa 2006 traditional meaning of basically someone who develops an overly-righteous sense of impetus for immediate action, to engage in activities that are actually harmful to the very causes they explicitize their support for. In short, picture the Ralph Wiggum from The Simpson's "I'M HELPING" meme combined with Social Justice Sally from way back when.
I set the standard brah! Not you!
With the release of Ghosts of Tsushima, The White Man’s Burden of the 21st Century awakens within the campus collective of SJWs shooting themselves in the foot and saying “look at me, I make virtue signal!” with all the self-awareness of the hive-minded student body and staff of Oberlin College. The same crowd that boldly stood up to the oh so egregious cultural oppression of a non-Asian actress playing a character who uses a cybernetic body based on a European design, in a future where the global population is super-portable from location to location and rapidly erasing genetic racial differences, in an English language movie from a Hollywood studio that was obviously doomed to fail as a commercial film – is now trying to scream bloody murder because a successful commercial venture in video games has not conformed to their standard rubric of what is appropriate when global business spans more than one specific socio-cultural group.
Notice no one got upset when an "Asian" character was played by this guy.
Yeah... total mystery.
The argument of requiring a pre-existing qualification to engage in story telling as commercial entertainment being necessarily tied to the actual race or nationality is mindbogglingly stupid, yet through the efforts of these people it has almost become ipso facto default in American entertainment media. To make matters worse, this absolutism is zealously pushed by a mentality that would have Chairman Mao saying “wow that’s a little too intense” and all by groups of idiot morons who can not differentiate between “race” and “nationality.” Furthermore, these mentalities actually devalue cultural practices and histories by indelibly tethering them to things like “nationality” turning cultural practices into compartmentalized commodities that are confined to convenient little boxes they can access as memes and use as tools when they have some meaningless discussion about “identity” and “diversity” in a racially segregated safe-space. This completely ignores the very real fact that nations can have many cultures within them, and that cultures can span the borders of nations. When these people look at things like race, culture, and nationality, they don’t see wide areas of sociology and anthropology too large to be fully understood, but rather they see poker chips or Pokemon cards, to be used to strengthen their own hand in their posturing and pontificating about what they know is best for specific groups of people.
Such an outrage mechanism was engaged when Ghosts of Tsushima was released and some American noticed it wasn’t made part and parcel 100% by genetically pure Japanese. This was a problem that the enlightened ones would not sit still for. Those of the proper higher education were here to protect those unfortunate victims of “cultural appropriation” or whatever, even if the people of the culture being appropriated are so simple and basic that they can’t tell how appropriated their culture is getting, and how it must be stopped before they totally run out of it (just like what happens when you over-mine molybdenum, you’re gonna run out of it forever!). Yes, this was all needed despite the game going over well so well in Japan it scored 40 out of 40, 4 times in Famisu. Just in case you forgot, they know more about video games and the video game business than anyone reading this. Yet there they were, the ever-outraged SJW Brigade who support their America-centric assertions with an absolute authority that comes from being born and raised in Reseda with a Vietnamese mom and Pilipino dad, half way through a weaboo inspired trek through Japanese 201 at whatever-college …because “Asian!” You know, just like how some guy outside Boston who has Irish grandparents is a default authority on Serbian history and culture because “European.”
Hunting with Good Will.So having a game, set in Kamakura period Japan with a sprinkle of Edo anachronism here and there, made by a company that is not owned by Japanese investors, not located in Japan, and not staffed 100% by Japanese citizens of Asian ethnicity; is apparently a serious affront to ...either all Japanese nationals or all Asian people from Palau to Kashmir (you can’t really tell with these kinds of half-assed arguments). Jeez, I guess Japanese owners of Ferrari or Audi with right-hand drive should feeling very much of shame not buying Japanese cars! And these people from outside the existing contemporary culture that is Japan (no, watching a lot of anime and learning hiragana does not get you anywhere near that), go on a crusade of moral righteousness, to save the people of Japan and video game consumers around the world from Namibia to Nunavut, from what they know is oppression in the form of Red Dead Redemption set in Tsushima.
What happened next is the ultimate manifestation of White Man’s Burden of the 21st Century. Japanese markets embraced the game en masse, and regular average fans, as well as luminaries in the video game industry reacted with a perplexed dismissal at the notion of the game coming from a source that was not racially pure enough being something that would detract from its quality or entertainment value. At that moment, basically all of Japan was labeled “Uncle Tom” and cast as simpletons who simply don’t know what is best for them. Japanese lack of their own “cultural identity awareness” was something that needed to be addressed and it was now up to the American (notice this didn’t happen in France), ivory tower enlightenment-class to bring “civilization” to wield the flaming sword of Social Justice in their defense. Japanese-ness had to be preserved, and the Asian American with their white allies(tm) were just the ones to install such preservation, keeping it un-corrupted like a perfectly unchanging museum piece to be looked at and admired for its own unique-ness-of uniquecallitisity in a uniquely unique way. Like the perfect example of a pure-bred dog, no outside influences shall be allowed to taint such an elegant specimen worthy of cultural admiration.
And then as if that wasn’t stupid enough, the land mine of foot-in-mouth disease was trod upon with all the subtlety of a drunk elephant. And yes, I am of course referring to the performance of Cornelius Boots at E3. Genius level jingoist racist Dani Jo and company a took one look at this and deemed it to be entirely unacceptable that a non-Asian person (not necessarily a non-Japanese, just non-Asian… but something tells me if it were some dark skinned dude from Bangladesh, she wouldn’t be happy either) was playing a traditional Japanese musical instrument to promote a video game. Did she know Cornelius Boots was considered a master of the shakuhachi? No. Did she do anything to find out about him at all? No. Did she look up the word "shakuhachi"? ...No. What she saw in that single observation was enough for her to pass judgement with the unassailable authority of “I are Asian.” By her standards, the shakukachi by its very nature can only be played by someone who is racially and nationally pure enough to meet certain pre-determined standards. She also called the promotional costume he was wearing “traditional Japanese” in her self-righteous ignorance, when what he was wearing was as traditionally Japanese as the outfits at Medieval Times are “traditional” Middle European (ie. they’re not). It was marketing for a product promotion, the same way people put on George Washington costumes for President’s Day mattress sales or the Bacardi group sends out people in cinematic themed pirate costumes with eye patches and shoulder parrots to yell "aarrrrggg." It evokes a modern notion of “concept A” in most people, and that formula is being used to sell stuff. Dani Jo and those who followed suit were quickly shut down for being an embarrassment, because when you apply the same level of diligence in your arguments as flat-earthers do, jingoist racial zeteticism shall get you nowhere (other than relentlessly ridiculed).
...yeah I didn't think so either.
The culturally appropriated rage onslaught did not stop there, and further delved into the trivial idiocy that only has value to their owned warped perceptions. Arguing about the “correct” conjugation of 続くthat’s “tsuzuku” meaning “to continue” actually started happening. Yep, people who live in suburban America with no JLPT scores were ever so sure that the version as written in the game was “wrong” and therefore un-Japanese enough to cause outrage. The correct response to this notion is simply “shut the fuck up” and nothing more.
It was not saddening to see game media like Kotaku, Polygon, Technocodex, and even The Washington Post twist in the wind trying to appease the SJW commandments they have sworn themselves loyal to and say something bad about this game without making their motives obvious. After Ghostbusters 2016, media critics became worthless. What was saddening was seeing potentially meaningful SJWs decide to use their time on something like this, while Black Lives Matter is still happening, at a desperate point where it needs to make significant headway. Nice use of your time, dickheads.
Still a thing. A much much more important thing.In the end the keepers of objective reality have had a victory against an opponent who we didn’t even notice was trying to fight us. Their arsenal of misconceptions, double standards, and factual inaccuracy, simply had them trying to land punches with fists made of smoke. But in doing so, they exposed their willingness to embrace the White Man’s Burden of bringing education and enlightenment to those who are all but too underdeveloped and savage to even know they need it. The noble SJW Burden, has them bringing American academic social concepts to nations, cultures, and ethnic groups in the name of “helping” them, for they no not what they need protection from. Somehow the perpetrators of such insidious evil believe themselves to be righteous. May their efforts fall as flat as this every time.
She needs her SAFE SPACE!
And as always:
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