Gengar84
Smash Hero
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2009
- Messages
- 6,580
I apologize for not addressing you directly. I’ve been wanting to say something for a while now. I do generally agree with you that people should be respectful of each other. Whenever I hear anyone utter the term “woke”, I take that as a signal that nothing they are going to say is worth listening to. As a progressive, I also fully support diversity in gaming as well as everything else. The problem I’m seeing here is that you seem to assume people are making arguments out of bigotry when they aren’t. I fully believe you that there have been people here in the past that are hateful and I’ll always call that out when I see it. Almost everything I’ve seen here just seems like someone’s honest opinions on a particular character and not made out any kind of prejudice.Please don't try to psychoanalyze me without directly replying to me. I know you are coming from a good place here but it feels disrespectful.
Yeah, people can be crappy. They are crappy on this site, they are crappy in real life. Some people for example threatened others to choke and in order to avoid any repercussions played it off as a joke. Other people defended out and out white supremacists on this site because they agreed with their Smash beliefs. Has it gotten better with time? Yes. This community has gotten much better at handling issues of race and sexuality for example. I still remember the times when people would make awful racist jokes towards people wanting any PoC representation in Smash.
This site has so much potential to be a safe space to discuss all the fun elements of Smash. So when I see parts of this site backsliding, of course I will be upset. Most roster cuts discussion ends up circling back to the same few users complaining about EiH or the state of the Smash roster. It's already exhausting to have to hear people while about insert third party here, insert clone character here, Corrin, and Incineroar "stealing" the spot of their most wanted or a "more deserving" character. It's even less fun when they shut down any actually fun discussion to have their cuts discussion over and over again. But it is worse when you have the history of bigotry tolerated by the "Nintendo All Star" crowd. I would rather stamp out that kind of thought now than let it become a safe haven for racists and homophobes again. Same thing goes for when individuals that have a history of making violent or sexist remarks. I will keep an eye on what they say to make sure they do not potentially hurt anyone else.
Obviously, I am just one person. But if I can push hard enough back against there being any potential breeding ground for toxicity, it can be enough to make the site more palatable when the next game is announced. Every little bit counts. If that means I have to be a little "pessimistic" when looking at cuts discussion or "assuming the worst" from people who have had transgressions in the past, so be it.
I would rather push this narrative down as often as possible than risk it being a breeding ground for the hurtful things I have seen it protect last time. The pro cuts, anti third party vocal minority protected people making racist jokes towards people wanting PoC in smash. They defended out and out racists because they wrote a think piece on Source Gaming. The only reason no "Nintendo All Star elitists" popped up yet is just because of timing. I have seen the same kinds of voices pop up pretty much every time this thread ends up inevitably circling back to cuts discussion. The same vocal minority pushing for a hard reboot and thanos snapping the entire roster to "purify" it and hopefully give them "their" Smash Ultimate.
I want the best for this community, and I will call out ideas and posts that could drag us back a decade. Not everyone is going to give life to those toxic elements, obviously. But enough discussion of them will make it commonplace enough that the worst aspects of the community will have a safe haven back. Lying back and doing nothing is only going to risk letting these elements become more entrenched and make it harder to call out those doing harmful things in the future. I don't want people who make sexist or racist remarks to get a free pass. I don't want those that threaten others with violence think their actions have been forgotten.
As I have always said, it is "some people". Not everyone, but some. Enough that it could lead to the same regrettable tendencies we saw post Smash 4. I don't want to go back to an era where biphobic attacks on Corrin or people make racist jokes towards people asking for our first PoC character in Smash. As much as people are crappy, most people aren't. Most people mean well and I want what's best for everyone. I believe that calling out the toxic tendencies of the past is the best method to prevent them from gaining a foothold in the future. The fact that I still see "some people" regularly have that sort of mindset or still whine about Ultimate 5 years later only reinforces that. Not everyone, but enough that it needs to be called out.
For example, fogbadge mentioned that he didn’t care for Bayonetta’s design or personality and you called him out as sexist out of nowhere. I don’t think disliking one character automatically makes you sexist. To be fair, Bayonetta has some weird design choices that might not appeal to everyone. Until someone makes a habit of complaining of every female character, I wouldn’t rush to judgement claiming sexism. I see that as quite a bit different than someone crying online that they made the Little Mermaid black or that the main character of the latest Predator movie (Prey) was a woman. Both of those, I’m fully with you on most likely coming from a place of prejudice. If I hear anything like that sentiment in a movie review, I close out of the video because I know they aren’t worth listening to.
Again, I apologize for any disrespect I may have implied. This is supposed to be a place for harmless discussion on what we’d love to see in Smash. I think the people here are generally good people and deserve the benefit of the doubt before rushing to judgement and labeling them. Let’s all just try to get along and have fun.
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