Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[Garfield]

what's a neighborhood pod?

[Boredfrom]

This smells as desperation. It’s McDonalds’Char dumb enough to take the bait?

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/what-is-the-bigger-entertainment-release-of-2026-revenue-wise-gta6-or-avengers-doomsday.1582204/

The first real trailer for Avengers: Doomsday has dropped and in less than 2 hours it's already almost at 2M views.



I think it goes without saying easily the two biggest entertainment releases this year are going to be Doomsday and GTA 6. The hype levels are insane for both but what will be the most successful revenue Wise?

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/87-year-old-open-problem-in-math-was-disproved-in-a-few-hours-by-mathematician-anthropics-claude-fable-5.1582237/

They're so fucking mad

[benji]

what's a neighborhood pod?

[Taco Bell Tower]

truth. bomb

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

edit: omg

Burka thread users are starting to regret listening to NepNep for not voting Kamala 

[benji]

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/is-it-ethical-to-goon-to-a-pornstar-that-i-killed.1582528/

This question has kept me thinking for hours. What you say ERA?

[benji]

Uncle content:

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/is-it-ethical-to-goon-to-a-pornstar-that-i-killed.1582528/

This question has kept me thinking for hours. What you say ERA?

https://avn.com/news/video/erica-boyer-killed-in-traffic-accident-109623

The Panama City News-Herald has reported that Amanda Jensen, Boyer's real name, was traveling south on Front Beach Road (U.S. Highway 98) near Second Street, and while attempting to cross Front Beach Road was struck by a 2001 four-door Hyundai being driven by an off-duty officer in the Florida Highway Patrol, Gregory Lowe of Fort Walton Beach. She was killed instantly. The accident occurred at 8:20 p.m. on New Year's Eve, and is currently under investigation by the Highway Patrol.

[benji]

Off-duty cop.

edit: Incredible account:

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[Orange Juice Box]

I plan to try and start up a neighborhood pod as well as join another existing organization. People should definitely look into both. I've also been debating on making a thread about it, but the Thanksgiving thread broke me and largely made me realize it'd probably be a waste of time in this space.

This broke her.  https://www.resetera.com/threads/a-reminder-thanksgiving-is-a-problematic-holiday-celebrates-a-myth-of-colonialism-and-white-proprietorship-of-the-u-s.1047771/

And she want's to lead the revolution?


https://www.resetera.com/threads/87-year-old-open-problem-in-math-was-disproved-in-a-few-hours-by-mathematician-anthropics-claude-fable-5.1582237/

But how does this solve capitalism: the thread.

[HaughtyFrank]

Nepenthe joins the chuds of The Bire, comes out against representation:

My hot take is that games that must be beholden to shareholder returns and the sentiments of a player base that have not bothered to deconstruct their own biases and prejudices cannot be meaningfully diverse in practice, particularly when it comes to dark skinned characters, and at this point I'd rather these companies just stop putting such characters in games rather than putting them in to check off a list. It's a waste of everybody's time to pretend to care.

I get what you mean. I do think some properties approach diversity decently though, like Pokemon's been doing pretty well recently with Legends Z-A and Naveen, Canari and so on. It's good kids can have a cool character to see themselves in. But I do lean towards agreeing with you that most people don't really gaf when push comes to shove. We saw that with all the DEI drama and editing of HR policies recently, as well as the walk back on pride month celebrations by most companies. It's sad but it's hard not to help but see it cynically when you've been let down by these companies.

I think Pokemon is big enough that it cannot be meaningfully hamstrung by reactionary conservatism, particularly since the main draw of the franchise are the creatures and not the humans. It's basically Hello Kitty but the little mascots are elemental fighters. The diverse characters and player customization work well enough to address any well-founded grievances that would be specific to its particular franchise design.

But franchises who specifically market themselves on diversity and yet sideline the dark-skinned characters anyway because of shareholder demand and/or because the playerbase only fawns over the light-skinned characters? It's a joke, and an insult to continue pretending. Return me to the days where the only Black and Brown people were in fighting games rather than lying to me that these characters are just as important as the light-skinned ones and yet never doing anything with them or giving them any great lore or cosmetics.

Yeah can't disagree tbh. Shit that things are this way though. I hope we see more good faith efforts to include diverse casts where possible but we'll see I guess. But most gamers seem to be quite petulant whenever they see someone who has some melanin sadly

I think it's worse than general conservative petulance; I think people who openly claim to care about diversity ultimately don't and mindlessly help contribute to trends that reinforce existing design and marketing patterns. "Yeah, it's such a shame the Black and Brown characters don't get much 😩" they say while they go off and literally purchase hundreds of dollars worth of cosmetics for the light-skinned characters. Thanks for your concern????

Ultimately though I think most people just quietly buy and engage with whatever appeals to them, and in the modern world light-skinned people are seen as more attractive than dark-skinned people and so the (presumed) purchasing data and resulting deemphasis of Black and Brown characters tracks. But this preference is constructed, inextricably tied to larger systems of politics and economics, systems which rely on the oppression of dark-skinned groups, and thus these games ring all the more hollow for their facile commitment to "diversity" (hell, what the fuck does "diversity" even fucking mean????) Not that we should be looking at games, or any commercial art, to save the world in the first place, just that it blows a hole into liberal notions of representation and exposes it for the bullshit that it always was.

I'm just at a point where I'm just tired and over it all. Again, I would've rathered not even had the chance to get attached in the first place to some of these characters and playable opportunities if they didn't exist, than to actually get attached and yet have my hopes dashed over and over as years go by and these characters get sidelined and forgotten.

This one is very funny because essentially Nepenthe is just mad at people liking what they like. I guess she wants people to buy stuff purely out of solidarity? There's no higher force that can change the dynamics where one character is just more popular than another one and that drives her mad.

[Boredfrom]

I don't know what's worse, the tariffs themselves, or the fact that this Administration has entire teams of people dedicated to finding every possible obscure law on the books that can even possibly force their whims into existence.

I’m sure everyone has those teams. Trump and their lackeys are just dumb enough to not understand cost and benefit. The fact that he stills with the tariff shit should tell you that.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/trump-imposes-50-tariff-on-canadian-goods-citing-disputes-over-autos-alcohol-and-cheese.1582531/

[benji]

This one is very funny because essentially Nepenthe is just mad at people liking what they like. I guess she wants people to buy stuff purely out of solidarity? There's no higher force that can change the dynamics where one character is just more popular than another one and that drives her mad.

If people just read the theory, Lucio would be the most popular character.

[HaughtyFrank]

This one is very funny because essentially Nepenthe is just mad at people liking what they like. I guess she wants people to buy stuff purely out of solidarity? There's no higher force that can change the dynamics where one character is just more popular than another one and that drives her mad.

If people just read the theory, Lucio would be the most popular character.

That's not even parody, it's literally her argument 

the sentiments of a player base that have not bothered to deconstruct their own biases and prejudices

[Boredfrom]

Return me to the days where the only Black and Brown people were in fighting games rather than lying to me that these characters are just as important as the light-skinned ones and yet never doing anything with them or giving them any great lore or cosmetics.

 

Wouldn’t this end being the same case?

[Boredfrom]

Why are you even talking about policy? I'm talking about video game development, specifically trends wherein ostensibly "inclusive" projects nonetheless perpetuate racist trends by tokenizing Black and Brown characters due to the cyclical nature of shareholder and management demands and customer prejudices present in purchasing and engagement patterns, all of which are a result of the existing racist systems that these games are obligated to be developed under.

What reasonable policy can address my issue? There isn't any. This is specifically an issue of how our economics directly affects the output of what gets made and ultimately how "inclusivity" is a meaningless marketing slogan without serious commitments to navigating the economics that ultimately stymie reasonable and interesting representation of the groups that are most underrepresented. Which is certainly not going to happen in an industry that is on fire right now due to serious corporate mismanagement and capitalistic decay.

Ultimately some of these games have been an utter waste of my fucking time on that front, and time is something I cannot get back. Yes, I consider these white-ass development teams dangling Black and Brown characters in my face and just dropping them to the wayside the moment they have to suck up money from the whales who only fetishize light-skinned characters far more egregious than existing in a world where these games were never made at all and thus I would've inevitably had to have spent my time doing something- anything- else.

Nepenthe just betrayed her oshii. Sad to see.

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/is-it-ethical-to-goon-to-a-pornstar-that-i-killed.1582528/page-3#post-158191366


https://www.resetera.com/threads/is-it-ethical-to-goon-to-a-pornstar-that-i-killed.1582528/page-2#post-158191138

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-ate-pikachu%E2%80%99s-booty.1582570/

[clockwork5]

“I’ll never get burned again…” Nepenthe promised herself while she scrolled through the upcoming collection of Overwatch skins, feeling the sting of disappointment; despair giving way to grief as she slowly realized that the Brazilian faggot, Lucio, was missing from the roster of characters included in the update. 

“What good is diversity anyway.” She muttered as she reached for the children’s book, Martin the Warrior while zipping up her dog suit.

[benji]

https://i.imgur.com/rHLhgpG.png

I'm not sure TransEra is going to like that argument that sex work is inherently dehumanizing, Pau.

[Uncle]

https://imgur.com/gallery/always-need-to-watch-tutorial-GYnQw0W

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-ate-pikachu%E2%80%99s-booty.1582570/

Pokemon will license almost anything. This is a well-timed thread, though, because nowhere else could I mention the "Pokemoan" sex toy collection email I got earlier today and have it be appropriate.

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-disturbing-rise-of-%E2%80%98gooner%E2%80%99-assaults-at-dollar-tree-stores-%E2%80%98they-find-it-funny-to-degrade-women%E2%80%99.1582549

.....I feel sick after reading this thread....I think I'm done with the internet today......



Also before I go, all of them should get their asses beat, BEAT, with a fucking bat.

Hope those women look into if their states have open carry laws

Agreed. This is sexual assault, and calling it by any other name does a disservice to the severity of the abuse.





Yeah, if I saw a dude doing this, I'd be very happy to test the limits of "reasonable force" during a citizen's arrest.

[Nintex]

We're having a world war III and there are gooners everywhere but at least fortnite skins don't have burqas

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-disturbing-rise-of-%E2%80%98gooner%E2%80%99-assaults-at-dollar-tree-stores-%E2%80%98they-find-it-funny-to-degrade-women%E2%80%99.1582549

Yeah, if I saw a dude doing this, I'd be very happy to test the limits of "reasonable force" during a citizen's arrest.

Welp, enjoy prison for murder since you're not police.

[benji]

Ya know, I never believed that violent video games lead to violent people mostly because the violence in video games is dramatized to a degree in most cases to separate it from reality and because violence in our society is so rightfully stigmatized.

However. I do think there is something to stories like this and the rise of gooner video games especially in the f2p space where younger more impressionable people are consuming content 16 hours a day on their phones. Is it a chicken or the egg situation? I'm not sure.

 

Nah you are definitely onto something. But it's more about platforms like Twitch and others that incentivize these people to do this and build a following for this in the first place. The problem is not video games, even though video games could be the catalyst for getting into bad online behavior. Theres a lot of throughlines with these kind of anti-social misogynistic manosphere types and online gamer communities.

Yeah I think there are more avenues than ever for people to fall into these spaces in the always online world. It's just a bummer that video games have become one of those spaces where people can fall into a rabbit hole of misogyny. Like sure, you could argue that games have always flaunted sex appeal, but the rise of gacha games where you can pour thousands of dollars into waifus literally puts the 'object' in objectification. Combine this with modern social media providing havens for this sort of anti-social incel behavior to fester and that's one path to how we get here.

The truth of the matter is the puritanical arguments from Jack Thompson being all people ever engaged aith, gaming and tech culture's almost sycophantic resistance to any type of regulation or criticism of the space, has turned a blind eye to the many inequities and fundamental Boy Culture that has not only centralized a lot of the worst male impulses, but excused them for a long time. Many of us grew up on the Wild Wild West of the Internet where it was very much a Boys Club, and mistreatment of women (and women sensibilities) was endemic to almost all corners of gaming culture during its formative age.

I think now with the benefit of hindsight we can say that we didn't fairly engage with the criticisms of the day, and it was a disservice to the overall health of the industry, alongside our collective fealty to tech products and ubiquitous phone use.

Yeah... If you look at the 2000 and 2010s there definitely was this edgelord vibe in the games industry of "we need to push the medium to be as dark and gritty as possible to be taken seriously instead of just thought of just children's toys."

But instead of looking at how we can be taken more seriously as an artistic medium, games just indulged in more sex and violence as a means to be "mature". Fast forward a decade and we have games like stellar blade being celebrated as a mainstream product on the Sony event and we collectively barely blink an eye.

American culture itself is violent, male centered, and misogynistic at its core, so it's no surprise gaming culture adapted those qualities first. And neither should we be surprised at how *any* criticism of gaming culture, *especially* criticism of how it's violent at worst and exclusionary at best toward women at a base level, was roundly shouted down in most gaming spaces. No one who came up immersed in gaming culture in the 90s & 00s should be shocked at the Gamergate situation of the 10s or the current "Goon Epidemic" currently going on, especially as there is now a corporate incentive to further monetize these behaviors.

And even now, gaming has largely shied away from actually directly confronting that culture, and has merely given people more avenues to ignore objectionable content or curate their own spaces.

Oh, we're actually going to be serious about this.

[benji]

Aw yeah, another one:




















Re: George Lucas:

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[HaughtyFrank]

Ya know, I never believed that violent video games lead to violent people mostly because the violence in video games is dramatized to a degree in most cases to separate it from reality and because violence in our society is so rightfully stigmatized.

However. I do think there is something to stories like this and the rise of gooner video games especially in the f2p space where younger more impressionable people are consuming content 16 hours a day on their phones. Is it a chicken or the egg situation? I'm not sure.

 

Nah you are definitely onto something. But it's more about platforms like Twitch and others that incentivize these people to do this and build a following for this in the first place. The problem is not video games, even though video games could be the catalyst for getting into bad online behavior. Theres a lot of throughlines with these kind of anti-social misogynistic manosphere types and online gamer communities.

Yeah I think there are more avenues than ever for people to fall into these spaces in the always online world. It's just a bummer that video games have become one of those spaces where people can fall into a rabbit hole of misogyny. Like sure, you could argue that games have always flaunted sex appeal, but the rise of gacha games where you can pour thousands of dollars into waifus literally puts the 'object' in objectification. Combine this with modern social media providing havens for this sort of anti-social incel behavior to fester and that's one path to how we get here.

The truth of the matter is the puritanical arguments from Jack Thompson being all people ever engaged aith, gaming and tech culture's almost sycophantic resistance to any type of regulation or criticism of the space, has turned a blind eye to the many inequities and fundamental Boy Culture that has not only centralized a lot of the worst male impulses, but excused them for a long time. Many of us grew up on the Wild Wild West of the Internet where it was very much a Boys Club, and mistreatment of women (and women sensibilities) was endemic to almost all corners of gaming culture during its formative age.

I think now with the benefit of hindsight we can say that we didn't fairly engage with the criticisms of the day, and it was a disservice to the overall health of the industry, alongside our collective fealty to tech products and ubiquitous phone use.

Yeah... If you look at the 2000 and 2010s there definitely was this edgelord vibe in the games industry of "we need to push the medium to be as dark and gritty as possible to be taken seriously instead of just thought of just children's toys."

But instead of looking at how we can be taken more seriously as an artistic medium, games just indulged in more sex and violence as a means to be "mature". Fast forward a decade and we have games like stellar blade being celebrated as a mainstream product on the Sony event and we collectively barely blink an eye.

American culture itself is violent, male centered, and misogynistic at its core, so it's no surprise gaming culture adapted those qualities first. And neither should we be surprised at how *any* criticism of gaming culture, *especially* criticism of how it's violent at worst and exclusionary at best toward women at a base level, was roundly shouted down in most gaming spaces. No one who came up immersed in gaming culture in the 90s & 00s should be shocked at the Gamergate situation of the 10s or the current "Goon Epidemic" currently going on, especially as there is now a corporate incentive to further monetize these behaviors.

And even now, gaming has largely shied away from actually directly confronting that culture, and has merely given people more avenues to ignore objectionable content or curate their own spaces.

Oh, we're actually going to be serious about this.

Videogame boobies = public masturbation. Are they fucking retarded?

Can't even disagree with these takes lest you risk getting perma banned.