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

[Orange Juice Box]

Wasn't really the focus of my post, but im mainly clarifying there that I'm not calling for a violent response to this. I think massive peaceful demonstrations are still the best path, as the Minneapolis protestors have been doing despite the bullshit rhetoric from the trump admin

Yes. Walking down a street carrying a sign is most definitely going to be the thing to stop ISIS executing people.

True.  But holding a sign and "organizing?"  Well, nothing can stop that. 

I get the feeling Nepenthe looks down on protester because that time could spent organizing.  She probably thinks the VA nurse kinda deserved it.

[Potato]

Apparently, sexism in fiction is when a female character is not the focus of the narrative. 

https://www.resetera.com/threads/clair-obscur%E2%80%99s-writing-is-pretty-dang-sexist-actually-spoilers.1415452/#post-150488311

I'm aware this thread is probably going to be like swinging a bat full of nails at a hornets' nest. But I need to rant.

First off: yes, I know the game was written by a woman. Things written by women can be sexist (see: any book by Sarah J Maas or the wizard TERF). Internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug.

Having finished this game Friday night, I've been stewing on why the supposedly super sad and emotional story didn't move me at all and why a game that is so perfectly catered to my aesthetic preferences (belle epoque! floating islands! magic painting! steampunk vibes! a soundtrack that absolutely rips!) has failed to grab me. And then in the shower I had a revelation. The way this game treats its female characters is straight garbage.


At first I was like yay, our party is three women and one man, this must be a woman-centred story. Sophie dies in the prologue but it's to set up the state of the world and her death is much more about her than Gustave's angst so eh. (A female character dying is not inherently misogynistic so please don't try to misconstrue me.) When Gustave died I was like ohhh he was a decoy and Maelle is the ACTUAL protagonist! and got excited for a hot second. Like a fool. Then Verso—tragic, noble, tortured, handsome, angsty Verso—showed up and it all started falling apart.


Verso is like a narrative black hole swallowing up everything around him, but especially the female characters. Every woman in this game is either Sister (Maelle/Alicia and Clea), Mother (Aline) or Love Interest (Lune, Sciel, Julie) to him. I guess there's Golgra, the sentient talking paint brush who has tits for some reason and is entirely a comic relief character. Maelle/Alicia, Clea and Aline are self-explanatory. Julie is Verso's long-dead girlfriend he killed when she got suspicious and tortured him for answers about the Paintress, thus kickstarting Verso's mission to destroy the canvas. Lune and Sciel have some scenes that are so romantic coded I genuinely thought they were being set up as a couple but nope! they're both romance options for Verso. Well, Sciel is only a fling because she's still carrying a torch for her dead husband. which brings me on to point two and my biggest issue with the writing:

Clair Obscur is a story about grief and how it can destroy people. Okay, I get that. It's a compelling theme most people can relate to. But why is it that the people destroyed by grief and driven to act in wildly irrational and self-destructive ways are literally always the women grieving their dead menz. Maelle and Aline are killing themselves to stay in a make believe world because Verso died. Sciel tried to kill herself because her husband died. Clea is the exception but Clea is also portrayed as a Massive BitchTM who is cruel to Alicia and manipulates men (Simon) for her own ends (and she's the best character in the game 💅🏻).

But thankfully for these poor crazy women, they have their sensible men around to save them from themselves for Their Own Good: Renoir for Aline, Renoir and Verso for Maelle/Alicia and even Esquie for Sciel (but she still miscarried for the Pregnancy Angst). Painted Renoir supports Aline's agenda but that's because she (being so irrational and emotional of course) made him that way.

And then of course we get the ending, where either Verso forces Maelle out of the canvas against her will and Lune and Sciel are erased from existence without a word, thus rendering their entire story meaningless, or Maelle goes full denial and turns the canvas into her personal playground (torturing poor poor Verso for eternity in the process) until she eventually withers and dies because she can't let go of her imaginary friends. Teenage girls amirite.

The main takeaway from this game is that when their menfolk die the bitches go crazyyyyy. And that's not even getting into my other issues with the writing. GotY tho (/s)

Oh also the only named Black characters die in the first thirty minutes. But the game is Too Woke 👍

Why do they have such a problem with female characters being "love interest" when every single time there's two women expressing even the most platonic friendship in a story, these cunts always stamp their feet and cry because they aren't lesbians?

[Potato]

dr poop is def having ai write his responses, they are all very similar sounding and full of double hyphens.

Dr Poop is the kind of wanker who would type like that because he thinks that applying his University style guide to forum posts makes him better than the other reeeetards.

[Potato]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/have-you-rewatched-the-mcu.1415293/#post-150471577

But I'm planning on starting a slow year-long rewatch of most of the MCU pretty soon with someone who is a casual fan and has missed even some pre-Endgame stuff. Should be fun.

I can picture her now.

I did this with my daughter when she was into it a couple of years ago. I was shocked at how many outright terrible movies there were.

[HaughtyFrank]

Wasn't really the focus of my post, but im mainly clarifying there that I'm not calling for a violent response to this. I think massive peaceful demonstrations are still the best path, as the Minneapolis protestors have been doing despite the bullshit rhetoric from the trump admin

Yes. Walking down a street carrying a sign is most definitely going to be the thing to stop ISIS executing people.

True.  But holding a sign and "organizing?"  Well, nothing can stop that. 

I get the feeling Nepenthe looks down on protester because that time could spent organizing.  She probably thinks the VA nurse kinda deserved it.

The ultimate winning strategy is to make it about Israel

[Taco Bell Tower]

Last edited by a moderator: 31 minutes ago

Some people get banned despite editing their post and other people get their post edited by moderators so they don't get banned. And then the mods wonder why people think there's a double standard

Mods restore the edited posts and ban the user so they can see their fuck ups 

[Potato]

Last edited by a moderator: 31 minutes ago

Some people get banned despite editing their post and other people get their post edited by moderators so they don't get banned. And then the mods wonder why people think get upset when they deny there's a double standard.

FTFY

[Potato]

Wasn't really the focus of my post, but im mainly clarifying there that I'm not calling for a violent response to this. I think massive peaceful demonstrations are still the best path, as the Minneapolis protestors have been doing despite the bullshit rhetoric from the trump admin

Yes. Walking down a street carrying a sign is most definitely going to be the thing to stop ISIS executing people.

True.  But holding a sign and "organizing?"  Well, nothing can stop that. 

I get the feeling Nepenthe looks down on protester because that time could spent organizing.  She probably thinks the VA nurse kinda deserved it.

Well, he was a white baby at some point, right?

[TylenolJones]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-u-s-government-wants-you-to-kick-your-diet-soda-habit-wall-street-journal.1415569/



There’s an alternate reality where Trump wins in 2020 and Resetera becomes an antivax community.

[Taco Bell Tower]

that poster is a chinese posting from china

Who loves to copy and paste from his favorite site
https://lawandcrime.com/

[Taco Bell Tower]

I need Persephone to make a post about this
https://www.reddit.com/r/residentevil/s/WmtClooKQD
Code Veronica is NOT transphobic

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/there-is-a-player-with-the-name-n-uncensored-playing-f-zero-99-for-an-entire-year-and-nintendo-still-hasnt-done-anything-about-it.1415692/

Dudes built their case like they're taking Nintendo to court

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-u-s-government-wants-you-to-kick-your-diet-soda-habit-wall-street-journal.1415569/



There’s an alternate reality where Trump wins in 2020 and Resetera becomes an antivax community.

I suppose is that reality where Trump doesn’t appeal to antivaxx or quack doctors because politics.

[filler]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-u-s-government-wants-you-to-kick-your-diet-soda-habit-wall-street-journal.1415569/



There’s an alternate reality where Trump wins in 2020 and Resetera becomes an antivax community.

I suppose is that reality where Trump doesn’t appeal to antivaxx or quack doctors because politics.

This guy is a Mexican living in Mexico btw.

[filler]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/have-you-rewatched-the-mcu.1415293/#post-150471577

But I'm planning on starting a slow year-long rewatch of most of the MCU pretty soon with someone who is a casual fan and has missed even some pre-Endgame stuff. Should be fun.

I can picture her now.

I did this with my daughter when she was into it a couple of years ago. I was shocked at how many outright terrible movies there were.

[Snoopy]

Wasn't really the focus of my post, but im mainly clarifying there that I'm not calling for a violent response to this. I think massive peaceful demonstrations are still the best path, as the Minneapolis protestors have been doing despite the bullshit rhetoric from the trump admin

Yes. Walking down a street carrying a sign is most definitely going to be the thing to stop ISIS executing people.

True.  But holding a sign and "organizing?"  Well, nothing can stop that. 

I get the feeling Nepenthe looks down on protester because that time could spent organizing.  She probably thinks the VA nurse kinda deserved it.

Her immediate Discord response would have been something like, "SMH at them YT tears. They just gettin a smoll taste of what we been eatin for 200 years."

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-u-s-government-wants-you-to-kick-your-diet-soda-habit-wall-street-journal.1415569/



There’s an alternate reality where Trump wins in 2020 and Resetera becomes an antivax community.

I suppose is that reality where Trump doesn’t appeal to antivaxx or quack doctors because politics.

This guy is a Mexican living in Mexico btw.

We have shit healthcare system, but it sounds like everyone wants to come here to get treated.

[Orange Juice Box]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-%E2%80%93-yoshi-first-look-new-poster.1415479/



Nobody upset about the cultural imperialism of depicting all Mexicans as wearing sombreros.  

https://www.instagram.com/reels/Cs1oivNNvb0/

[Kazuma_Kiryu]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-%E2%80%93-yoshi-first-look-new-poster.1415479/



Nobody upset about the cultural imperialism of depicting all Mexicans as wearing sombreros.  

https://www.instagram.com/reels/Cs1oivNNvb0/

I have something that Mexican Yoshi can swallow. 

[filler]

how I treat that ho

[filler]

I suppose is that reality where Trump doesn’t appeal to antivaxx or quack doctors because politics.

This guy is a Mexican living in Mexico btw.

We have shit healthcare system, but it sounds like everyone wants to come here to get treated.

This guy is a Mexican living in Mexico btw.

[Propagandhim]

Apparently, sexism in fiction is when a female character is not the focus of the narrative. 

https://www.resetera.com/threads/clair-obscur%E2%80%99s-writing-is-pretty-dang-sexist-actually-spoilers.1415452/#post-150488311

I'm aware this thread is probably going to be like swinging a bat full of nails at a hornets' nest. But I need to rant.

First off: yes, I know the game was written by a woman. Things written by women can be sexist (see: any book by Sarah J Maas or the wizard TERF). Internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug.

Having finished this game Friday night, I've been stewing on why the supposedly super sad and emotional story didn't move me at all and why a game that is so perfectly catered to my aesthetic preferences (belle epoque! floating islands! magic painting! steampunk vibes! a soundtrack that absolutely rips!) has failed to grab me. And then in the shower I had a revelation. The way this game treats its female characters is straight garbage.


At first I was like yay, our party is three women and one man, this must be a woman-centred story. Sophie dies in the prologue but it's to set up the state of the world and her death is much more about her than Gustave's angst so eh. (A female character dying is not inherently misogynistic so please don't try to misconstrue me.) When Gustave died I was like ohhh he was a decoy and Maelle is the ACTUAL protagonist! and got excited for a hot second. Like a fool. Then Verso—tragic, noble, tortured, handsome, angsty Verso—showed up and it all started falling apart.


Verso is like a narrative black hole swallowing up everything around him, but especially the female characters. Every woman in this game is either Sister (Maelle/Alicia and Clea), Mother (Aline) or Love Interest (Lune, Sciel, Julie) to him. I guess there's Golgra, the sentient talking paint brush who has tits for some reason and is entirely a comic relief character. Maelle/Alicia, Clea and Aline are self-explanatory. Julie is Verso's long-dead girlfriend he killed when she got suspicious and tortured him for answers about the Paintress, thus kickstarting Verso's mission to destroy the canvas. Lune and Sciel have some scenes that are so romantic coded I genuinely thought they were being set up as a couple but nope! they're both romance options for Verso. Well, Sciel is only a fling because she's still carrying a torch for her dead husband. which brings me on to point two and my biggest issue with the writing:

Clair Obscur is a story about grief and how it can destroy people. Okay, I get that. It's a compelling theme most people can relate to. But why is it that the people destroyed by grief and driven to act in wildly irrational and self-destructive ways are literally always the women grieving their dead menz. Maelle and Aline are killing themselves to stay in a make believe world because Verso died. Sciel tried to kill herself because her husband died. Clea is the exception but Clea is also portrayed as a Massive BitchTM who is cruel to Alicia and manipulates men (Simon) for her own ends (and she's the best character in the game 💅🏻).

But thankfully for these poor crazy women, they have their sensible men around to save them from themselves for Their Own Good: Renoir for Aline, Renoir and Verso for Maelle/Alicia and even Esquie for Sciel (but she still miscarried for the Pregnancy Angst). Painted Renoir supports Aline's agenda but that's because she (being so irrational and emotional of course) made him that way.

And then of course we get the ending, where either Verso forces Maelle out of the canvas against her will and Lune and Sciel are erased from existence without a word, thus rendering their entire story meaningless, or Maelle goes full denial and turns the canvas into her personal playground (torturing poor poor Verso for eternity in the process) until she eventually withers and dies because she can't let go of her imaginary friends. Teenage girls amirite.

The main takeaway from this game is that when their menfolk die the bitches go crazyyyyy. And that's not even getting into my other issues with the writing. GotY tho (/s)

Oh also the only named Black characters die in the first thirty minutes. But the game is Too Woke 👍

The craziest thing about this is this person stole this post literally word-for-word from Sam Harris' podcast.  Like, how can you pretend to maintain the high ground when you're just barefacedly stealing from the world's preeminent intellectual of our time?  Pizza shit

[Taco Bell Tower]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-%E2%80%93-yoshi-first-look-new-poster.1415479/



Nobody upset about the cultural imperialism of depicting all Mexicans as wearing sombreros.  

https://www.instagram.com/reels/Cs1oivNNvb0/

Nevermind that!

JigglesBunny

God, I wish these movies were half as good as the art direction. Oh, and that Chris Pratt was making Garfield sequels instead.

Eegah

Me to my son as we watched the trailer: That's Shigeru Miyamoto. He created Mario a long time ago.
My son: Is that why no one wants to kill him?

Is my son a psychopath?

NepNep

I hate Illumination.

I hate their animation style.

I hate their animation practices.

I hate most of their movies.

I hate how profitable their movies are despite being mediocre.

I hate the Mario movie.

....

BUT I LOVE YOSHI, MY BABY. HE'S SO CUTE. AND THE SUPER MARIO WORLD MOTIF. 😭

frumpinator

God these movies have terrible writing. It sucks that for such a critically acclaimed franchise they don't make a bit more of an effort on that front.

EinBear

I realise I'm not the target audience for this, and it's a movie mostly aimed at the kids, but I'm really stuck by how… not-Mario it all feels. It just looks like a standard kids film, with the exact same style of American 'that just happened' humour they all have. The Mario games have such a charm to them that this completely fails to capture.

Someone linked a Twitter post

Is it really that hard to not use the fascist child porn machine?

Yet Jeff Marvel uses it 

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-super-mario-galaxy-movie-%E2%80%93-yoshi-first-look-new-poster.1415479/



Nobody upset about the cultural imperialism of depicting all Mexicans as wearing sombreros.  

https://www.instagram.com/reels/Cs1oivNNvb0/

I’m more annoyed about the heavy Yoshi and Odyssey focus when is supposed to be a Galaxy film. Is going to be a clusterfuck of a film, isn’t it?

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/there-is-a-player-with-the-name-n-uncensored-playing-f-zero-99-for-an-entire-year-and-nintendo-still-hasnt-done-anything-about-it.1415692/

It's funnier that the player is actually doing something shitty but everyone in the thread is mad about the name and the guy labeled screenshots of it NSFW:

This player has been abusing the gameplay systems of the game to force up to 79 players to just wait and watch while the particular player doesn't complete the race for minutes.

To briefly explain how they're achieving this: In the Grand Prix and World Tour events, there are two primary ways you can be disqualified:

1) Crash Out. Your machine runs out of energy from taking too much damage from the environment or from other players.
2) Rank Out. In the first race of a Grand Prix, only the top 80 out of 99 players will proceed to the following race. This also applies to individual laps: by the end of lap 1, only the top 95 players will proceed; lap 2, top 90 players will proceed; lap 3, top 85 players will proceed; and the final lap, top 80 will proceed. Players behind this threshold are instantly disqualified once enough players pass the line. This threshold tightens throughout the GP.

The player is abusing the fact that, if at least 5 players crash out on the final lap of a race (which isn't an uncommon occurrence, especially the first races of a GP), the race won't conclude until the 80th racer passes the finish line (in this case, them). If you spectate, you will see this player just slowly going in circles for all players to see their name. While the game technically has a system that kicks players that take too long to finish a race, this player has figured out the timing and often passes at the last possible second before they would be kicked. They then proceed to repeat this process again for the proceeding races. This video demonstrates that practice.

I don't know why there isn't an automatic name censorship system in place to prevent this kind of abuse.

The "abuse" sounds more like the player being a complete dick to everybody!

I was aghast when I saw the player for the first time last year, and I am lost for words to the fact that this is still an ongoing issue. Surely Nintendo is aware of it? I've spoken to various members of the popular discord communities and twitch streamers out of curiosity over the months, and some have stated they have contacted Nintendo Support, yet nothing came from it. Yesterday, I decided enough was enough, contacted Nintendo Support myself. How did it go? Well... here is an official response from one of their representatives:

"I didnt even know that game im a young lad forgive me for my inexperience with those older titles just not a type of game i play and im very used to toxic lobbies( i play call of duty) so i understand how you feel and you an rest easy knowing that we are going to do our investigations
and we are going to try to get that person out of yall lobbies as soon as we can so you guys can continue having fun playing our games
Would you have any other questions or concerns you want to speak to me about ?"

Finally, the Nintendo Support Representative also gave this gem upon receiving the screenshot and video evidence:

"What game is that is it mario kart world or mario kart 8 deluxe ?"

This hilarious response gets far more attention than the player abusing the game systems too.

You might need to report the Nintendo representative as well. That response is very tone deaf and unprofessional

As for the support conversation, I had exactly one interaction with a Nintendo Support Representative in recent times, and their language was SO different from your quotes. Dramatically different. It's like your person was trained completely differently because that's not what I'd expect at all from their support. I'm actually shocked they said anything about their life. For example, "im a young lad" and "( i play call of duty)", which hasn't even released on a Nintendo system in over a decade. That exchange is so surprising to me that it almost feels fake or like someone's teen got a hold of their support log-in info. I'm really confused because my interaction was so different. I wonder if that person will be talked to soon.

I wonder how this is even possible given the restrictive filters they use.

Hacked console?

What a worthless tit.

Yeah that sounds like the dude in question cosplaying as a Nintendo rep

That customer service interaction was very unprofessional. Unacceptable really.

I once came across a high-ranking player in that game named "FuckLGBT" and was so aghast that I ended up dropping it. Somehow, I'm not surprised.

What on earth is that customer service response? Completely unprofessional. Methinks you should reach out about that, too.

Yeah that Nintendo rep sounds like a troll somehow infiltrated them.

It really is sad how little of a life some people have.

It's really sad how much time and energy some people spend on hating others for no reason.

I cannot fathom that call of duty comment being from a rep.

It's what pushed me into making this thread. It felt so insulting, as if Nintendo wasn't taking this issue seriously at all. I'm going to try and accumulate other clips and make a full video on this matter if nothing is done about it - I'm not about to let this go.

The support representative's name was Anthony, by the way. I unfortunately don't have a screenshot of that, as I didn't want to include my personal information (but I do have a log of the entire conversation and screenshots of it, too). The chat has now cleared itself, so I can't take any new screenshots.

At first, I was baffled when they asked me if the game was "mario kart" (how it is to be an F-Zero fan...). Then I had this repulsive feeling that the representative I was talking to might have been getting a kick from all of this.

I've seen this dumb fuck since last year. The fact that Nintendo hasn't done anything is not only baffling but disgusting.

that response is bonkers

like it sounds like they barely understood the problem

like a bot trained on texting or some shit

WHAT THE FUCK at that customer representative response.

how common is the use of 'lad' in north america? to me that's such a british english thing, and even then i can't imagine someone of 'lad age' to refer themself as a lad, in that context. but then they also use 'yall'? wild.

That rep response is WILD. This entire situation is disgusting.

There truly are some pathetic, worthless dipshits out there in the world.

What's even more pathetic is that Nintendo has done nothing about this, despite having to have been made aware of this.

That nintendo rep is 100% a chat bot.

Didn't Nintendo lay off a bunch of US support staff recently? Maybe replaced with some AI chatbot? Because that sounds like one.

It doesn't surprise me that Nintendo Customer Support has gone downhill if this was from NOA region. I believe they outsourced all of their customer service recently.

Still isn't acceptable overall.

Over a year though... Damn. Just ignoring shit. Let some outlets know they're sitting on their hands on this one. Maybe that'll get them to notice.

This is why I quit online gaming completely. Got tired of rampant racism, homophobia and disrespectful behavior, reporting all them and nothing happening.

classic "no ass" given moderation

Could people start publicly tagging Nintendo on social media with screenshots?

Maybe even with some "this is what Nintendo is okay letting kids see?"

I'm sure you're not the first person to complain about them though so it's bad that the CS rep's response is nonsense and that the problem hasn't been fixed. Some of the NST staff working on the game have hinted that they have been paying attention to the community, so it is plausible that they do something in the future, though the fact that nothing has happened yet is not a good sign.

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

[Straight Edge]

That’s a word the Mario kart community uses to police itself.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/reddit-is-right-now-a-hotbed-of-anti-ice-posts-from-all-different-subreddits-like-80-of-hot-posts-are-all-anti-ice-even-on-bicycling.1415776/page-2#post-150525496

I mostly sit in creative subreddits about game development and the like. There is no such wildness and posts like this there 😅

Last edited: Today at 5:19 AM

Can't find a ban message. It appears the mods just Alex Prettied him.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/reddit-is-right-now-a-hotbed-of-anti-ice-posts-from-all-different-subreddits-like-80-of-hot-posts-are-all-anti-ice-even-on-bicycling.1415776/#post-150520300

I'm casting some side-eye in Polygon's direction. I saw this post earlier today...

 10 game music tracks for immaculate winter moods
Exploring an ice cave or a desolate tundra? Here's your soundtrack
Read more! 👇️
https://www.facebook.com/100059377488093/posts/pfbid02u9JA5ws1Gf5AXNycxi6T8VVBNwvfX43kYTYFUYHGm4SQVDhDNLxgUC765RnpsEZkl

And thought gee, they sure picked an interesting day to have the word ice in their caption. Then I noticed three more posts they made using the word ice worked into the caption in the last 24 hours.

Are they trying to juice the algorithm by using that word for visibility, because if they are that feels weird.

[Jansen]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/openal-showed-up-at-my-door-here%E2%80%99s-why-they%E2%80%99re-targeting-people-like-me-more-perfect-union.1416355/

They're coming to get you Barbara

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/openal-showed-up-at-my-door-here%E2%80%99s-why-they%E2%80%99re-targeting-people-like-me-more-perfect-union.1416355/

Another excellent video by More Perfect Union, this one on the extent that tech companies are harassing and intimidating watchdog groups, and the extensive lobbying to prevent any guard rails being put up. It shows the politicians that are tied to the industry's lobbying groups and how much of the players involved in their lobbying transitioned directly from the crypto industry.:



Finally it talks about how that money is being used to remove all barriers at the federal level, how OpenAI's founders were the top donors to Trump's superPAC.

Remember the next time you use Chatgpt how much the tech industry has enabled and facilitated the fascist nightmare that is America

More evidence of Gavin Newsom, like all Democrats, being part of the problem.

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

I literally have no idea what these charts are supposed to represent.  

It's hilarious that it focuses on Chris Lehane being an "AI lobbyist" with "crypto ties" ignoring that he was a long time Democratic political operative who ran parts of the Clinton and Gore presidential campaigns and helped produce Michael Moore's films. And has ran a political-PR agency since the mid-2000s. This is almost certainly why these groups hired him, three of the last four terms have had Democratic presidents. It looks like Airbnb also recently used him to fight against Democratic cities trying to regulate them out of existence in the cities, I'm surprised Uber isn't on his client list too.

edit: Sorry, it's hilarious how gullible and paranoid they all are over there. Though this isn't quite a troll has infiltrated Nintendo to undermine customer service and protect racist usernames level.