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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Ugh, there are few ideas I hate more than the "everything is political" mantra. I know exactly what you mean because I saw some of the same behavior. People weren't allowed to push back on politics and say "I just want to enjoy my leisure activity in peace", they were expected to just shut up and let the politics bullies ruin their fun. I think that insisting that everything is political is the most toxic idea I've seen in any sort of hobbyist space, bar none. And I mean bar none - I think that even something like outright racism (ugly as it is) ruins hobbies less than people trying to make it into their activism soapbox.

I think the final straw was when Shut Up & Sit Down posted this terrifyingly Orwellian review of Cards Against Humanity...

That's so unsurprising to me that it hurts a bit. Those guys are absolutely insufferable. I guess it's not shocking, because it's people who came from Rock, Paper Shotgun which was itself insufferable for injecting politics into everything. The moment when I realized I needed to stop listening to SU&SD was when they had a review of the game Istanbul, where they spent a significant amount of time complaining about Orientalism or something. And of course, when people on /r/boardgames pointed out "this is really obnoxious", they got told off for it.