This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I mean, on the one hand you're quibbling over the different between the product being terrible, or being terrible and offensive.
On the other hand, we're all being gaslit about the product being terrible or offensive, and everyone who doesn't like the product is accused of being all the "-ists". They keep trying to guilt us into continuing to consoom.
I keep imagining it like some terrible MLM pitch, where some awkward, kind of aggressive, and frankly desperate salesman is making his pitch. He puts his foot in his mouth about men, so a few men get up to leave. Maybe he says something bafflingly retarded as a persuasive speech. Like "Women have always been the primary victims of war." As they walk out the door, he starts shouting at them angrily that they are missing the opportunity of a lifetime. They'll be on the wrong side of history! But it's so aggressive the a bunch more men are off put by it and leave too, and maybe a few women. When the last one leaves, he turns to the women, and the men with little enough self respect to stay, and doubles down instead, going "Fucking men, am I right?"
I think this phenomenon happens because many marketers take their ideology seriously. Based on my own experience as a believer in its predecessor ideology, woke ideology is both moralizing and totalizing (AFAICT, it's only gotten worse since I quit around a decade ago), so it has answers to questions of "right" and "wrong" in every possible context. The point of making a film isn't to convince the audience to give you money in exchange for entertainment, it's to make the world a better place by subtly manipulating the audience through social messaging (if they did otherwise, since everything is political, their works would, by default, have messaging that reinforces and upholds the current oppressive status quo). And if the audience dislikes that, that means that they are morally wrong, and it isn't our job to convince them, it's their job to see the rightness of our ideology and come around to it. And we'll bully and verbally abuse them until they do so.
I think a lot of the decision makers in media, likely including in Disney, have experience in seeing this work very well - very very well - in sociopolitical contexts. Often they might have been subject to such "marketing" themselves which led them to becoming true believers. I've seen and experienced this directly plenty, again, for the predecessor ideology. And they might be inferring that they can use similar "marketing" in a commercial context. I don't think I've seen it have much actual success there, though; in sociopolitical contexts, bullying and coercion is the norm and can get good results; in commercial ones, people tend to just walk away instead of handing you money in the face of bullying, and you can't legally coerce them.
deleted
3rd wave feminism/identity politics/SJW. Arguably it's just the same ideology just with less time in the oven and less widespread acceptance.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link