Creative works you enjoyed until politics happened - "How politics made me hate Welcome to Nightvale and other things"

[Tanuki Mixed Nuts]

This is something I've been coming to grips with over the last several years, and I've got a very specific example in mind, but I'd like to specify what I mean a bit better:

Creative works, and all that can possibly encompass, and how they were worsened when they were either injected with politics or you became aware of the politics that had always been there. Some examples of things I could think of off the top of my head that could fall into this could be music with political lyrics that you otherwise never understood when you were younger (ex. Many Gorillaz songs pre-Humanz) or the more stereotypical slide into terrible woke writing that many comics have had.

My main example, and what has been bugging me to some degree has been Welcome to Nightvale. The podcast itself was never amazing per se, but it was always a nice melancholic look into some parody of our world. Where things did get political, but never seemed quite hit-you-over-the-head with woke bullshit for the first 3-ish years. I had a bunch of shit going on in my life in that time span and it had been this thing I'd occasionally listen to escape, but the longer it went on the more it got overtly political and annoying with its messaging. I still enjoy the episodes pre-book (ep. 1-80 or so) but man did they get tedious and terrible to the point that I get a bad taste in my mouth every time I think of the show now. It feels like they tricked me to get invested to then shove in some intersectional shit into it.

I've got other examples, but this one bothers me the most.

 

[Syaoran Li]

The entire superhero genre (minus The Punisher, of course)

Granted, I hated the MCU practically from the get-go but I could still enjoy some superhero movies and shows and even the occasional comic books I'd occasionally read on a lark before the capeshit in general became one of those SJW shibboleths alongside Steven Universe, punk and emo culture, or Harry Potter (at least until JK pissed off the troons) with Marvel in particular being one of the wokester icons thanks to the popularity of the MCU and Disney's woke take on things in general.

The only comic icon that wasn't taken over was ironically a Marvel standby and also the one who I actually would semi-regularly read the comics of, and of course I'm talking about The Punisher

Even then, the right-wing Boomer conservatives and unironic "boogaloo" types are pretty cringe with their Punisher skulls although it's slightly less awful than the dangerhair punk girls or the bearded soy face bugmen who are zealot Marvel consoomers. Slightly.

 

[Banditotron]

all you have to do is not tell your audience that you hate them.

 

[Ascendancy0]

Visual novels. There are way to many "inclusive" vns made for people who's only personality is the fact that they are gay and POC, not to mention that most of these vns get praised for being stunning and brave for a while but flop once they're released.

 

[BOONES]

Most things. I really cannot narrow this down, but I can give an example, I liked star wars before it became a total soyfest.

 

[soy_king]

Bojack Horseman was good until Season 3 decided to go political.

 

[The Last Stand]

Bojack Horseman was good until Season 3 decided to go political.

Bojack Horseman always dwelled into modern issues with its adult comedy.

 

[soy_king]

Bojack Horseman always dwelled into modern issues with its adult comedy.

Until in Season 3 when they started talking about strippers being victims of patriarchy, decided to create a taxi service as a female safe space, and painted Leanne as brave for having an abortion... in California.

 

[Honored guest]

Surprisingly I can't remember anything political recently, but that might be due to the fact that most of the books and stories I follow either had the Author go MIA or put their works on indefinite hiatus.

 

[The Pink Panther]

Borat (and to an extent every other work by Sacha Baron Cohen) was a big one for me, due to the fact that I found out what the intentions of Sacha Baron Cohen's jokes in that movie were not to troll people and take advantage of their kindness for laughs, but to do that and then pass it off as an "expose" people to push his own narrative. This would be fine, if it was non-partisan, which it isn't. Who Is America? is a great example of this because he doesn't lampoon the right and the left both. He lampoons mostly the right and goes very soft on the left. He goes super rough on doing the ol' HA HA CONSERVATIVES BAD routine yet when he makes fun of the lefties, it's the slightest sort of poking fun at them and he attacks harder-to-bait peeps on the totem pole of the left-wing.

Also, I could swear that he misleadingly edits anything he does to the public to push a narrative of "SEE. THE GOYS ARE REALLY LIKE THIS". I can bet you that most people left during the period of time THROW THE JEW DOWN THE WELL was sung and they just used earlier footage as a substitute before it became anti-semetic.

 

[soy_king]

I would've also said GoT, but that got ruined long before it got political (probably season 4)

 

[Tanuki Mixed Nuts]

Oh! Actually, that reminds me of a book series I had enjoyed back in high school but upon trying to reread, and then listen to the audiobook I found it a lot more on the nose and stopped.

Spoiler: Picture of Books

It's weird because this stuff did a decent job of making an interesting zombie world, but man does it have red flags. Also it doesn't help that the audiobook is voiced by a nasally millennial woman who sounds awful.

The entire superhero genre (minus The Punisher, of course)

Granted, I hated the MCU practically from the get-go but I could still enjoy some superhero movies and shows and even the occasional comic books I'd occasionally read on a lark before the capeshit in general became one of those SJW shibboleths alongside Steven Universe, punk and emo culture, or Harry Potter (at least until JK pissed off the troons) with Marvel in particular being one of the wokester icons thanks to the popularity of the MCU and Disney's woke take on things in general.

The only comic icon that wasn't taken over was ironically a Marvel standby and also the one who I actually would semi-regularly read the comics of, and of course I'm talking about The Punisher

Even then, the right-wing Boomer conservatives and unironic "boogaloo" types are pretty cringe with their Punisher skulls although it's slightly less awful than the dangerhair punk girls or the bearded soy face bugmen who are zealot Marvel consoomers. Slightly.

Yeah, it's not like this only goes one way. I can't say there has ever been something with a hidden Boomer message that bothered me as much as the woke ones, but they surely exist. Though when it comes to comics, or the characters themselves, they are such obvious archetypes from a much less woke time that they tend to be very easy to spot when they become gay, or change races, or say some "bad oranj man" stuff.

all you have to do is not tell your audience that you hate them.

Not sure I've had anything I like outright say that, yet. But yeah shit, what, Star Wars and Marvel have both done that right?

Visual novels. There are way to many "inclusive" vns made for people who's only personality is the fact that they are gay and POC, not to mention that most of these vns get praised for being stunning and brave for a while but flop once they're released.

Visual Novels have always been too reliant on character personality types I can't stand so I can't say it's surprising they'd make them even more insufferable.

Bojack Horseman was good until Season 3 decided to go political.

Man, that's true too. Though I will say, despite how some of it bugged me, I still think the Season 3 ending has hit me harder than most have. Had me fucked up.

Edit: Added stuff to avoid doublepost

 

[Made In China]

There are none, this is the benefit of enjoying nothing life has to offer.

 

[stuffandthings]

I have a hard time reading anything by Gail Simone now. Which is a shame, because I loved her take on the Secret Six.

 

[Duke Nukem]

Pretty much anything past the mid-2000s especially when it comes to movies and video games. Doom and Quake are superior to Fortnite, but that's probably obvious.

I also love the classic Star Wars movies, and even the prequels weren't that bad compared to the trainwreck we have now.

 

[karz]

Star Wars - The Sequel Trilogy and new Disney lore specifically, not the Clone Wars Series or The Mandalorian.
I'll rip on the prequel trilogy all day long for being nothing but CGI, Special Effects, uninspired storytelling, and awful acting (that last one more being the fault of the director, in my opinion). That's child's play compared to the terrible decision making at the behest of Kathleen Kennedy - both story wise and including thinly veiled political statements.

Spoiler: Sperging on the Absolute State of Disney Star Wars

Such egregious offenses include: Saying there's no Source Material for Sequel Films...
Despite Nuking the entire Extended Universe of comics, novels, and other potential source materials, because "it was too complicated".

Yes, those two articles are months apart, and the latter was published after the former, but to say that the
old EU was "too complicated" to make into movies is an utterly insufferable statement.
To my knowledge, all of it was consistent story wise,
the only caveats George Lucas originally put on Extended Universe Lore was "Don't kill the main cast" (Luke, Leia, Han, and I think R2, 3PO, and Chewie), and "No time travel".

The political side is, of course, embodied by Rey in the Sequel films.
Disregarding her being simultaneously a "Nobody" who was "sold for drinking money", but is also the granddaughter of Darth Sidious, she is the embodiment of a Mary Sue - her problems are regularly solved by someone else, the problem resolving itself, or Rey being able to summon magic force abilities with no prerequisite training.
She is a serious deviation from the two previous protagonists, Anakin and Luke .
Both had to go through some form of intense training to develop their force abilities - Anakin being inducted as a Padawan on Coruscant, and Luke going to Dagobah to train with Yoda.
Rey didn't. She comes to the scene and absolutely kicks ass with no background as to how she's able to do such things.
Being able to wield a lightsaber with no formal training against Kylo Ren, a seasoned veteran and skilled Sith duelist, and then being able to beat him is absurd.

Of course, there are many other problems, but listing them all would be beating a dead horse.


Tl;dr - Star Wars, like many creative works, have the potential to bloom into beautiful works of fiction for everyone of all creeds, ages, and backgrounds to enjoy.
Of course, a flower can only be as spectacular as the soil that it grows in and the amount of water it gets - the leadership, creative vision, and people that feed their ideas to nurture the work. If that support is poisonous or toxic, the flower withers away and dies, and what's left is an eyesore that no one wants to view.

 

[Red Hood]

Star Wars - The Sequel Trilogy and new Disney lore specifically, not the Clone Wars Series or The Mandalorian.
I'll rip on the prequel trilogy all day long for being nothing but CGI, Special Effects, uninspired storytelling, and awful acting (that last one more being the fault of the director, in my opinion). That's child's play compared to the terrible decision making at the behest of Kathleen Kennedy - both story wise and including thinly veiled political statements.

Spoiler: Sperging on the Absolute State of Disney Star Wars

Such egregious offenses include: Saying there's no Source Material for Sequel Films...
Despite Nuking the entire Extended Universe of comics, novels, and other potential source materials, because "it was too complicated".

Yes, those two articles are months apart, and the latter was published after the former, but to say that the
old EU was "too complicated" to make into movies is an utterly insufferable statement.
To my knowledge, all of it was consistent story wise,
the only caveats George Lucas originally put on Extended Universe Lore was "Don't kill the main cast" (Luke, Leia, Han, and I think R2, 3PO, and Chewie), and "No time travel".

The political side is, of course, embodied by Rey in the Sequel films.
Disregarding her being simultaneously a "Nobody" who was "sold for drinking money", but is also the granddaughter of Darth Sidious, she is the embodiment of a Mary Sue - her problems are regularly solved by someone else, the problem resolving itself, or Rey being able to summon magic force abilities with no prerequisite training.
She is a serious deviation from the two previous protagonists, Anakin and Luke .
Both had to go through some form of intense training to develop their force abilities - Anakin being inducted as a Padawan on Coruscant, and Luke going to Dagobah to train with Yoda.
Rey didn't. She comes to the scene and absolutely kicks ass with no background as to how she's able to do such things.
Being able to wield a lightsaber with no formal training against Kylo Ren, a seasoned veteran and skilled Sith duelist, and then being able to beat him is absurd.

Of course, there are many other problems, but listing them all would be beating a dead horse.


Tl;dr - Star Wars, like many creative works, have the potential to bloom into beautiful works of fiction for everyone of all creeds, ages, and backgrounds to enjoy.
Of course, a flower can only be as spectacular as the soil that it grows in and the amount of water it gets - the leadership, creative vision, and people that feed their ideas to nurture the work. If that support is poisonous or toxic, the flower withers away and dies, and what's left is an eyesore that no one wants to view.

I enjoyed S1 of the Mandalorian, but I'm fully prepared for it to go woke in S2. Nothing gold can stay.

 

[Doctor Placebo]

Borat (and to an extent every other work by Sacha Baron Cohen) was a big one for me, due to the fact that I found out what the intentions of Sacha Baron Cohen's jokes in that movie were not to troll people and take advantage of their kindness for laughs, but to do that and then pass it off as an "expose" people to push his own narrative. This would be fine, if it was non-partisan, which it isn't. Who Is America? is a great example of this because he doesn't lampoon the right and the left both. He lampoons mostly the right and goes very soft on the left. He goes super rough on doing the ol' HA HA CONSERVATIVES BAD routine yet when he makes fun of the lefties, it's the slightest sort of poking fun at them and he attacks harder-to-bait peeps on the totem pole of the left-wing.

Also, I could swear that he misleadingly edits anything he does to the public to push a narrative of "SEE. THE GOYS ARE REALLY LIKE THIS". I can bet you that most people left during the period of time THROW THE JEW DOWN THE WELL was sung and they just used earlier footage as a substitute before it became anti-semetic.

Either that or they enjoyed it for very similar reasons to why people who watched the movie laughed at it. They thought it was so outrageous it was funny. Cut around footage of people laughing and looking shocked and you can create the impression everyone was enjoying it unironically.

An interesting case for me, since it was always very political, is Rage Against the Machine. Hordes of jackasses rampaging through the streets, assaulting people for daring to voice different opinions, and showing that they can't plant a garden or function for a week without shooting each other, who have basically the same politics, and possibly were directly inspired by this sort of music, makes it really hard to enjoy as general rebellious hard rock. The edgy left wing rock of yesteryear in general is like a meme that got killed by people taking it way, way too seriously.

 

[Red Hood]

An interesting case for me, since it was always very political, is Rage Against the Machine. Hordes of jackasses rampaging through the streets, assaulting people for daring to voice different opinions, and showing that they can't plant a garden or function for a week without shooting each other, who have basically the same politics, and possibly were directly inspired by this sort of music, makes it really hard to enjoy as general rebellious hard rock. The edgy left wing rock of yesteryear in general is like a meme that got killed by people taking it way, way too seriously.

The funny thing is, as with most music, most people don't pay that much attention to the lyrical content. RATM is loud aggressive rock with a groove. You can enjoy it in the same way you can enjoy Pantera and never give two shits about the message. The same is true of just about any music with politcal content, save for hippie folk music where all you have is lyrics and a badly strummed guitar.

 

[737 MAX Stan Account]

Pre-MCU Black Panther.