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

I was a huge fan of Alastair Reynolds' first ten or so books (they're good hard scifi) but then he introduced a non-binary character with "xe" pronouns in one of his novels and it gave me a really sour taste in my mouth. Every time it came up the suspension of disbelief was broken entirely: it just read like a typo to me and I resented having to readjust my thinking to compensate.

I never minded his stronk female characters; in a scifi setting the physical differences between men and women can easily be negated with some macguffin or other and beyond that I always felt like he was realistic about the personality differences, but the woke pronouns just rubbed me the wrong way. Sure, in a thousand years maybe they'll be in such common usage that nobody bats an eye but as it stands it's just a bucket of cold water snapping me out of the fantasy constantly.

Also, that book kind of sucked. Pushing Ice is peak Alastair Reynolds, to me.
 
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JambledUpWords said:
The Percy Jackson series. It was okay up until they started introducing non-binary characters. Part of the problem is the series having gone on too long though. Sometimes less is better.

I’ll admit that I did like the new She-Ra, but that was mainly because I found the side characters more interesting than the main ones. Like all cartoon fandoms though, the fandom is cancerous and it’s annoying how they tout Catra and Adora’s romance as something aspirational. Just because it’s lesbian doesn’t mean the relationship is good. If Catra and Adora were a straight couple, I don’t think the fans would see their relationship as “good”.
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She-Ra is insidious because they went on that whole spiel about 'it's not for you' meaning they intended to target it at children and then went through several seasons of Catra being an abusive person to EVERYONE she was in contact before being 'forgiven' for no legitimate reason, nothing she did excused her past actions. Literally a TV show supposedly for kids, when we all know just really for LGBT+ is my personality types BUT!, that sends the message to them that 'it's ok! if you keep holding out and mitigating their horrible actions this abusive piece of garbage will change! for you!'

IMO. I find if I enjoy anything these days I have to not look at the socials of the people who created it (or the fandom). There's many things I liked ok-ish until I became aware of the creators absolute shitiness that tainted my desire to support it. To quote that youtube guy who started comic wars 'you're a hotdog vender, sell me a hotdog' and I don't want the condiments to be PC BS. I don't think there's much modern stuff I enjoy, I do read Incase's Alfie (porn) comic, but it's mostly too tiring with the constant patronizing, shitty fandom, etc. I just linger in everything I liked when I was younger and avoid the rest.

I'll agree with Star Wars. There's meant to be some politics because most wars are built on political issues but it went full garbage and the interaction between creators and the greater world made it 1000% worse. I'm glad I never got into the Mandalorian because that Ahsoka casting is going to tank it. Filoni has failed multiple times to gain any sort of exceptional ratings or traction in his stories. Giving him his precious Ahsoka in live action means she will slowly takeover the air time and lead another property into a boring 'look at my plot armor and how great I am' snooze fest.
 
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FluffyTehFennekin said:
Cartoons in general. Pretty much nowadays people just wanna be the next Steven Universe.
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Maybe that's what coming down the pipeline now but before SU, every cartoon was trying to be the next Adventure Time while snorting spongebob-laced cocaine. And of course any anime-esque cartoons is made by the same koreans who animated ATLA making them look the same. Luckily most web animation isn't doing that.

As for me it would be Game Grumps. They were always dudes playing video games (badly) while cracking jokes and sharing stories. Then they got more people and more creative videos being pumped out on the daily. But then Arin the high school dropout had to fuck it up by throwing all his friends on Newgrounds under the bus because they dared to be a place that was never PC but always fun. Instead of embracing the fact he was never PC and stop projecting, arin keeps one-uping himself with his own tardness to the point I'm waiting when his loud mouth makes it all come tumbling down. His former friends OneyNG, Supermega and especially Jontron are doing what Arin's doing and better without passing the sjw purity test.
 
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Everything. Literally every program or project is neutered in the name of woke now. It’s so cowardly.
You notice it most when you watch stuff from every just a few years ago. It’s most noticeable on the funnier edgier stuff - can you imagine the reaction to Brass Eye if it was made now? It just wouldn’t happen. But even innocuous stuff has changed. I was round at a friend’s place a while ago and they have young kids who were watching a Mickey Mouse cartoon - it was set in India and both of us remarked that you couldn’t have the images they had in the cartoon nowadays, and wondered when it was from. It was from 2008.
The last ten years have changed media beyond belief. It’s not just jarring diversity (black people in viking villages were not the norm ffs), it’s the total removal of anything that might possibly give offence.
But mild offence is funny, it’s what a huge amount of humour is based on. Riffing on stereotypes can be funny. And it’s not hatred, it’s just the gentle ribbing that used to be funny and friendly. I can’t think of a single current year program I find laugh out loud funny. Not one. It’s dour, puritanical stuff. There’s no real satire any more either, it’s all bludgeoning you over the head with your own guilt or someone’s politics. It’s absolutely shite and I hate it
 
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Pissmaster said:
Rick & Morty was one of the best shows on TV for seasons 1 and 2.

Then came Season 3, and with it, Pickle Rick. That show's quality dropped harder than Lowtax's Patreon.
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Glad, I'm not the only one that noticed this. Seasons 1-2, I used to literally be laughing on the floor cracking up. It was THAT funny. It was so good that even a fart joke got me to make me laugh at it. No other adult-focused animated show successfully did that consistently since I had marathoned American Dad or whatnot. The decline came in late season 2 when they released that final episode and made it emotional and then the show just started to take itself too seriously after the season 3 premiere (with the divorce arc) and the jokes started fucking dying on delivery in most episodes with a few exceptions (Tales of the Citadel and Rest and Ricklaxation). Especially season 4. Season 4 was just as a low-energy as a Joe Biden rally. It felt like it really lost its energy until the finale where they tied back season 3's finale together; that episode had some of seasons 1-2's energy, but they really lost it fucking quick.
 
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Fredrick Backman writes novels for basic bitches like me. His first two books had a very Swedish feminist slant but I ignored it because his main characters were so gosh darn loveable, especially Britt-Marie, then he wrote Beartown and there was no main character and the whole book was a sermon about toxic masculinity and the ugly writing style wasn't forgivable with no main character to latch onto.
I slammed the book shut and never finished the second I read the line "Your best qualities come from the fact that you were raised by women."
This line was fed to a teenager traumatized by his fathers suicide and it's probably the most insensitive thing I've ever read that was meant to be virtuous and kind to say. Just absolutely tone deaf.
 
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As someone mentioned before, Gorillaz. I heard their album after Humanz was better, but I haven't gotten around to it.

They've always been on the political side, but sampling Spongebob crying at the end of Money Tree edit: hallelujah money (sorry, only listened to it once and never again because lol whut) was just embarrassing. Really am into the characters, the fleshing out of those characters through music and snippets of their lives, & general music, but Albarn and co just got so assblasted at Trump that it affected their music.
 
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Aaa0aaa0 said:
They've always been on the political side, but sampling Spongebob crying at the end of Money Tree was just embarrassing. Really am into the characters, the fleshing out of those characters through music and snippets of their lives, & general music, but Albarn and co just got so assblasted at Trump that it affected their music.
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Any more context? I ain't NEVER heard of Gorillaz getting TDS and shit. Holy fuck.
 
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It bothers me how saturated with SJW faggotry tabletop games have gotten. We never should have let normies in to play. There was just an article that came out recently about people whining that all the different races you can play as in D&D are actually racist and problematic. Ridiculous.
 
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Aaa0aaa0 said:
Fortunately, genius lyrics explains it in more depth than I could. 2016 sure fuckin happened, bro. :(
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I see....well, the composition is great and this is a nice beat, but these lyrics...I don't get why it has to be so apocalyptic, lmao. They really did act as if it was the end of all endings. I wish the music and the beat could go to a better song than...this?
 
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The problem with everything turning political is that most (if not all) artists and content creators tend to emulate the worst gags of politics-based cartoonists such as Carlos Latuff and Ben Garrison, such as the straw-men, the "in-your-face" messages and the holier than thou attitudes. Like, people should watch Changing Nature until they could recite the entire script without reading it because that is one good example on how to make a political statement without sounding like an asshole.

The last episode of Dinosaurs, where the beetles that eat a species of vines that grow every year are driven to extinction, because their nests were wiped out to make a factory. The problem with getting rid of the beetles is that the vines grew without a halt, and Earl went on to spread defoliant everywhere, causing all plant life to wither. Then Earl's boss decide to nuke all volcanoes in Pangea to create rainclouds, but it backfires because the clouds block the sun, starting the ice age.

Comics are the primal example, I stopped caring about them when they were trying both to sell Miles Morales as being the "best spidey to ever exist", the Trump MODOK and Broly She-Hulk. Ah, and don't get me started on Vampirella being "de-sexualized". With the constant butthurt on BHNA's fandom and twitter threads about "female objectification in anime and manga is bad: an obligatory thread #8503948534098539", I fear weebshit and waifushit goes into the same ways.

Autumnal Equinox said:
It bothers me how saturated with SJW faggotry tabletop games have gotten. We never should have let normies in to play. There was just an article that came out recently about people whining that all the different races you can play as in D&D are actually racist and problematic. Ridiculous.
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Makes me think on how dumbed down the tabletop communities have become. Like, they survived the satanic panic in the 1980's but a bunch of people who should never left Tumblr in the first place have them all in a leash.
 
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The Pink Panther said:

I see....well, the composition is great and this is a nice beat, but these lyrics...I don't get why it has to be so apocalyptic, lmao. They really did act as if it was the end of all endings. I wish the music and the beat could go to a better song than...this?
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Basically. The rest of the album, Humanz, has similar songs about the theoretical end times and race relations and police and government corruption etc.. The concept was the end of one era as a species evolving into a new one, thus the z at the end of the Humanz. It would have been alright if it wasn't foe that preachy bs.

At least Humility & Strobelight, two singles on their next album, were bangers without the hippie lyrics.

Autumnal Equinox said:
It bothers me how saturated with SJW faggotry tabletop games have gotten. We never should have let normies in to play. There was just an article that came out recently about people whining that all the different races you can play as in D&D are actually racist and problematic. Ridiculous.
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Ok, now it's my turn to request a link to that article if you got it. I really, really need to see this reach.
 
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Aaa0aaa0 said:
Fortunately, genius lyrics explains it in more depth than I could. 2016 sure fuckin happened, bro. :(
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protest song against the global political atmosphere of 2016—particularly with regards to the influence of money and race politics in the U.S. elections
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Amazing how this was never a problem until DRUMPF was elected. He really did change everything.
 
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Aaa0aaa0 said:
Thank you!
Oh my god, orcs are black people confirmed. The racism was there all along! /sneed
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I'm old-school. To me, orcs are always pigmen (and women. I allow both genders). Never occurred to me that they were supposed to be black because as racist as I am I don't see blacks as humanoid pigs who typically serve evil wizards.
 
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