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

[Picnic_Boy]

They kept saying that it's not for me, and now, nothing is for me.

 

[augment]

There's a scene near the end of Rise of Skywalker, where Poe and the "resistance" fight the mass-built emperor fleet. He goes "Remember! they win if they separate us! they win if we give up!" and all I kept thinking was gee, maybe a Vote4Bernie banner would pop out of the millennium falcon now.

edit: I would've loved to add a segment titled "What CBS has done to Star Trek" but I'm afraid neither English nor any language has words for what Kurzman and co. have wrought.

 

[DeadFish]

Used to enjoy life until politics was shoved in my face to the degree it is now.

 

[Mr. Bung]

I used to love Star Wars and its huge expanded universe, but the one two punch of Disney making the expanded universe non-cannon and making the sequel trilogy woke has really dampened my enthusiasm for it. I also loved immersing myself in the Harry Potter books which are still enjoyable but I'm disappointed to hear how batshit insane JK Rowling has become.

Also wanted to add that late shows used to be pretty good, but that ended with the likes of Jay Leno and David Letterman. Those guys based their humor on relatable life situatons etc. but now most late shows are just leftist political garbage,

 

[Slimy Time]

I can give a specific example of something that was ruined for me. There was this one track called "Bully for you" by a band called JPNSGRLS (i think they've changed their name now) that I fucking vibed with, never really listened to the lyrics of if since I don't usually get too caught up in them. Wound up reading an article about them, specifically about that song, where the writer of it said that it was, and I'm paraphrasing so I might get a bit of this wrong, "An apology and support from a cis-white-man to the women of the world." And now I can't unhear it when I try listening to the track.

I don't even think that art should necessarily be nonpolitical or nonpartisan, the biggest issue is that there seems to be no big artists, writers, musicians, who want to be subtle about their politics. I'm not sure if it's a result or a cause of how political our art and media have gotten, but so much media is now so disposable. Like, everything is so specifically about one event or one thing that won't really matter in 10 years. Like how many comedy bits, songs, stories, ETC that are just poorly disguised rants about Donald Trump. In 2030 will that still be as poignant as it was before?

None of this is helped by the fact that all the big players in media are such actual racists/sexist/ableist/whatever ist. It was mentioned before about the orks=black thing that's been floating for a few years now. I have never thought of orks as black. I think of them as orks. Honestly, the way I've portrayed them was probably more influenced by Warcraft shit than anything else where they're closer to native americans crossed with middle easterners. The people who are telling us what is and isn't racist are the sort of people who look at orks and say "Filthy, violent, large and athletic, usually criminals...you guys based these on niggers didn't you?!" They're the ones destroying media because of their own issues.

Decided to give it a listen before reading the rest of your comment. It's a good tune...then I read the rest of it about cis-males supporting women and listened again. Yup, you cannot be unheard once you realise what it's about. Here is the chorus.

Bully for you, baby girl
Brought into a dying world
Run and tell the aliens
The Earth looks greener when you squint
If only she was born a son
If she only she had.

Dying world, If only she was born a son...it's not even subtle.

 

[Atatata]

There was this horror youtuber I used to watch that did alright reviewing stuff, not particularly great but good to put in the background. Then he became mtf.

That in of itself wasn't the issue, I was pretty open minded and I tried to keep watching, but it lost a lot of the humor, the discussions started to circle around trans identity and political correctness, he started having minute long openings of him wearing a dress walking around for no damn reason. He didn't even talk about horror anymore.

The worst of it was the comment section. Before it was the usual type you'd see in these sort of channels, but then it became all ""yas queen you slay" and "omg u r so beuatiful". It was honestly creepy how drained of soul it was.

I'd also say the anime western communities, the ones centered on the more mainstream series are absolutely god awful and almost taint the series. At this point, I'm not even sure if I want the manga I like to be adapted properly because of how shit it would make trying to talk about it.

Also Vinland Saga. I jumped ship after the whole 'fuck you we're skipping Constantinople" shitfeat but apparentally it got really preachy after that.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

Also Vinland Saga. I jumped ship after the whole 'fuck you we're skipping Constantinople" shitfeat but apparentally it got really preachy after that.

That was on my list of anime to watch. What happened? Figured it was just Viking story, how can they mess that up?

Edithange engine to anime. Damn autocorrect

 

[soft kitty]

Doctor Who was the worst casualty for me

 

[Atatata]

That was on my list of engines to watch. What happened? Figured it was just Viking story, how can they mess that up?

Well the first thing that people found disagreeable was that
it suddenly became about farming. The main character becomes unbearably pacifistic, they introduced a character that feels straight out of Naruto, introduced a bitch feminist that keeps grumbling about murdering the main character without actually doing anything, and shoved a generic wife at him. They also give him a random dog and baby they found on an island.

They hype up going to Constantinople to trade only to completely skip it all, this angered the translator so bad he dropped it, and I stopped reading about it after that. From what I hear they've introduced a tranny on their way to meet the magical pacifist natives of America and create a progressive utopia together.

Also the author said shit about how women are the real victims of war, which turned people off. I'd still recommend the first part of the manga, just pretend it never continued after that.

 

[mindlessobserver]

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.

Sacha baron Cohen does the same schtick any other hack European Comedian does. Performative "lol and uneducated Americans" routines. He's no better then clowns for some Dutch late night show going to New York City and asking random passerby to point out Amsterdam on a map or ask them who the Prime Minister of Belgium is. They will never show the people who get it right.

And also assume that anyone cares about countries smaller then most individual US States in both size and population.

 

[Local Fed]

I guess there's nothing too specific in particular that I've really been affected by but at the same time I don't consume that much media these days that's not internet related. The Blacklist is a show that's really gone downhill over time though and has included more and more wokeish stuff (but it's still not totally insufferable yet). For me it's more about shows/movies in general that I do try to get into on occasion and it's that voice in the back of my head now that's always going "Please don't get woke, please don't get woke, please don't get woke." Then by the end of it if it hasn't gotten woke I feel a little relieved but also annoyed because I spent too much energy thinking that it was probably going to be disappointing.

 

[Bakugoemon]

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.

I'm completely facinated that the left matched the church ladies and went way beyond the limits of moral fagging I thought possible.

 

[JamusActimus]

Critical role.
I just wanted some D&D to compensate the fact that I don't have friends to play it with me anymore not lgbtqp+ pandering

 

[Troonologist PhD]

I’m grateful that at least Warhammer has done a good job of resisting the Woke menace. Woketards have certainly tried to taint the fandom/company, but without much success.

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.

The religious right never had any real power whereas the totalitarian left is part of the establishment. The Republican/Neocon establishment never gave a shit about conservative values. They were just useful idiots for Israel. Personally I think the religious right didn’t do a good enough job of burning the Satanists at the stake.

Slaanesh daemon corrupts human children.

 

[Doctor Placebo]

There's a scene near the end of Rise of Skywalker, where Poe and the "resistance" fight the mass-built emperor fleet. He goes "Remember! they win if they separate us! they win if we give up!" and all I kept thinking was gee, maybe a Vote4Bernie banner would pop out of the millennium falcon now.

edit: I would've loved to add a segment titled "What CBS has done to Star Trek" but I'm afraid neither English nor any language has words for what Kurzman and co. have wrought.

It's funny because the quote "They win by making you feel like you're alone" applies far more to the tactics of the modern left than the modern right. Who's censoring and blacklisting everywhere to make sure that their viewpoint is the only one that gets heard? Who's isolating thought criminals and forcing them to recant and submit? This thread is proof. And on top of that, the good guys in the ending battle are an impromptu militia of heavily armed civilians. Boogaloo! Probably unintentional, and it doesn't make up for how shitty the movie was in the slightest, but it is kind of funny.

I'm completely facinated that the left matched the church ladies and went way beyond the limits of moral fagging I thought possible.

It's much worse, because church ladies didn't control a vast media empire that encompasses most entertainment in every single medium, along with the news, along with the education system. At least not in the lifetime of anyone around today.

 

[Draventren]

The popularity of the Joker is a symptom of a wider problem in comics- which is that they take themselves too seriously. Every writer thinks that their story will be the next Dark Knight Rises or Long Halloween, and with most of the best original and marketable takes on the big characters taken, they decide that just being Really Serious is they key to creating art.

I personally hated the Joker movie. I dislike Joker backstories in general, because I think it wrecks the opposition that Joker has to Batman. Bruce Wayne is defined by his past traumas and is unable to move on from them, wheras historically (with the exception of Killing Joke) the Joker is fully immersed in the present. He has no past, no name, he's acting in the moment and everything he does seems completely random. Even when he has a scheme with phases, it's chaotic. Giving him a tragic past just turns him into anti-Batman, which I don't think is as interesting. Joker was just so serious, and the bits where i laughed were (I think?) not supposed to be funny. Comics and comic book media can be serious, but they shouldn't take themselves seriously because they are at their heart ridiculous.

The biggest mistake any writer ever made was in pretending that Batman isn't inherantly ludicrous. It's been said before, but - He's a man in a bat suit! That's really silly, and the contrast with his uber-sad and not funny backstory and humourless personality is partially what makes him so fun to read. He's probably one of the silliest mainstream comic heroes, and yet he's the one that people seem to take the most seriously and which writers seem to increasingly want to take seriously. Batman worked because he was the straightman in a world of lunatics, who was semi-aware that he himself was also a lunatic. As you say, by adding a bunch of bat-family with their own uber-serious (and boring) backstories, it diminishes the effect of Batman himself. and overshadows him


There was a big argument about this on r/GC back in the day. I think it was around the time that they were bannign anything that even remotely resembled debate, but there was a great deal of sperging about 'Scythian warrior women' and the fact that Amazons are actually sexist. I don't think that the historical exclusion of women from combat roles is misogynistic at all, since it's a simple fact that someone would have had to stay and care for the home (Fetching water, grinding wheat, making clothing, feeding animals, feeding children, cleaning, going to market, keeping the fire, cooking etc etc.), and women being less physically strong were better suited to this role. It sucks that women didn't get to do cool shit, but honestly just surviving childbirth was a feat in itself so I think they earned the right to not get clubbed to death in a battle.

I have had numerous arguments with people about warrior women in history. It has happened, but happened so sparingly that when it did it was major news to the people they were fighting. I've heard people argue that female pharoes and female vikings using very spurious evidence (tombs found with weapons in them, alongside a lot of wealth could could mean anything symbolically or, yes, could literally mean they fought) fought in wars as though it was fact. Most cultures kept women out of fighting for a pretty simple reason: women are a lot more necessary to keep a culture going then men are. If we get really utilitarian about it, you really only need men for somewhere between 1-10minutes in order to fertilize an egg, and then they're no longer really necessary for the child to come to term. If you want to keep a culture alive you need to encouraging child birth and protecting the critical part of it. This is especially true of ancient/classic cultures that would usually have to struggle to keep its population up because they didn't have the ability to transport food in the quantities or at the speed that we have now.

 

[CreamyHerman’s]

To an extent I still listen to Coheed, but a couple of things have left a bad taste in my mouth:

• When I attended. GAIV pt. 1 neverender, there was a video of a trump effigy being burned at a parade during the second to last performance.
• A music video that features a baby trump demanding to rule the world.

I also recalled the drummer turning into a whiny asshole on Facebook claiming we elected the Hitler.

 

[Doctor Placebo]

I have had numerous arguments with people about warrior women in history. It has happened, but happened so sparingly that when it did it was major news to the people they were fighting. I've heard people argue that female pharoes and female vikings using very spurious evidence (tombs found with weapons in them, alongside a lot of wealth could could mean anything symbolically or, yes, could literally mean they fought) fought in wars as though it was fact. Most cultures kept women out of fighting for a pretty simple reason: women are a lot more necessary to keep a culture going then men are. If we get really utilitarian about it, you really only need men for somewhere between 1-10minutes in order to fertilize an egg, and then they're no longer really necessary for the child to come to term. If you want to keep a culture alive you need to encouraging child birth and protecting the critical part of it. This is especially true of ancient/classic cultures that would usually have to struggle to keep its population up because they didn't have the ability to transport food in the quantities or at the speed that we have now.

Pretty much all of history's famous "warrior women" weren't important because of their combat skills. Joan of Arc for instance was mainly a morale booster, and possibly a little involved with battle planning. Someone like her in modern times would also be brushed off as an insane person, or dangerous cult leader ("I know the French will win the war because angels told me! Now follow me into battle!"). Catherine the Great, Boudica, Olga of Kiev, etc were all politicians, who ordered the actual fighters from the behind the battle lines. Deborah in the Bible, Charlotte Corday, etc were assassins who killed important political figures they took by surprise, without the chance to fight back. The closest thing to real, historical "warrior women" would probably be someone like the Soviet sniper women and female pilots who did decent work against the Germans. Notice that they were in combat positions that didn't require much physical strength.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

A lot of the things I enjoyed and turned to shit were more because they lasted way longer than they should (MCU, Bojack, Rick and Morty) rather than politics being inserted. I guess some animes I had harder time connecting because they were hijacked for politics (Zombieland Saga) but that's not the fault of the writers. I guess anything with Steven Colbert, he is very unlikable.

I'm a flaming TERF feminist and anything that shows women fighting on equal grounds with men under anything but the most exceptional circumstances loses my interest.

Two examples of this are Star Wars and Game of Thrones.

Star Wars doesn't need my sperging.

Game of Thrones the TV show fucked itself pretty hard, IMHO. Ok, Brienne is a stronk wammen who can swing a heavy sword well enough to fight against the debilitated Jaime, and Ygritte is a wildling who knows how to fight off a rapist and who can use a wildling bow. I will give these women their skills without complaint.

Arya started out wanting to be good with a sword, but her dad got her started with fencing skills and not a broadsword because she's 70 lbs soaking wet in Season 1 and 90 lbs soaking wet in season 8. Physical strength was never her forte, and although she had some agility, that's not a substitute for strength. Her big skill was always going to be craftiness and amorality, and while they used it well in the scene with Walder Frey, it just dissipated at the end. Here's a fucking thought: Why not kill Jaime, take his face, sneak into the palace through the door she discovered in season 1, and kill the fuck out of Cersei during a moment when she's not guarded? Then change into Cersei and surrender the palace to whoever?

Lyanna Mormont throwing in the smug line about training "boys and girls" was supposed to be a big "girl power" moment, but JFC, what's a 70-lb girl really supposed to do in a battle? The best and highest use of a girl in a situation like that is making sure that the men have water and snacks. Carrying messages is also a good use. Congratulations, you're a Dragon Stewardess, now get back in the kitchen and make yourself useful while the men figure shit out.

And the Sand Snakes can eat a dick.

Maybe--just maybe--there weren't a lot of women warriors back in the day not because women were "forbidden from training" or whatever the fuck, but because only a small percent of women are as strong as the average man, and finding and training those women was a waste of time when any random jabroni off the street could beat them.

I blame the troons for a lot of this.

I remember a Warhammer Fantasy short story had a 12 year old Norscan girl go with other women and make a shield wall (to limit the enemies' movements) and later go into a busy melee and cut the tendons of enemy fighters who are busy fighting. I don't know about how it would work in the real world but it's not immediately bullshit like most modern examples.

 

[Valstrax]

Bosozoku on YT makes some chuckleworthy videos highlighting some of this insane larping.

The utter incapability of people nowadays to have a healthy disconnect from the media they consume is fucking infuriating.

The hilarious part is at the beginning of Persona 5, you have to agree to a statement that none of the game is real and is just fiction.