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Notes -
Is Germany "a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct genocide"?
Okay, more seriously (and less "bare link" phrased, Jeopardy-style, in the form of a question), does anyone else see things like this as part of an overall "strategy" by the left that strongly parallels the behaviors in recent years of "woke Hollywood" and game studios? That is, use identity politics as a tool to paint critics and opponents as bigots ('you don't hate our all-female reboot because it's a soulless cash grab with lousy writing and acting, you're just a sexist', 'you didn't vote for Kamala only because you hate blacks and/or women,' etc). "Schrödinger's critics": your opposition is just a few unimportant bigots who don't represent the audience/electorate and don't really matter; but when your movie/game/candidate flops, it's because of the immense power those same opponents have over the viewers/players/voters. The problem is that too many people are listening to fringe voices (whether that's YouTube movie critics, video game reviewers on Twitch, or 'purveyors of right wing misinformation' like Fox News and x.com), instead of professional, establishment movie critics/game journalists/political commentators; and we need to figure out how to mute those fringe voices. Taking your established fanbase/demographics for granted, and excoriate them if their support starts to wane ('how can you call yourself a Tolkien fan and not watch Rings of Power?' 'Sure, the Democrat party's policies do nothing for you, but you have to vote blue no matter who anyway' [a position I've seen left-wing YouTubers state in response to the election]).
In short, that you, the filmmaker/game studio/Democratic party, don't answer to your audience/voters, the audience/voters answer to you. You do not have to earn their dollars/votes, you are entitled to them, and if they aren't buying what you're selling, then they're wrong, and the strategy is to lecture them on what horrible bigots they are until they start watching your movie/playing your game/voting Democrat. And calling anyone who disagrees with you a fascist. (That "Unfortunately, this decision affects the wrong people" bit is wild coming from those making the decision in question — as if they have no agency over this decision, but it is instead somehow just a natural consequence somehow emerging automatically.) As Jim put it: "Doing an audit of federal government expenditures is the death of democracy, and doing a customer survey is openly fascist."
Even shorter: it's treating that Simpsons bit with Principal Skinner that's become a meme — "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong." — as a marketing/campaign strategy.
Replying primarily because @MadMonzer was kind enough to report himself and this comment for being CW, and likely better suited for posting in the CWR thread. I presume that's where it was meant to go, but if this is, in your honest opinion, a small-scale question, then don't let me keep you haha. But I do think you meant the main thread.
For what it’s worth, SQS does explicitly allow Culture War topics. It’s just a relaxation of the effort rules.
So there’s nothing wrong with this post, but also, it would totally qualify as a good CW top-level.
I haven't seen a mod-hatted reply to my own for so long that it gave me a fright, visions of a bloody-coup and counter-coup as we ban each other left right and center till Zorba gets annoyed and stops paying the AWS bill.
I tried to get naraburns to ban me once for a gag, but it didn’t seem to take.
Stop it, you two, they'll think the mods have a sense of humor.
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