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 -
Leftist video game youtuber Hbomberguy just put out a remarkable two hour video. Ostensibly, all he set out to do at first was investigate the origin of the "Oof" death sound used in the obscenely popular video game Roblox. The basic story was not that difficult to piece together: a few years ago another guy noticed "Oof" in an older video game called Messiah where the sound effect credits listed Joey Kuras and Tommy Tallarico. Tallarico owns an audio company named after himself, and Kuras worked for that company. Kuras is a prolific sound effects designer who worked on a ton of video games over the years, and is still quietly plugging away in the sound effects industry.
Tallarico's personality is much more bombastic and showy in contrast to Kuras. While he has bona fide creative chops as a video game composer, he hasn't really worked on anything since his career peak in the 90s and 2000s. He seems content to ride the coattails of his past achievements, and recently used his semi-celebrity status to seek crowdfunding for a new home video game console called the Intellivision Amico. The Amico was announced by Tallarico way back in 2018 but its release has been repeatedly delayed with no sign that it's getting any closer to existing. Citing the delays, Tallarico turned to asking for money through crowdfunding campaigns and was successful, raising at least $18 million dollars. Tallarico launched at least four different funding campaigns, each one on a different crowdfunding platforms (curious!) before abandoning the final attempt after raising only $58k. During all these delays, leaked internal documents showed that the Amico was going to use some shitty obsolete hardware and Tallarico of course responded by threatening lawsuits and calling people "gaming racists".
Back to Roblox. They apparently got the "Oof" sound from some random sound library that included it without permission from Tallarico's company. When Tallarico found out his company's sound was being used by an obscenely lucrative video game corporation, he sprung to action and demanded a shitton of money from Roblox in licensing fees. The two kind of danced around this issue for a couple of years, working out a deal involving royalties before Roblox eventually stopped using the sound. Curiously however, when Tallarico talked about who exactly created the sound, he spoke vaguely and frequently alternated between "we" and "I" when discussing its progeny. Hbomberguy does some research and concludes (for many many reasons) that the evidence overwhelmingly favors crediting Joey Kuras as the sound's creator, not Tallarico. But if Tallarico is exaggerating about this for prestige points, is he lying about anything else? This is the part where the video goes completely off the rails. Hbomberguy was originally going to stop the video at this point, but curiosity got the better of him and he went down a deep deep rabbit hole and started fact-checking everything.
As an illustrative example, Tallarico repeatedly highlights how he is the recipient of the Guinness World Record for the "person who has worked on the most video games in their lifetime" with credits in at least 275 games, maybe even 350 games depending on how Tallarico tells it. At this point it's kind of a running joke that the world records Guinness bandies about are increasingly ludicrously specific (highest number of organic cherry pies eaten while bouncing on a pogo stick at sea level or whatever). Guinness makes money by selling its books but the organization also offers its services to anyone who has the $10,000 or so it costs to have an official Guinness world record adjudicator show up in person for your marketing stunt. So the organization is less an authoritative body and more of a novelty commercial business, but whatever. Tallarico's world record was apparently bestowed in 2008, but it only shows up in the off-brand "Gamer's Edition" book, and the source for this claim appears to be just something that Tallarico said during an interview. Setting aside the lack of verification for something so banal, can anyone charitably reach anything close to the
275350 total amount of games? Tallarico has a list of video games he has "worked on" on his official website and the list does have 295 entries. Close enough, right? Well until you realize that Tallarico inflates the number of entries in many ways, including listing games with "Special Thanks" credits, or listing the exact same game multiple times depending on how many systems it was released on. For example, Tallarico definitely did the music for Earthworm Jim and its sequel, but instead of having two mentions for Earthworm Jim, he has it eighteen times on his list. Guinness gave Tallarico a certificate for his "worked on the most video games in their lifetime" claim in 2008. For whatever reason, Guinness thereafter revised the language and gave him an updated record certificate for "most prolific composer of video game soundtracks" in 2014 instead. The coup de grâce is that Tallarico kept and displays both certificates in a bid to also inflate the number of total world records he holds.I don't know for sure if there's an overarching lesson here. Tallarico is quite clearly a flagrantly unapologetic fabulist, and Hbomberguy's video is deliciously entertaining solely for the sheer brazenness of it all. The biggest surprise in my opinion is that Tallarico managed to get away with this for so long, despite regularly interacting with a nerdy demographic I would assume would be especially fastidious about video game history claims. But no one seems to have bothered to check any of his claims, until now. There's still a lot of alpha in being skeptical and googling shit. Be safe out there.
I dislike jaded contrarian posts in the vein of "oh sweet summer child," but I guess it's my turn to wear that hat
I'm not surprised at all by this. The older I get and the further I progress in my career, the more I find that sheet brazeness and confidence are 80% of the game. It's an eye opening discovery. Hard workers don't always win, honesty doesn't pay. Casual cheaters never prosper, but calculated and/or shameless cheaters often prosper mightily. Stated thus it sounds like I was hopefully naïve, but I'd wager that most Mottizens reading this post subconsciously subscribe to this flavor of the just world fallacy at least a bit.
You begin to realize that there is a particular kind of person who is exceptionally skilled at sniffing out particularly naive/vulnerable communities and readily able and willing to exaggerate their own accomplishments in ways that are often hard to discredit without significant effort.
And they get away with it because only someone from outside the community might be willing to call them out, and usually an outsider sees no point to expending the effort necessary to help a community they have no ties to.
Straight-up cults are merely the most blatant version of this.
In part it is explained by simple charisma, but also a level of shamelessness and willingness to fight anyone who tried to challenge their claims and bluff them into backing down.
And this type of person runs almost everything.
The observation is much older than anyone wants to give it credit for; this isn't even the first time but at least it has a catchy name.
Note that this applies to any group, importantly when it comes to "society at large".
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link