capital-G Gamers fascinate me so much because i cannot fathom the mind of an individual who insists so heavily that the existence of any sort of minority within a game is inherently political, yet also is completely incapable of recognizing when the game is actively making fun of them for bigotry.
like what goes on inside their brains? is it too leaded for the neurons to fire properly? are there only a handful of brain cells floating around clacking into each other like billiards? it confounds me. it makes no damn sense. compels me though
People talk about the decline of media literacy but it's been an issue for centuries. Some people really aren't operating on any high level
They thought Colbert's Colbert character was a conservative, for instance
I think that's one of the core appeals of conservatism- you will not be asked to process any new ideas, you can simply refer to the anointed talking heads to know how you should feel about the news of the day.
It's why talking to a lot of them feels like an exercise in frustration because they simply just echo the talking points du jour, regardless of what they claimed to believe yesterday or the week before.
A quote from a particular book conservatives tend to at best misunderstand and more typically not understand at all:
"Ignorance is bliss"
What's worse is they're also prone to the "we've always been at war with eurasia" and five minutes of hate and they never recognize it.
Correct! The character was entirely meant to be a ridiculous spoof of conservative talking heads, and neither Colbert nor his writers were subtle about it at all; from "truthiness" to his over the top interviews to his skewering of the press corps during the Correspondent's dinner.
And yet.
its the result of gamers enclosing themselves in a metaphorical pillow fort of media, information, and socialization that never challenges their preconceptions, and never presents a dilemma that isn't immediately solved by either fantastical deus ex machina or by self-affirming righteous violence
the world is infuriating and terrifying and alien to a brittle mind conditioned to respond only to a virtual orgasm of lights and sounds at the press of a button. gamers aren't angry, they're lost dogs; bewildered and confused in a world where there's no yellow paint directing them towards humanity
It definitely takes a special kind of ignorance to protest 'politics' in games when queer folk and women aren't marginalised before booting up 'Call Of Duty: Military Industrial Fetish Plus 5 HD' and gunning down turrists for hours.
Above all emotional maturity skills, self-reflection and self-analysis in order to prevent such blindnesses is near the bottom of the list for these folks
Not just in exposure to it, but also cultivation of it.
the windows 60% minimum and 80% maximum according to my calculations of being a bitter angry cynic but even with my bias removed it doesnt narrow as much as you think
