The Culture War Thread

[Potato]

I think @JacquesHoerrida has to be trolling there, otherwise the irony is very stiff

[benjipwns]

Nearly two dozen graduate students at the University of Southern Maine are demanding their education professor be replaced after the professor allegedly said only two biological sexes exist.

The students said professor Christy Hammer’s remarks were inaccurate and transphobic.

After all but one student walked out of Hammer’s class on Sept. 14 in protest, they demanded a facilitated restorative justice meeting between the 22 students and their professor.

They got it, but, according to students, Hammer maintained her position saying non-binary biological sex designations are merely variations on male and female. Now they want Hammer gone.

...

“I want her to do some diversity training at least — or just retire,” said student Elizabeth Leibiger, who plans to become a high school English teacher.

...

Leibiger, who is non-binary, was absent from class that week but learned about the incident from classmates. When Leibiger arrived for the next class, on Sept. 14, they immediately brought up the discussion again.

“I asked [Hammer] how many sexes there were,” Leibiger said. “She said, ‘Two.’ I felt under personal attack.”

Leibiger then gathered their things and walked out of class because they no longer felt respected.

“I let her know I didn’t think she was qualified to teach a class about positive learning environments,” Leibiger said. “It’s the ultimate irony.”

After leaving class, Leibiger stopped in Bailey Hall’s lobby where all but one of their classmates joined them after the group also walked out of Hammer’s class.

The students then drafted a letter to the school of Education and Human Development, asking for a facilitated restorative justice meeting with their professor and the single student who agreed with her.

“We thought she was just speaking from a place of ignorance, not hate,” Leibiger said.

The meeting took place Wednesday, and the sole student who had disagreed reportedly apologized to classmates. But Hammer maintained her position on the binary nature of sex.

“I went in very optimistic, but at the end of the three hour session it felt like we weren’t listened to,” said Lombardi, who plans to teach high school science.

Lombardi said he wasn’t sure if he and his classmates would show up to the next scheduled class on Oct. 5 if university administrators didn’t agree to replace Hammer. But he’s hoping it will happen.

“Knowing in my heart, as a teacher, that I always want to have my ears open to what my students are saying, and then not have that reciprocated — it was very frustrating,” Lombardi said.

[benjipwns]

 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

[close]

[Nintex]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

 

[D3RANG3D]

 

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/mattxiv/status/1577625418848501760

[benjipwns]

[Nintex]

The cutting your hair in support of Iran has got to be the most cringe and useless shitlib slacktivism since #Kony2012 
https://twitter.com/rubenbrekelmans/status/1578296312646184960

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/DailyLoud/status/1578448912527958016

 

[Pissy F Benny]

IN FAIRNESS, if Lizzo did an Adele and lost loads of weight some psycho fatty boom batty would most probably try killing her, those bitches are fucking nuts

[HaughtyFrank]

Ok I'm back to thinking Kanye is just trolling around

https://twitter.com/kanyestreams1/status/1578593887945658369

https://twitter.com/kanyewest/status/1578620714000605184

[Nintex]

"It's called we do a little trolling"

https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1578182761361252352

[Pissy F Benny]

I thought he'd stopped swearing or has he dropped the hardcore jesus shit

[Nintex]

That's also part of it
https://twitter.com/ColumbiaBugle/status/1578175559603212288

[benjipwns]

[HaughtyFrank]

I can always count on Benji depressing me with his finds

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/DelanoSquires/status/1577851990872301569

At first, I was against it but then she said "come in the jacuzzi, gerrymander this coochie" and now

[benjipwns]

 

[BIONIC]

FAAP

[Phoenix Dark]

https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1579217335533338624

[Nintex]

Nothing more alpha than a poorly framed vlog and a squeaky Australian accent 

[Phoenix Dark]

https://twitter.com/gvaughnjoy/status/1578724399884427264

There's certainly something to be said of much of the reactionary right's most popular bits (Gamergate, woke Disney, woke comics, etc) being about media for children. Not to pull a "both sides" card but even expanding to the left, there is a similar obsession with media for children. Superhero movies, fantasy prequels, videogame characters. Within the last week we've had an introduction of Happy Meals for adults at McDonalds, and grown men/women on the internet complaining about a Super Mario movie trailer. Plus grown men and women arguing over the merits of a lesbian Velma and black Shaggy.

Not to mention the weird fact that self described alpha men spend so much time focused entirely on these frivolous things and get visibly upset when Adult Things are added to their favorite kid media shit. 

[Uncle]

you could argue that a desire for comic books and easily defined heroes and villains is a desire to go back to childhood, the "good old days," back when things were better, i.e. conservatism

but you can also argue that tons of effort is going into these products to NOT make them the good old days, women and minorities aren't allowed to not kick ass, much broader selection of cultures and sexualities on display, themes more in line with liberal values

but at the end of the day they're about making tons of money from people who stare slack-jawed at the pretty lights, i.e. conservatism

[Polident Hive]

Alan Moore is a GOAT misanthrope but he’s hit on something here. Any nuance gets flattened to fit back into these simple mindsets.

I don’t blame media. Not exactly. Think it’s social networks supporting these mentalities. Nobody gets an audience on social networks by being rational. If they were, they step out once, get a buzz from all the attention, and adjust to feed that hit. That’s before talking about the insidious way studios bet on all this. It’s all a cycle.

About conservatism, divorced from politics. Nerdsfolk have lost the plot years ago by making this all political. Same people mad about the Transformers movies, Superman, Devil May Cry, et al. being different from their childhood, lacking any self awareness or introspection, called others mad about Ghostbusters or whatever, sexist and racist. That shit led to the mess going on now. Conflating two different things, you drove them together, which is the social network problem again. Republicans ranting about banal shit like a Step by Step reboot with a black Frank Lambert, it’s a consequence of blending those ideas.

There’s absolutely an element of racism and sexism involved. Just that it wasn’t the primary motivation, until it was. Two examples. The Rocky reboot-of-sorts Creed came out in 2015. Nobody complained about Michael B Jordan taking over the franchise. Successful in every respect. Couple years back, a reboot of Buffy with a black lead was planned. Guess which people were mad about that one.

[Potato]

Nothing more alpha than a poorly framed vlog and a squeaky Australian accent 

Or a fat fuck in a poorly fitting shirt.


Edit: Isn't the whole concept of an "alpha male" is that you are so above everyone else in the pecking order that it's impossible to be persecuted?


What a fucking tool...

[benjipwns]

Alan Moore is a GOAT misanthrope but he’s hit on something here. Any nuance gets flattened to fit back into these simple mindsets.

Alan knows where it leads because he's the GOAT misanthrope. His argument against "deconstruction" in comics (ala Watchmen) was that nobody would do the necessary reconstruction after the fact (ala Supreme) and it would lead to an amoral mess where everyone missed the point. (As a result, the modern comic writer is almost too obsessed with reconstruction.)

Being a comics fan and so having seen how this played out this already thirty years ago in comics I can't help but notice the same "social justice" deconstruction in politics and media is leading to the same place. Constant tearing down of everything, never rebuilding after. Since everything is now racist/transphobic/whatever there is no "solution" but the endless cycle of pointing these things out (even if they must be inferred from nothing) with a standard lament that there can't be a solution until the utopia begins.

My critique of the gender identity nonsense is similar, we all deconstructed gender as a social construct (a fine goal), with nothing left to deconstruct there the people coming to it now are either being reactionary and seeking to impose their personal construct of how they want their personal gender based on outdated social constructs to be perceived (to shorthand for having a personality) on everyone or moving on to try and deconstruct the related idea of sex. Ironically, much like with how it happened in comics, I suspect the masses actually are fine with the original deconstruction conceptually and have actually accepted its tenets more regularly than the perpetually deconstructionist "radicals" assume.

edit: I blame Foucault partially, not because of anything he actually did, but because he's taught and accepted into the canon in a way that nobody ever seems to realize that once he got to the answers he wanted (power is everything so any use of power for good is justified, men are naturally perverts so everything should be focused towards pleasuring men sexually, etc.) he stopped deconstructing and declared truth and reality to be found.

[benjipwns]

[HaughtyFrank]

https://twitter.com/gvaughnjoy/status/1578724399884427264

There's certainly something to be said of much of the reactionary right's most popular bits (Gamergate, woke Disney, woke comics, etc) being about media for children. Not to pull a "both sides" card but even expanding to the left, there is a similar obsession with media for children. Superhero movies, fantasy prequels, videogame characters. Within the last week we've had an introduction of Happy Meals for adults at McDonalds, and grown men/women on the internet complaining about a Super Mario movie trailer. Plus grown men and women arguing over the merits of a lesbian Velma and black Shaggy.

Not to mention the weird fact that self described alpha men spend so much time focused entirely on these frivolous things and get visibly upset when Adult Things are added to their favorite kid media shit.

South Park had a similar idea with their "Member Berries" storyline. There is kind of an obsession over nostalgic things being revived or repackaged that has been growing over the last decade and it's this battleground between the left wanting to change these things to become modern, and to correct the wrongs of the past (though if a Black Ariel can really "undo" a racist legacy is kind of questionable to me https://www.upworthy.com/disney-black-ariel-representation) and the right who wants to keep the stuff from their childhood just as they were because they don't like the way the world is changing.
I also wonder if those people kind of believe that media is shaping our world and not the other way around, and that's why they're fighting so hard over every little thing

[james]

My favorite was a comment about how the new Scooby Doo will have bad writing.

Motherfuckers think Scooby Doo, which copy and pasted the script 100 times is good writing.

The gang arrives at spooky house. Spooky ghost appears. Gang runs around, falls through trap doors, extended scene of them running with the background repeating 12 times. At the end they discover that it was the groundskeeper Old Man Willy, who was behind it all along.

Their minds are so tiny they didnt pick up on every episode being the same.

[Phoenix Dark]

My favorite was a comment about how the new Scooby Doo will have bad writing.

Motherfuckers think Scooby Doo, which copy and pasted the script 100 times is good writing.

The gang arrives at spooky house. Spooky ghost appears. Gang runs around, falls through trap doors, extended scene of them running with the background repeating 12 times. At the end they discover that it was the groundskeeper Old Man Willy, who was behind it all along.

Their minds are so tiny they didnt pick up on every episode being the same.

Makes sense when you realize the only thing in their pitch was lesbian Velma, black Shaggy. That's it, that's all that matters. Because reviving IPs solely by changing genders or sexuality is the marketing goal. That show got so much free publicity this weekend, vs the crickets you'd hear for a standard Scooby remake with some adult themes but the same races/sexuality. This is why I don't get being mad about it, beyond the laziness. But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

[Uncle]

pitbull scooby or we riot

[Uncle]

But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

[Cauliflower Of Love]

pitbull scooby or we riot

ok, colin.

[james]

My favorite was a comment about how the new Scooby Doo will have bad writing.

Motherfuckers think Scooby Doo, which copy and pasted the script 100 times is good writing.

The gang arrives at spooky house. Spooky ghost appears. Gang runs around, falls through trap doors, extended scene of them running with the background repeating 12 times. At the end they discover that it was the groundskeeper Old Man Willy, who was behind it all along.

Their minds are so tiny they didnt pick up on every episode being the same.

Makes sense when you realize the only thing in their pitch was lesbian Velma, black Shaggy. That's it, that's all that matters. Because reviving IPs solely by changing genders or sexuality is the marketing goal. That show got so much free publicity this weekend, vs the crickets you'd hear for a standard Scooby remake with some adult themes but the same races/sexuality. This is why I don't get being mad about it, beyond the laziness. But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

The thing is, the 39 other scooby doo revivals didnt do anything special, or when they did, they amde things worse (ex, scrappy doo)

At least an Indian Velma + Black Shaggy opens up story lines where the cops accuse them of being the criminals and they most certainly dont get free run of the abandoned power plant

But yeah, end of the day, if youre a 20+ man complaining about a childrens TV show you need to be in jail

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

spoiler (click to show/hide)

why can I only find the italian dub of this scene on youtube? Cancel culture?

[close]

[Phoenix Dark]

But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

I'm not sure what impact or harm lesbian Velma and black Shaggy have on kids. I'm gonna say zero. I haven't read much on this beyond the swaps so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be for adults (lol) but I assume not right.

[GreatSageEqualOfHeaven]

pitbull scooby or we riot

Rissa Rorlride

[james]

But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

I'm not sure what impact or harm lesbian Velma and black Shaggy have on kids. I'm gonna say zero. I haven't read much on this beyond the swaps so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be for adults (lol) but I assume not right.

Its supposed to be an R rated show, but its airing on HBO Max not Cartoon Network

Its no different than having a kid-focused Batman cartoon and then crap like the Joker

[Phoenix Dark]

But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

I'm not sure what impact or harm lesbian Velma and black Shaggy have on kids. I'm gonna say zero. I haven't read much on this beyond the swaps so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be for adults (lol) but I assume not right.

Its supposed to be an R rated show, but its airing on HBO Max not Cartoon Network

Its no different than having a kid-focused Batman cartoon and then crap like the Joker

Ohhh I see.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

I'm not sure what impact or harm lesbian Velma and black Shaggy have on kids. I'm gonna say zero. I haven't read much on this beyond the swaps so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be for adults (lol) but I assume not right.

Its supposed to be an R rated show, but its airing on HBO Max not Cartoon Network

Its no different than having a kid-focused Batman cartoon and then crap like the Joker

[james]

But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

I'm not sure what impact or harm lesbian Velma and black Shaggy have on kids. I'm gonna say zero. I haven't read much on this beyond the swaps so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be for adults (lol) but I assume not right.

Its supposed to be an R rated show, but its airing on HBO Max not Cartoon Network

Its no different than having a kid-focused Batman cartoon and then crap like the Joker

If you are a parent and you let your child watch the Joker you should go to jail. Its borderline child abuse to let someone with a developing mind watch something so boring.

[Nintex]

To me it seems like most people fighting the culture war don't even know why they are fighting it anymore except for the grift

Tucker Carlson doesn't honestly believe that tanning your balls make you more manly but that's where the money is.
Everyone knows that wind mills, burning trees and most cheap solar panels fucking suck as an energy source but that's where the money is.

The guys coming in now like Nick Adams are too late. Trump, BLM, Peterson, Obama etc. got the best catch because they figured there was money in this way before anyone else did. 
You see it with the shows now too. The first 'woke' shows were a big hit. Now they're getting cancelled left and right.

[james]

Nintex please provide a sourced link of woke shows being cancelled left and right and a sourced link of older woke shows that werent.

[Nintex]

https://tvline.com/2022/06/24/woke-cancelled-season-3-hulu/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/02/meghans-netflix-cancellation-shows-woke-streaming-bubble-has/

https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/netflix-culture-memo-update-censorship-spending-1235264904/

https://nofilmschool.com/lack-of-diversity-at-hbo

etc. etc.

[james]

Wow a random ass show was cancelled that never happens.

Please provide a regression model showing that increased percentage of woke content correlated with an increased likelihood of cancellation if you insist on making that claim.

Here is a small sample of recently cancelled shows to help in your model:

Star Trek: Picard
Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol
I Know What You Did Last Summer
American Rust
Flatbush Misdemeanors
Snowpiercer
Locke & Key
Cooking With Paris
The Endgame
Ordinary Joe
Dollface
Motherland: Fort Salem
Bridge and Tunnel
Dynasty
4400
Good Sam
Magnum P.I
How We Roll
Beyoond the Edge

[Pissy F Benny]

All woke

[Nintex]

Wow a random ass show was cancelled that never happens.

Please provide a regression model showing that increased percentage of woke content correlated with an increased likelihood of cancellation if you insist on making that claim.

Here is a small sample of recently cancelled shows to help in your model:

Star Trek: Picard
Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol
I Know What You Did Last Summer
American Rust
Flatbush Misdemeanors
Snowpiercer
Locke & Key
Cooking With Paris
The Endgame
Ordinary Joe
Dollface
Motherland: Fort Salem
Bridge and Tunnel
Dynasty
4400
Good Sam
Magnum P.I
How We Roll
Beyoond the Edge

I'm not doing your college paper for you.

Remember you are the finance chair, the numbers guy. I just show up to entertain the crowd.

[Phoenix Dark]

To me it seems like most people fighting the culture war don't even know why they are fighting it anymore except for the grift

Tucker Carlson doesn't honestly believe that tanning your balls make you more manly but that's where the money is.
Everyone knows that wind mills, burning trees and most cheap solar panels fucking suck as an energy source but that's where the money is.

The guys coming in now like Nick Adams are too late. Trump, BLM, Peterson, Obama etc. got the best catch because they figured there was money in this way before anyone else did. 
You see it with the shows now too. The first 'woke' shows were a big hit. Now they're getting cancelled left and right.

I'd love to be in a writing room and push back on some of it just to see the reactions. Because a lot of this is coming from white creatives and frankly I don't think it is benefitting black people because black stories aren't being told. Ariel being black has zero impact on the story.

It's just lazy. If we're not getting some weird black trauma shit it's a "remember when you were slaves" movie (Will Smith's Emancipation, in theaters soon) or "remember when you didn't have civil rights" movie (Till, in hteaters soon) movie. Mix in some random race swaps in established IPs and you got a whole lot of bullshit.

If there was ever a time for a Scary Movie-type spoof on this shit it would be now.

[james]

Nintex couldnt source a coffee even if he was holding the bag

 

[Nintex]

to be fair a bunch of conservative shit (mainly their replacement services) are falling apart too

https://twitter.com/litcapital/status/1579516346542743552

[Cauliflower Of Love]

But even being mad about that is weird and goes back to the "this is for children, you idiot" point I made earlier.

we should care even more deeply if it's being made for children and will leave an indelible mark on impressionable young minds and normalize it or something

I'm not sure what impact or harm lesbian Velma and black Shaggy have on kids. I'm gonna say zero. I haven't read much on this beyond the swaps so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be for adults (lol) but I assume not right.

Its supposed to be an R rated show, but its airing on HBO Max not Cartoon Network

Its no different than having a kid-focused Batman cartoon and then crap like the Joker

If you are a parent and you let your child watch the Joker you should go to jail. Its borderline child abuse to let someone with a developing mind watch something so boring.

I hope you don't have kids then.

[james]

Theyre cancelling the Los Angeles City Council President

[Phoenix Dark]

Theyre cancelling the Los Angeles City Council President

For *looks up* being racist as fuck.

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1579264371443712000

[Uncle]

Nintex please provide a sourced link of woke shows being cancelled left and right and a soruced link of odler woke shows that werent.

I do feel like to some extent this is something that can be intuited without needing to write a term paper

CW's DC is in tatters, it started out strong and designed for general audiences and then became lesbian batwoman and queer black batwoman which rapidly face planted along with the rest of their superhero shows

I'm not saying representation is bad, just that it was incredibly obvious pandering to an audience they thought was there but then didn't show up

this during a time when superheroes should be doing better than ever, people can't get enough of em

[Uncle]

there was an episode that came out only two years ago where a waiter at a restaurant came over to batwoman's table to ask her and her girlfriend to leave implying he was bigoted so in revenge she decided to use bruce's fortune to open a gay nightclub across the street

which is, ironically, the exact sort of thing the penguin would do:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

the show was incredible and it's a travesty we lost it
 

[james]

I do feel like to some extent this is something that can be intuited without needing to write a term paper

CW's DC is in tatters

The CW in general is in tatters. They cancelled everything and sold themselves to a shit company.

Presumably Dynasty wasnt woke and that got axed, as did the 4400

[benjipwns]

At least an Indian Velma + Black Shaggy opens up story lines where the cops accuse them of being the criminals and they most certainly dont get free run of the abandoned power plant

Honestly, there's a whole lot of due process questions raised by Scooby-Doo.

[benjipwns]

"Rrue Rroccess?"
"Like, I don't know, Scoobs. Let's get out of here!"

[Polident Hive]

A tell of how parody and reality are indistinguishable, wasn’t there a story about changing scoob’s special in a smash bros game from phoning the police to something else?

[james]

what have you been smoking where you have played as scooby in smash bros