Current Events > Goosebumps to be rewritten with more sensitivity

(+) Yeah! (+)

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As a fat kid growing up and loving Goosebumps. I was never once offended by a character being described as plump.

Theres a big difference in using cheerful than plump to describe someones appearance.

God dammit. There was nothing wrong with the language in those books.

I think the creator is allowed to change his work if he wants. So this isn't exactly the same thing as the other cases.

What a dipshit

I already have the full series and have passed them on to my kid, who is loving them. Guess he'll grow up to be an asshole now

I don't like being scared, can I have a version where everything is all sunshine and rainbows?

Okay.

I'm torn. On one hand, he's the author so he can do whatever the hell he wants with his works.

On the other, this revisionist stuff feels cheap.

Dang, he really went from a six chin fat fuck to a six foot giga Chad

Turbam posted...

Dang, he really went from a six chin fat fuck to a six foot giga Chad

this, this change is offensive to all the fat fucks out there

Damn_Underscore posted...

this, this change is offensive to all the fat fucks out there

*cheerful fucks

NCloud posted...

Nobody's disputing that he can. It's the fact that he feels compelled to do so that is nuclear cringe.

DOES he?

Just the ones he wrote or the ones that clearly had ghost writers as well?

Sales of old Goosebumps books are about to shoot through the roof! RL Stine is a marketing genius, he knows reactionary chuds are gonna start reflexively buying a shit load of children's books for a series they haven't even thought about in decades.

I have no problem with this

Is there any celebrity reaction videos or twitter outrages I can peruse while dropping a log

Weird how many of these stories are popping up. Wonder if somebody has created a company dedicated to assessing "risk" and recommendations and has been really successful in selling their bullshit.

- Announce that you're making changes to your books
- Sit back and watch certain types swarm to buy your books before they "become woke"
- After the money rolls in, announce that you've changed your mind and won't be making changes after all

Works every time.

So it's pretty clear the people and companies doing this just want their stuff to be relevant again and squeeze as many sales out as possible. Which makes the whole thing even more stupid.

These are literally books for kids, of course they want to keep them relevant. Their readers grow up and adults aren't buying Goosebumps books

Dat_Cracka_Jax posted...

I already have the full series and have passed them on to my kid, who is loving them. Guess he'll grow up to be an asshole now

chillax drama queen

A shit ton of people grew up on Goosebumps so if your kid turns out to be an asshole sack o' shit it sounds like a you problem

MacadamianNut3 posted...

chillax drama queen

A shit ton of people grew up on Goosebumps so if your kid turns out to be an asshole sack o' shit it sounds like a you problem

whoosh

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

No that won't happen.

@DKBananaSlamma

Please I beg of you do not say anything about this girl ever again.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/2/4/AAfRsCAAEP4Y.jpg

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute."

Yeah if they can just get rid of all the scary stuff too, thats be great.

s0nicfan posted...

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute."

"Except for the ones still available in book stores, libraries, and sold online."

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/2/8/AAfRsCAAEP4c.jpg

A_Good_Boy posted...

"Except for the ones still available in book stores, libraries, and sold online."

How many instances of books being rewritten for sensitivity would it even take for someone like you to acknowledge it's a pattern? Or do you just not care because you agree with it?

creativerealms posted...

I think the creator is allowed to change his work if he wants. So this isn't exactly the same thing as the other cases.

Wasn't there a South Park episode about this?

Poorly posted...

@DKBananaSlamma

Please I beg of you do not say anything about this girl ever again.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/2/4/AAfRsCAAEP4Y.jpg

i dont even know who that is <_<

s0nicfan posted...

How many instances of books being rewritten for sensitivity would it even take for someone like you to acknowledge it's a pattern? Or do you just not care because you agree with it?

I just don't care because the original books are still available and aren't going anywhere. Who cares if some author want to rewrite his stories? It's just a marketing ploy to drum sales from reactionary consumers that weren't thinking about buying these books for decades already. Why would I allow myself to fall for that? You certainly weren't going to buy any Goosebumps books any time soon, are you now gonna go and purchase as many as you can just because of this news?

Smh at the pro censorship losers

DKBananaSlamma posted...

i dont even know who that is <_<

And it should stay that way for eternity.

who is that?

A_Good_Boy posted...

I just don't care because the original books are still available and aren't going anywhere. Who cares if some author want to rewrite his stories? It's just a marketing ploy to drum sales from reactionary consumers that weren't thinking about buying these books for decades already. Why would I allow myself to fall for that? You certainly weren't going to buy any Goosebumps books any time soon, are you now gonna go and purchase as many as you can just because of this news?

No, but I'm also not going to pretend that an out of print version of a book with the original language is the same as that version still being in active circulation. Claiming the old version still exists is a cop out, it's a way of avoiding acknowledging that books are being rewritten for sensitivity in the first place and gives you a nice warm fuzzy that everything's still the same. If someone who didn't read all those books goes out and wants to buy a copy, they're going to get the edited one because most people don't go to old and used book stores to find older prints of books in the first place. They just buy the one on the shelf. And the one on the shelf is going to be the one with edits, and I sincerely doubt there's going to be a big label on the cover that says "new edited version for sensitivities". They're just going to treat it like it's the book, and people who pick it up and read it will never know. That's the point.

This is just "radio edit" for literature.
Bowdler was doing this centuries ago. Hell, the concept is even named after him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bowdler

s0nicfan posted...

No, but I'm also not going to pretend that an out of print version of a book with the original language is the same as that version still being in active circulation. Claiming the old version still exists is a cop out, it's a way of avoiding acknowledging that books are being rewritten for sensitivity in the first place and gives you a nice warm fuzzy that everything's still the same. If someone who didn't read all those books goes out and wants to buy a copy, they're going to get the edited one because most people don't go to old and used book stores to find older prints of books in the first place. They just buy the one on the shelf. And the one on the shelf is going to be the one with edits, and I sincerely doubt there's going to be a big label on the cover that says "new edited version for sensitivities". They're just going to treat it like it's the book, and people who pick it up and read it will never know. That's the point.

Sure, that's absolutely true. But who cares? Outrage over political nonsense is a choice, and there are better choices to make than getting mad about a children's book. Just go back to not buying this book too like you didn't buy the older versions. These edits don't even have a significance on the plot or the story of the books anyways.

I'm so outraged about this change to a children's book series that I haven't read in over 20 years

A_Good_Boy posted...

Sure, that's absolutely true. But who cares? Outrage over political nonsense is a choice, and there are better choices to make than getting mad about a children's book. Just go back to not buying this book too like you didn't buy the older versions. These edits don't even have a significance on the plot or the story of the books anyways.

I owned the original versions. Maybe you misread my reply earlier. They're probably still in a box somewhere. What I'm not going to do is go out and rebuy them or buy the new ones.

But again, all you're trying to do is convince me that this isn't actually a problem. You thought I didn't own them and you tell me I wasn't going to buy them. Now that I've said I do own them, you're just going to tell me I can always go back to the copies I have. Every angle leads to you basically saying that this isn't a problem, even though as I've already stated the problem is with the new copies that other people are going to buy in the future, not the fact that I have an out of print version which may one day wear down to the point where it falls apart.

I disagree. I think it's bad, I think whether companies are doing it as a marketing gimmick or not, it's only succeeding because we aren't collectively saying this is awful what the hell are you doing to publishers that try it. At no point should we ever as a society just be cool with literature being rewritten and put back on the shelves as if it's the original with the language edited for modern sensitivities.

s0nicfan posted...

I owned the original versions. Maybe you misread my reply earlier. They're probably still in a box somewhere. What I'm not going to do is go out and rebuy them or buy the new ones.

But again, all you're trying to do is convince me that this isn't actually a problem. You thought I didn't own them and you tell me I wasn't going to buy them. Now that I've said I do own them, you're just going to tell me I can always go back to the copies I have. Every angle leads to you basically saying that this isn't a problem, even though as I've already stated the problem is with the new copies that other people are going to buy in the future, not the fact that I have an out of print version which may one day wear down to the point where it falls apart.

I disagree. I think it's bad, I think whether companies are doing it as a marketing gimmick or not, it's only succeeding because we aren't collectively saying this is awful what the hell are you doing to publishers that try it. At no point should we ever as a society just be cool with literature being rewritten and put back on the shelves as if it's the original with the language edited for modern sensitivities.

I'm only trying to convince you it isn't a problem because it's not a problem. It's not like it's some old Merry Melodies cartoon where the books are just gone and wiped from existence because they no longer fit modern sensibilities. The stories are still there - no matter which version you read you're still going to read about a Summer Camp gone wrong, you're still going to read about where it turns out the protagonist and his family were really vampires the whole entire time, and you're still going to have stories where kids are chased by a maniacal mask on Halloween. Who cares if adjectives surrounding ancillary details get changed? Is the book no longer corny because a character was changed to a dark skinned lad instead of an African American? Is a characters oafishness any different because they're now tall instead of obese?

Who gives a shit? You're still getting the same story, and if it matter so much to you then you still have the books in your box available somewhere ready for you to read whenever you actually care to, which you actually don't.

A_Good_Boy posted...

I'm only trying to convince you it isn't a problem because it's not a problem. It's not like it's some old Merry Melodies cartoon where the books are just gone and wiped from existence because they no longer fit modern sensibilities. The stories are still there - no matter which version you read you're still going to read about a Summer Camp gone wrong, you're still going to read about where it turns out the protagonist and his family were really vampires the whole entire time, and you're still going to have stories where kids are chased by a maniacal mask on Halloween. Who cares if adjectives surrounding ancillary details get changed? Is the book no longer corny because a character was changed to a dark skinned lad instead of an African American? Is a characters oafishness any different because they're now tall instead of obese?

Who gives a shit? You're still getting the same story, and if it matter so much to you then you still have the books in your box available somewhere ready for you to read whenever you actually care to, which you actually don't.

At least acknowledge in abstract: is it a good thing or a bad thing that stories are being rewritten and put on the shelf without any kind of indicator to soften the language that's being used? Regardless of whether you think it's a big deal or not, since we're not going to agree, I would ask that you at least give me the courtesy of acknowledging that the thing that you don't think is a big deal is still negative, just a small negative in your mind.