Current Events > Is anyone else sick of all the poltitcs talk in the media and online?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Holy hell I don't remember it ever being this bad in the past. CNN is basically a dedicated politics channel now and even the nightly news on NBC, ABC, etc is full of politics. Online is just as bad. Who cares about this crap day in and day out??
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politics, entertainment, and the circus have all meshed into 1 these days, so it makes sense why they only cover 1 topic
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I've always been sick of it. It's literally a bunch of rich dudes in suits lying to you while the real shit goes on in the background.
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It's a sign that the government has too much power and influence over our lives. People wouldn't care so much if that wasn't the case
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I'm sick of people not using the politics flair on CE.
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Twitter used to be remotely enjoyable, now it's become Facebook Lite.

Too many people who think they can change the world just by tweeting like the people who actually did
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DanHarenChamp posted...

politics, entertainment, and the circus have all meshed into 1 these days, so it makes sense why they only cover 1 topic

This is a great point actually. Everything has to be a statement. I think it's why I'm enjoying video games more these days than I did five or ten years ago. They are a great escape.
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shanefu22 posted...

DanHarenChamp posted...

politics, entertainment, and the circus have all meshed into 1 these days, so it makes sense why they only cover 1 topic

This is a great point actually. Everything has to be a statement. I think it's why I'm enjoying video games more these days than I did five or ten years ago. They are a great escape.

Because you believe they are apolitical?

They're not. It's increasingly apparent they never were. You just don't notice that, because on the whole their politics have largely always agreed with yours, so there's no friction there.

And ham-handed or not, the current media climate is making it increasingly difficult for people to claim ignorance for their missteps. We can skip the hand-wringing about intent and move right to the more useful and in-depth conversations that actually change how people think about stuff.
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hollow_shrine posted...

shanefu22 posted...

DanHarenChamp posted...

politics, entertainment, and the circus have all meshed into 1 these days, so it makes sense why they only cover 1 topic

This is a great point actually. Everything has to be a statement. I think it's why I'm enjoying video games more these days than I did five or ten years ago. They are a great escape.

Because you believe they are apolitical?

They're not. It's increasingly apparent they never were. You just don't notice that, because on the whole their politics have largely always agreed with yours, so there's no friction there.

And ham-handed or not, the current media climate is making it increasingly difficult for people to claim ignorance for their missteps. We can skip the hand-wringing about intent and move right to the more useful and in-depth conversations that actually change how people think about stuff.

Relax. I'm sure he's referring to stuff like Mario and high fantasy games
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hollow_shrine posted...

shanefu22 posted...

DanHarenChamp posted...

politics, entertainment, and the circus have all meshed into 1 these days, so it makes sense why they only cover 1 topic

This is a great point actually. Everything has to be a statement. I think it's why I'm enjoying video games more these days than I did five or ten years ago. They are a great escape.

Because you believe they are apolitical?

They're not. It's increasingly apparent they never were. You just don't notice that, because on the whole their politics have largely always agreed with yours, so there's no friction there.

And ham-handed or not, the current media climate is making it increasingly difficult for people to claim ignorance for their missteps. We can skip the hand-wringing about intent and move right to the more useful and in-depth conversations that actually change how people think about stuff.

Wut... Politics are the last thing on my mind when I'm playing RDR2 or GoW.

You're right about the media though. It's repulsive.
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most places I spend significant amounts of time online are relatively free of political talk. you just need to find the right places and the right people. venturing into the wider realm of twitter is basically just a recipe to annoy yourself
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Chicken posted...

I've always been sick of it. It's literally a bunch of rich dudes in suits lying to you while the real shit goes on in the background.

QFT
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kirbymuncher posted...

most places I spend significant amounts of time online are relatively free of political talk. you just need to find the right places and the right people. venturing into the wider realm of twitter is basically just a recipe to annoy yourself

Depends. I mainly follow voice actors on Twitter and for some it seems that they interlaced their usual enjoyable Tweets with @Trump ones

That keyword filter they have in the app is so fucking useful
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shanefu22 posted...

Wut... Politics are the last thing on my mind when I'm playing RDR2 or GoW.

You're right about the media though. It's repulsive.

The first thing on my mind when I play anything set in the southern United States in the 1800s are the racial politics of the era. I can't help but pay attention to that, and it's treatment in the media I consume, because it was so visceral.

So lets jump back a handful of weeks when RDR2 drops, and hours later on twitter we're seeing videos of players cackling while throwing a Molotov cocktail into a middle of Klan gathering to the expected fireworks. I see this and I'm immediately aware that game is trying to comment on one aspect of the era's racial politics but only the part you can murder, and only through the lends of revenge fantasy.

In many ways punching Nazis, or in this case Klansmen, are the least challenging aspects of talking about racism in pre-progressive America, because almost everyone agrees that the Klan is bad. They're little more than acceptable targets of violence for the player's schadenfreude. 'Test your magnifying glass out on these ants.' The acceptable target of violence in interactive media is a whole other discourse fraught with political implications, but I clearly can't follow that tangent here.

Suffice to say the content acknowledges the existence of a certain kind of injustice and empowers the player to engage in a heroic bit of historical revisionism. But this does little to address the more constant and pervasive expressions of racial injustice present at the time, stuff that is generally more contentious to discuss that you can't necessarily punch in the face, and the kind of racial injustice whose echos are more likely to relevant in the lives of people living today.

That skims a single political topic that's kind of inescapable in the decision to locate RDR2 where we have geographically and temporally. And there are other topics here to be explored politics all over what the game does and doesn't say. The Randian superman in the western protagonist. Reconciling the 'honorable south narratives' of the genre with our improving awareness Americnan historical revisionism.
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hollow_shrine posted...

shanefu22 posted...

Wut... Politics are the last thing on my mind when I'm playing RDR2 or GoW.

You're right about the media though. It's repulsive.

The first thing on my mind when I play anything set in the southern United States in the 1800s are the racial politics of the era. I can't help but pay attention to that, and it's treatment in the media I consume, because it was so visceral.

So lets jump back a handful of weeks when RDR2 drops, and hours later on twitter we're seeing videos of players cackling while throwing a Molotov cocktail into a middle of Klan gathering to the expected fireworks. I see this and I'm immediately aware that game is trying to comment on one aspect of the era's racial politics but only the part you can murder, and only through the lends of revenge fantasy.

In many ways punching Nazis, or in this case Klansmen, are the least challenging aspects of talking about racism in pre-progressive America, because almost everyone agrees that the Klan is bad. They're little more than acceptable targets of violence for the player's schadenfreude. 'Test your magnifying glass out on these ants.' The acceptable target of violence in interactive media is a whole other discourse fraught with political implications, but I clearly can't follow that tangent here.

Suffice to say the content acknowledges the existence of a certain kind of injustice and empowers the player to engage in a heroic bit of historical revisionism. But this does little to address the more constant and pervasive expressions of racial injustice present at the time, stuff that is generally more contentious to discuss that you can't necessarily punch in the face, and the kind of racial injustice whose echos are more likely to relevant in the lives of people living today.

That skims a single political topic that's kind of inescapable in the decision to locate RDR2 where we have geographically and temporally. And there are other topics here to be explored politics all over what the game does and doesn't say. The Randian superman in the western protagonist. Reconciling the 'honorable south narratives' of the genre with our improving awareness Americnan historical revisionism.

Holy hell!
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I suppose if you want to just turn your brain off and binge watch media, there are still shows for that. And games. But let's not pretend those pieces are media are without their politics.
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Yeah.

I jump into political discussions much less frequently than I used to. I still do it, but I ignore most of them.
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Literally everything is political in some way
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Doom_Art posted...

Literally everything is political in some way

Yeah. I think its unfortunate that is todays affairs. I used to be able to play WoW without ever hearing one word on politics. Now thats 80% of the discussion on /4.
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Nomadic View posted...

Yeah. I think its unfortunate that is todays affairs

Everything has to do with politics and always has in some way.

Probably because politics plays a role in just about everything

I think it's great people are talking about it more and are more engaged
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