Anonymity, identity, implications, and solutions

[ericv00]

Of course there is. But trying to identify those people by quizzing them on the subject matter of the community is silly cause there is no correlation between bad actors in the community and people who don't know things about the community. Some of the most toxic people I've encountered in fandoms knew a good bit about the subject itself

I'm pretty sure the idea, though, is not to oust people who answer a question wrong. It is to determine the level of understanding of the material and community, and thus have an understanding of how they 'rank' in the fandom, community, or what have you.

From there, members of the community will have a measure of the weight input of the person should be afforded within the community.

I might have a LOT of ideas on how the Harry Potter lore should be changed for "improvements", but if I don't understand the intricacies around Dumbledore's death, I would expect the fans to waive my suggestions away with little effort. My understanding of the material effects my standing with others engaged with the material.

One of the things currently discussed around this topic has to do with writers for certain franchises. There are more and more movies, shows, games, and comics that are being written that are out-of-alignment with the previous works in said franchises. A lot of those fandoms are getting pretty upset with this and would prefer there to be a harsher screening procedure to determine which writers are going to represent the tone and themes of the franchise adequately going forward. There are obvious individuals that do not care for the lore, and instead wish to push their own agenda in the work, adulterating the material of the franchise to suit their real interests. Some of this is political, and I think the OP stongly hints at this angle by virtue of the main topic revolving around cancel culture, especially in the anecdotal dev stories provided.

48Tentacles use the term "infiltrators" is important here. We aren't talking about generic toxic people, jerks. We are talking about people who wish to use the fandom as a cover for their unrelated endeavors. I suspect ideologies, but I can't be sure without 48Tentacles clarifying. At least I do understand where the concern originates from.

 

[residntevl]

I'm pretty sure the idea, though, is not to oust people who answer a question wrong. It is to determine the level of understanding of the material and community, and thus have an understanding of how they 'rank' in the fandom, community, or what have you.

From there, members of the community will have a measure of the weight input of the person should be afforded within the community.

I might have a LOT of ideas on how the Harry Potter lore should be changed for "improvements", but if I don't understand the intricacies around Dumbledore's death, I would expect the fans to waive my suggestions away with little effort. My understanding of the material effects my standing with others engaged with the material.

One of the things currently discussed around this topic has to do with writers for certain franchises. There are more and more movies, shows, games, and comics that are being written that are out-of-alignment with the previous works in said franchises. A lot of those fandoms are getting pretty upset with this and would prefer there to be a harsher screening procedure to determine which writers are going to represent the tone and themes of the franchise adequately going forward. There are obvious individuals that do not care for the lore, and instead wish to push their own agenda in the work, adulterating the material of the franchise to suit their real interests. Some of this is political, and I think the OP stongly hints at this angle by virtue of the main topic revolving around cancel culture, especially in the anecdotal dev stories provided.

48Tentacles use the term "infiltrators" is important here. We aren't talking about generic toxic people, jerks. We are talking about people who wish to use the fandom as a cover for their unrelated endeavors. I suspect ideologies, but I can't be sure without 48Tentacles clarifying. At least I do understand where the concern originates from.

This just sounds like conspiracy posting about "Woke LIBRALS making your kids gay by writing media that's inclusive"

 

[ericv00]

This just sounds like conspiracy posting about "Woke LIBRALS making your kids gay by writing media that's inclusive"

Lol, wut?

 

[Ratatattat]

I'm pretty sure the idea, though, is not to oust people who answer a question wrong. It is to determine the level of understanding of the material and community, and thus have an understanding of how they 'rank' in the fandom, community, or what have you.

From there, members of the community will have a measure of the weight input of the person should be afforded within the community.

I might have a LOT of ideas on how the Harry Potter lore should be changed for "improvements", but if I don't understand the intricacies around Dumbledore's death, I would expect the fans to waive my suggestions away with little effort. My understanding of the material effects my standing with others engaged with the material.

One of the things currently discussed around this topic has to do with writers for certain franchises. There are more and more movies, shows, games, and comics that are being written that are out-of-alignment with the previous works in said franchises. A lot of those fandoms are getting pretty upset with this and would prefer there to be a harsher screening procedure to determine which writers are going to represent the tone and themes of the franchise adequately going forward. There are obvious individuals that do not care for the lore, and instead wish to push their own agenda in the work, adulterating the material of the franchise to suit their real interests. Some of this is political, and I think the OP stongly hints at this angle by virtue of the main topic revolving around cancel culture, especially in the anecdotal dev stories provided.

48Tentacles use the term "infiltrators" is important here. We aren't talking about generic toxic people, jerks. We are talking about people who wish to use the fandom as a cover for their unrelated endeavors. I suspect ideologies, but I can't be sure without 48Tentacles clarifying. At least I do understand where the concern originates from.

I think the missed point here is that quizzing people for this purpose is ineffective. Someone's amount of knowledge about the work/project/franchise/whatever is wholly irrelevant to the purity of their intentions. As TouchFuzzy explicitly mentioned in the snippet you quoted:

Some of the most toxic people I've encountered in fandoms knew a good bit about the subject itself

Someone can know a lot about a franchise/subject - like, on par with the most devoted of fans - and still have ideas about how to change it that most of the fandom will dislike. Further, just because someone has unpopular ideas for a franchise or project that diverts it away from its original spirit, doesn't mean they are a bad actor who deserves to be gatekept out. Someone with the very same ideas is equally as capable of pitching them, having them rejected, shrugging it off and moving on, as they are of becoming toxic and seeking to assert creative control and/or destroy their opponents.

You also can't measure a person's toxicity level on how well their creative vision aligns with everyone else's. They could be the absolute most traditionalist, die-hard fan who passes all the tests and wants nothing but to preserve the original integrity of the franchise, but still be the type of person to break up teams, dox others, or otherwise threaten their livelihoods.

So, quizzing/gatekeeping people in this way just doesn't make sense. It won't necessarily keep out toxic/problematic people, and it is bound to exclude people with pure intentions on an unfair basis.

And this has nothing to do with the general principle of knowledge of the franchise being a prerequisite to gaining power in the associated community/team/company. That has always been the case, regardless - but the reason is not to keep out bad actors.

 

[Hadria]

I'm pretty sure the idea, though, is not to oust people who answer a question wrong. It is to determine the level of understanding of the material and community, and thus have an understanding of how they 'rank' in the fandom, community, or what have you.

From there, members of the community will have a measure of the weight input of the person should be afforded within the community.

I might have a LOT of ideas on how the Harry Potter lore should be changed for "improvements", but if I don't understand the intricacies around Dumbledore's death, I would expect the fans to waive my suggestions away with little effort. My understanding of the material effects my standing with others engaged with the material.

I know of no community whatsoever that has got better by adding tools that end being used by people to gain some degree of self-entitlement over stuff that should be a hobby or entertainment, which ends being used to create social strata within the community and building the most toxic of gatekeeping.

For example a member of the community might not know X about this, but he might know more about Y and Z than me, but oh, that person social rank within our arbitrary hierarchy is lower than mine, so he is wrong.

These exist in a lot of communities already, an example being MMOs with the concept of parsing and DPS meters, and the hierarchy of "better" and "worst" players built around it, and believe me, not a single one of them has got a healthier community out of it.

People's value should be determined by their contributions to the community, and the quality of their content, and not an arbitrary test, no matter how much effort the moderation of any site puts, trolls will keep getting past any filter you put in place, only the amount of those who pass change, but you will never get rid of them all. It is for this reason, that beyond moderation duties, at the end of the day the responsibility and judgement about feeding or not the trolls falls to each of the members of their community, and if there is an undesirable element who adds nothing to value he will get tired if no one gives it attention, because after all that's what trolls feed upon.

 

[residntevl]

Lol, wut?

You imply that people hired to write for shows write stuff that align to some nefarious political agenda they have. If you knew how show writing worked you wouldn't be making this kind of fiction.

For instance, the first Star Wars movie would not have been as much of a cultural hit if George Lucas's writing had not been altered from his original vision. The ideas the original author may have can be just as damaging to a product as any other writers' ideas.

But to assign this imagined malicious intent with no proof is the epitome of Conspiracy Posting.

 

[Nenen]

You imply that people hired to write for shows write stuff that align to some nefarious political agenda they have. If you knew how show writing worked you wouldn't be making this kind of fiction.

For instance, the first Star Wars movie would not have been as much of a cultural hit if George Lucas's writing had not been altered from his original vision. The ideas the original author may have can be just as damaging to a product as any other writers' ideas.

But to assign this imagined malicious intent with no proof is the epitome of Conspiracy Posting.

Sadly, it's not all without malicious intent though. If you have somebody who clearly says they dislike (even hate) the original... They're unlikely to care about the good it has. (One of the writers for the KotOR remake has unfortunately said as much)

Sure not all changes are the result of maliciousness. And sometimes you get really good things from wildly changing the original/last iteration (Like some Superhero stories).

But claiming that it's 'conspiracy theory/posting' is not much better then saying 'It's all a conspiracy' if it's only used to say, "What you're saying has no value". While ignoring what's actually being said and done.

 

[residntevl]

Sadly, it's not all without malicious intent though. If you have somebody who clearly says they dislike (even hate) the original... They're unlikely to care about the good it has. (One of the writers for the KotOR remake has unfortunately said as much)

Sure not all changes are the result of maliciousness. And sometimes you get really good things from wildly changing the original/last iteration (Like some Superhero stories).

But claiming that it's 'conspiracy theory/posting' is not much better then saying 'It's all a conspiracy' if it's only used to say, "What you're saying has no value". While ignoring what's actually being said and done.

Right, but the attribution of malicious intent and implying as such without any real rigorous proof is entirely useless. It does have no value as it is entirely conjecture, which can easily lead into conspiratorial thought. If they made their points without trying to imply modern media is being "infected" by nebulous means then I would like to see some proof of points, like your own about one of the KoTOR writers. But again, to the Star Wars example. The series is ridiculously contentious amongst EVERYONE who follows it because they all have an entirely different vision of what Star Wars should be to them and as a result you will always have many different sects of fans with their own ideas and beliefs about what makes Stars Wars Star Wars.

Quick edit, appending a thought. That's what makes Star Wars as a franchise great honestly. There's many different interpretations of what it is and what it can be. Not every piece of its media will be for every Star Wars fan, but nonetheless they want to see what it's about and why someone else likes it. It creates discussion, it progresses thought, it makes the world more fun.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Btw, as a huge Star Wars fan, sometimes departures from what "Star Wars" is is what makes certain pieces of media within the franchise so good.

KotOR2 was amazing and it abandons a lot of the tropes that many people think make Star Wars, Star Wars.

 

[ericv00]

You imply that people hired to write for shows write stuff that align to some nefarious political agenda they have. If you knew how show writing worked you wouldn't be making this kind of fiction.

For instance, the first Star Wars movie would not have been as much of a cultural hit if George Lucas's writing had not been altered from his original vision. The ideas the original author may have can be just as damaging to a product as any other writers' ideas.

But to assign this imagined malicious intent with no proof is the epitome of Conspiracy Posting.

"Nefarious" is your own concoction. And as such, I cannot take your contribution seriously. There are lots of different angles of political positions and beyond one could have to try to inject into a fandom. Imagine a writer injecting a critique of "woke culture" into Star Trek, complete with the most over-the-top caricature to represent it. I can't imagine anyone would see that as a natural continuation of the IP or an effort to stay true to the lore. Just the same, clunky critiques of any aspect of contemporary real life injected into an established fantasy IP are largely seen as not respecting the material, using it to push something else. Instead, make an IP, like, I dunno, X-Men, for example. It turns out that if you do something well, it can be successful. No need to give your cause an existing fandom's skin suit.

When participating in a fandom, one should recognize that the common thread of everyone in that fandom is the thing they are fans of. You wouldn't want one person's intense focus of the Borg being a "communist allegory" to dictate most of the conversations in the fan-space. Especially if any disagreement resulted in being labelled a "communist". The Trekkie group would (or should) rightfully push that person away. It doesn't mean they aren't a "true fan", but they aren't a "good actor" either. They would be using the fandom to push something else.

My problem with your post is that you are trying to slap a label on ME, to trivialize my perspective by trying to imply that I am a thing other than someone talking about very generalized fandom subversion that can happen on any subject, in any direction, in a variety of ways.

Btw, as a huge Star Wars fan, sometimes departures from what "Star Wars" is is what makes certain pieces of media within the franchise so good.

KotOR2 was amazing and it abandons a lot of the tropes that many people think make Star Wars, Star Wars.

Sure. But 'Luke almost murders his nephew in his sleep' and "somehow Palpatine returned" are some of the most disrespectful things I have ever seen done to an IP, and that kills Disney Star Wars for me. I have no faith in their vision or trust in their respect of the IP.

 

[Iron_Brew]

Imagine a writer injecting a critique of "woke culture" into Star Trek, complete with the most over-the-top caricature to represent it. I can't imagine anyone would see that as a natural continuation of the IP or an effort to stay true to the lore.

My dude, I hate nu-trek as much as the next person, but it's always been "woke culture". Trek's been "woke culture" since 1966.

Hate nu-trek because its characterizations are paper thin and the writing has become anti-intellectual garbage, not because its morality plays are suddenly and arbitrarily somehow a bridge too far

EDIT: OH NO I'VE HAD A READING COMPREHENSION FAIL, YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT A HYPOTHETICAL EPISODE HYPOTHETICALLY MOCKING WOKE CULTURE NOT NEW STAR TREK ITSELF I HAVE DUNKED IN MY OWN HOOP. I APOLOGISE.

 

[Ratatattat]

I apologize for my long-windedness. Took Adderall for my final exam this morning, but now I've got the rest of the day with my mind running and ready to jump onto anything, without any actual schoolwork to direct it towards

TL;DR -

• I support/promote diversity and positive minority representation in media, but I am right alongside you in my loathing of poorly-written, shoehorned political messaging (not limited to diversity/representation, obviously) that detracts from the integrity of the work itself.
• When it does happen, even the people being pandered to generally don't like being pandered to; because ingenuine attempts at pandering usually result in poor-quality media, but is also liable to stumble into pitfalls that further misrepresent or harm the groups it's "advocating" for.
• However, not everyone knows how to properly identify actual pandering. Some people are whiny babies with nothing better to do but actively seek out any hint of non-cishetwhitemale characters existing or being important in media, and throw a tantrum over it.
• Diversity and representation can be well-written and woven skillfully into the natural setting, or fundamental themes, of a work. This is not pandering or shoehorning, and is not an example of pushing a political agenda.
• We need to be on the same page about what constitutes an "agenda" or pandering before a meaningful conversation about it can be had.

---

@ericv00 I respect this response. I definitely see what @residntevl was saying too, though, and kinda got those vibes myself from your first post that started this tangent - but mostly because it sounded suspiciously similar to what people who are like what residntevl described often say.

Of course that doesn't mean you are like that, so I'm glad you've been able to elaborate, and I'll say I actually agree with the general sentiment here. I am definitely a huge proponent of increasing diversity in all areas of media (including behind-the-scenes) as well as more positive representation of various minority demographics (I don't want the subject of my art in my PFP to mislead anyone when I talk about diversity - I am white). However, I also turn my nose up at pandering attempts at diversity that are shoehorned into media and/or are poorly done.

But let it be clear, that (to my understanding) real people in the groups being "represented" this way do not want that either. No one likes being pandered to. It's soulless and ingenuine. It not only hurts the quality and integrity of the media it's bogging down, but it can also do more harm to the actual people it's pandering to. Because if a group of writers are only adding what they perceive to be "woke stuff" to a piece of media to appease an audience, then their lack of actual care will easily lead them to make terrible decisions or otherwise handle the subject matter poorly. That's a prime way to end up with tokenism, annoying/unlikable or one-dimensional characters, misrepresentation, running blind into controversial or sensitive subjects, and inadvertently perpetuating stereotypes or caricatures. This benefits no one. So when you see this happening, know that we (i.e. the "woke" folk) generally dislike it, too.

And that's in addition to the basic value of not ruining art by shoving irrelevant messages into it, even if those messages are true. Hopefully we all agree Hitler was a bad man, but if a show like Ozark suddenly introduced a Jewish character whose entire purpose was to talk about how awful Hitler was and distract from the cartel drama to teach the audience about the horrors of ethnic cleansing... I'd be pissed. Because (aside from the inherent disservice to that character and Jewish viewers) even though no decent human being on the face of the planet would disagree with the message or its importance, the fact is that it's completely irrelevant to the show and is actively detracting from the established themes, characters, and plot. Even worse if it's poorly-done (which was kind of a condition of my example - I'm sure talented enough writers could find a way to naturally weave Nazis into the story and touch on relevant subtle messaging without plummeting the quality or integrity of the show, as it literally has been done in shows before - but that's not what I'm describing here). But the point to take away is, I stand with you on valuing the integrity of media and art, and quite loathe when any poorly-written messaging (even good messages) is unnaturally forced into it and bashes the viewer over the head with such on-the-nose one-liners or caricatures that you'd think we were in kindergarten.

But here comes my real, actual, final point: I've very rarely actually seen that happen. It could happen more frequently than I think, if I'm just not looking in the right places, so I'll leave room for that possibility. However, I do know that there are many pieces of media that have been skewered over this alleged "pandering" or "ruining" of the franchise, when in reality that's not what's happening at all. The reason I distrust people who talk about pandering to "woke culture" is because I distrust people's ability to actually discern when something is actually pandering. When there are people throwing tantrums over a single video game in a franchise finally getting a female lead, or the mere inclusion of anyone who's not white in a main cast of characters, or a few-second shot of a bunch of female heroes being powerful together in the middle of a battle (i.e. exactly where you'd expect to see them doing that), where no words are even spoken and literally nobody would even notice unless they were explicitly looking for things to criticize (as if we haven't seen nearly identical shots of all male characters a million times before and never said anything about it)..........

..........then, when cases like those exist, it becomes abundantly clear that there are plenty of people out there who do not have enough brain cells to tell the difference between a non-white, non-straight, non-cisgender, non-male character being important (or sometimes just existing) in the media, and pandering. Depicting strong female leads is not pandering to feminism. Because surprise, there are still more strong male leads than female ones. Women are far from "taking over" anything. Having gay or trans characters exist in a piece of media is not pandering to LGBT+ people. Because surprise, they exist in real life, and the chances of knowing one (or several) are actually pretty high. It would be unrealistic to not ever include them. Etc.

I'm not saying that you're saying any of those things. Just that, when we are talking about not shoehorning representation in, or pandering to woke crowds, etc... we do in fact need to touch base and make sure we're on the same page, and don't have different definitions of those things. Because way too many people misdiagnose normal, harmless representation as "pandering" or "ruining" something, simply because they're not used to seeing it (which is precisely the problem in the first place), when in reality the media or characters they're complaining about might be truly exceptionally written, and they are missing out on that because of their own bias and stubbornness.

So whether or not that describes you, it's useful to be aware of how wildly differently people can interpret the same media with regard to this subject. I think this explains why residntevl interpreted your first mention of the topic the way they did, and why I also read it in a similar way. Those were assumptions, sure, but you should probably be aware of just how prevalent it is for people to speak the same way you are, but not actually apply it correctly or know what they're talking about - and therefore, it's not unreasonable that many others are going to come out of those interactions wary about encountering this type of argument in general.

I just wanted to lay that out there. I actually wanted to get into it in response to some parts of what OP had written, but there were so many other topics/points and they wrote so vaguely, I thought it would be too much of a tangent (until now, that the discussion has headed that way naturally).

 

[HexMozart88]

I'm completely lost. How the heck did we get from doxxing people to representation and wokeness?

 

[Iron_Brew]

I'm completely lost. How the heck did we get from doxxing people to representation and wokeness?

Internet, just as Godwin's Law dictates that any disagreement approaches the absolute certainty that someone will call their opposition a nazi as time goes on, the modern Internet can't help talking about "woke culture" or "culture wars" any time any discussion happens.

Every chat is secretly about it, no matter what.

Just can't be helped in the year of our Lord 2022.

 

[Ratatattat]

@HexMozart88

From this general progression of discussion, stemming originally from OP's writing about gatekeeping (emphasis mine):

One of the things currently discussed around this topic has to do with writers for certain franchises. There are more and more movies, shows, games, and comics that are being written that are out-of-alignment with the previous works in said franchises. A lot of those fandoms are getting pretty upset with this and would prefer there to be a harsher screening procedure to determine which writers are going to represent the tone and themes of the franchise adequately going forward. There are obvious individuals that do not care for the lore, and instead wish to push their own agenda in the work, adulterating the material of the franchise to suit their real interests. Some of this is political, and I think the OP stongly hints at this angle by virtue of the main topic revolving around cancel culture, especially in the anecdotal dev stories provided.

48Tentacles use the term "infiltrators" is important here. We aren't talking about generic toxic people, jerks. We are talking about people who wish to use the fandom as a cover for their unrelated endeavors. I suspect ideologies, but I can't be sure without 48Tentacles clarifying. At least I do understand where the concern originates from.

This just sounds like conspiracy posting about "Woke LIBRALS making your kids gay by writing media that's inclusive"

You imply that people hired to write for shows write stuff that align to some nefarious political agenda they have.

"Nefarious" is your own concoction. And as such, I cannot take your contribution seriously. There are lots of different angles of political positions and beyond one could have to try to inject into a fandom. Imagine a writer injecting a critique of "woke culture" into Star Trek, complete with the most over-the-top caricature to represent it. I can't imagine anyone would see that as a natural continuation of the IP or an effort to stay true to the lore. Just the same, clunky critiques of any aspect of contemporary real life injected into an established fantasy IP are largely seen as not respecting the material, using it to push something else. Instead, make an IP, like, I dunno, X-Men, for example. It turns out that if you do something well, it can be successful. No need to give your cause an existing fandom's skin suit.

When participating in a fandom, one should recognize that the common thread of everyone in that fandom is the thing they are fans of. You wouldn't want one person's intense focus of the Borg being a "communist allegory" to dictate most of the conversations in the fan-space. Especially if any disagreement resulted in being labelled a "communist". The Trekkie group would (or should) rightfully push that person away. It doesn't mean they aren't a "true fan", but they aren't a "good actor" either. They would be using the fandom to push something else.

Then my own response, which leans so heavily into it because it's abundantly clear what's being talked about but also kind of skirted around in some ways. Honestly (and I mentioned this buried in my long novel of a response lol), this topic came to my mind more than once while reading the OP. The vague descriptions that could have potentially been used to dance around "a certain" interpretation of cancel culture (i.e. related to exactly what's being discussed now), a meme referencing a player's exasperation at being overwhelmed with "ugly" female characters in western games (which is a whole other, but related, topic I don't want to touch right now lol), etc.

The seeds were there in the OP (which wasn't exclusively about doxxing). Slowly, reply-by-reply, it's been poked at harder. So, I can't speak for others, but I just went all-in and addressed it directly (like residntevl did first) because there's no point in continuing to speak vaguely about it, when it's clear that the question is in the air as to whether grievances over "wokeness" are present in addition to the more explicitly-discussed, "normal" definition of cancel culture and agendas, etc. Obviously the OP's intent isn't confirmed yet, whether this is in fact what they were getting at, as they haven't chimed in on this aspect of the conversation yet.

But the conversation made its way there anyway, because again, the seeds were in the OP. You can't vent in vague language about "cancel culture" and gatekeeping against people with "agendas" that allegedly "ruin" media franchises, without clarifying exactly what you mean, without it coming across a lot like the many people out there who have nearly identical complaints about... well, representation and wokeness.

So idk, from my perspective this was a natural direction for the discussion to go lol. Saw it coming right away.

 

[Mr. Detective]

I have to admit, the OP was clever to have come up with this thread. Probably among the weirdest threads in this forum's history. Just gonna reply to a few noticeable things I see:

Considering Japanese people are way, way more creative than westerners,

This is a dangerous line to walk on. Not sure how serious this is, but it's a bold statement to make. Perhaps too bold. But it's fine as a subjective point of view. Ironically enough, I've seen interviews in which some Japanese claim otherwise. I'd say they have creativity in different areas.

Compare DeviantArt and Pixiv.　
Compare western superhero Tv shows and Japanese Isekais.
Compare western 3d models in terms of beauty and Japanese 3d models in terms of beauty.

I will give you 1 and 3, but 2 is sort of... pushing it. Of course, different folks are gonna be into different things, but I wouldn't say Japanese isekai (manga or anime) stories are example of Japanese creativity. I do like reading some of them, though. XD

Um... I've seen a lot of ugly models, both Western and Japanese. This kind of just seems like the opinion of someone who's overly obsessed with Japan, considering a lot of very popular media right now is not Japanese....

To each his own, I say. From my observation, western (mainly American) models in video games have been getting worse and Japanese, Korean, and even Chinese are just getting better and better. Movie CGI, Hollywood is still on top. Art by Japanese are more appealing to me than western art, as I often the find the latter not very good looking. Which is why I prefer browsing through Pixiv than DA.
I also don't like how preferring something nonwestern, in this case, Japanese, means someone is obsessed with it. Saying you prefer western products is normal, but praising something Japanese (or anything else, Korean or so) over western and the normies jump down your throat. Besides, popular media differ based on what country you're in, too. Turns out, it's actually the pro-western/American people that have fragile ego and can't handle it when someone else prefers something nonwestern. Ran into too many people like this on the internet.

Gatekeeping is not a method of protecting yourself, it is a method for people to try to delegitimize other fans. Everyone starts with a lack of knowledge about a subject. And I don't want to see anyone turning people off from the community before they even have a chance to learn.

As others have pointed out, that's not the purpose of gatekeeping. There seems to be a fundamental comprehension misunderstanding about gatekeeping. Perhaps quizzing people's knowledge isn't a good method, but the idea still stands.

An example: a game becomes popular, CoD fans want to play it, too. But they want the game to have CoD features and mechanics. Dev gives in, changes the gameplay mechanics, but it's still not like CoD. CoD fans don't like it because it's not CoD-like enough, original fans hate it because it's a mutilation of what they loved. In the end, the game flops and the studio closes down.
Gatekeeping, in this instance, is keeping out the people who don't bother learning, but want to infiltrate an establish community and coerce everyone to cater to them. Anime "degenerates" have been doing a decent job at gatekeeping so far. You don't like lewd humor? Cool. Find anime that don't have them. Want to ban them and start a harassment campaign on Twitter? The door is this way.

Having gay or trans characters exist in a piece of media is not pandering to LGBT+ people. Because surprise, they exist in real life, and the chances of knowing one (or several) are actually pretty high. It would be unrealistic to not ever include them. Etc.

No, of course not. At least, it shouldn't have been. Idiots started pressuring writers and developers to include XYZ characters to show their inclusiveness, and naturally, it pissed off other people who just want to enjoy something without all the pandering. Having a lesbian couple in your story is not pandering. It becomes pandering when you have to brag and advertise your game around that couple, even though they are not even the main characters. If you have to tell me your story is great because it has minority character, chances are it sucks. Just because someone exists in real life doesn't mean they must be included. I don't have to include a black character in my story if I don't feel like it or if they are out of place. These types attempted to make their own story, which sucked and flopped, and they just want to force other people to write their story for them. I think it's safe to say this is mainly an American problem.

I don't know where this is going. But I know where I am going: bed.

 

[Arctica]

You can only know my real name if I trust you enough and I still have one hand with fingers left for the amount of people that had gained that trust online. I have multiple usernames and email accounts. They are not tied to any favorite characters and Arctica is fitting because she's the MC of my game and this is a forum for RPGMaker.

It is hard for me to trust, so I guess I benefit from that.

Working with others online is always a big risk. Once ideals start clashing, things head on a downward slope with only one kind of end result.

Yes I deliberately didn't speak on a bunch of points on this topic because they are subjects which I normally keep my thoughts to myself about.

 

[Twempie]

This thread started off as a shoddy guide on how to remain anonymous on the internet and a warning against oversharing personal details then rapidly made the descent into a rant about cancel culture, how it is attempted murder (lol), and a bunch of semi-random anime screenshots with an edgelord FB post at the end about bravery.

Considering Japanese people are way, way more creative than westerners

Yeah guys, the anime industry totally doesn't chase trends all the time and would never ever overexert a franchise for the money. The Japanese are the pinnacle of human creativity and if anyone tells me that Boku no Pico isn't the greatest piece of misunderstood work on this earth, I'll commit sedoku in honor of our Japanese creative lords of overexaggerated jiggle physics and attempted legalized noncing.

If you want this thread as a TL;DR, then here you go:

TL;DR Don't be a dick and don't overshare personal information.

 

[HexMozart88]

I would like to state I am NOT a normie. Let's not resort to name-calling here. The reason I said it was probably obsession is because the OP phrased it like every single Japanese person is better than every single Western person, which is blatantly wrong and borders on fetishizing. Anyway, I'm not going to reply anymore because I'm not a fan of where this thread is going (we're already bordering on political stuff. Only a matter of time before someone brings in their hot take that offends a huge portion of the forum, yet again).

 

[Twempie]

You don't like lewd humor? Cool. Find anime that don't have them. Want to ban them and start a harassment campaign on Twitter? The door is this way.

You're still banging on about this* ? Your humor isn't lewd, it makes you look like a pedophile.



*For reference, this was a subject of argument between Mr. Detective, me, and a few other users on the board back in January. General consensus from me and the other two users was that Mr. Detective was/is often talking about some stuff not suited for a board that is frequented at times by minors. Yes, this includes your signature Mr. Detective.