How A Small Video Game Narrative Studio Wound Up At The Heart Of A Massive, Anti-Woke Conspiracy Theory - Aftermath
How A Small Video Game Narrative Studio Wound Up At The Heart Of A Massive, Anti-Woke Conspiracy Theory - Aftermath
Sweet Baby Inc doesn't even remotely do what many think it does, but on the modern internet, that doesn't matter
Sweet Baby Inc doesn't even remotely do what many think it does, but on the modern internet, that doesn't matter
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Funny how all the mainstream gaming media (+ this 2-paragraphs long blog post [?]) only now decided to cover this story, when the curator list on steam exceded 200.000 subscribers and so SBI run to Kotaku to do damage control, and these mainstream media are only quoting PR slogans from SBI website, or interviews with SBI from fucking Kotaku, or try to ridicule the whole idea by calling it conspiracy theories, or calling hundreds of thousands of players haters, white misogynist, racists and all the usual stuff, but none of these mainstream media actually reported on this story in depth, show what SBI management have been actually saying before all of this came to light, what their founder and employee have been tweeting (tweets now conviniently hidden or deleted) or how THEY (yes, they - Sweet Baby Inc) have been trying to weaponize their followers to ban not only the curator's list on steam (even while publicly admitting knowing it doesn't break any steam rules) but also trying to ban the list creator's account (in spite "because he loves his account so much").
I know lemmy is not a place to argue such stuff because it seems even woker than reddit and everyone is in this little bubble, but if you're curious then look up those who's been covering this subject from the beginning, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSJPFQdZwrOutnmSFYtbstA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQeRaTukNYft1_6AZPACnog
Bottom line is - I can decide for myself what to spend my money on, thank you very much.
Ah yes, Reddit, the epicentre of all wokeness.
The mainstream media picked up on it when actual intelligent games producers chimed in to try to defuse the situation you fragile little man babies were trying to stir up.
It is nothing but conspiracy theories.
If you buy into the bullshit conspiracies then you are a hater. Or a moron. Or both. All 200,000 of you.
If you think the curator isn’t a bigot and/or racist and/or misogynist you’re a fucking idiot.
The CEO of SBI being full of hyperbole doesn’t change any of that.
You say you can “decide for yourself” and then list a handful of links to people pushing their own agenda.
Judging by your post it seems both sides of this issue are toxic. This seems to just be a microcosm of US identity politics at play, with you just hurling insults and outrage at each other over... not a lot it seems?
A boycott of games that a diversity consultancy was involved in, some low quality journalism from Kotaku, and a lot of outrage on both sides?
The whole thing is a pointless time waste.
What does "woke" mean?
What does "woke" mean?
WOKE:
Wisdom
Openness
Kindness
EmpathyIt is a state of awareness achieved by intellectually sensitive individuals who have empathy for the plight of others, especially those suffering from injustice and oppression such as racism or systemic bigotry.
This term is also used by people without functional empathy in an attempt to insult and mock those people with empathy.
But “woke” does not mean “persecution”. “Woke” just means that casual racism, sexism, religious and gender bigotry, and general lack of human empathy are no longer acceptable in polite society.
That's an interesting backronym.
Thanks for this, I had no idea it was an acronym. I thought it had to do with the phrase, "wake up sheeple."
It's not an acronym.
It originally meant "awake" in English, kept that meaning in the American black community after it fell out of use among whites (e.g. "I was having trouble staying woke on the drive"), and was repurposed as slang. The slang meaning was "to be aware of prejudice or racism", with the implication that many blacks were "asleep", i.e. accepted excuses for racist systems, believed that racism wasn't a big deal anymore etc.
I'm not sure whether the word was adopted seriously by leftists generally before the right, or immediately became a catch-all label on the right, but either way, it's become the latter.
Conservatives and some left-critical leftists now use it as a broad term that refers to things like DEI initiatives, anything trans, etc.
The term as it is defined today was invented by a militant black terrorist group called the Nuwabian Nation, a subsect of the Moors (sovereign citizens focused on their African heritage).
The word has been used by black Americans for at least a century as a synonym form"awake", but its definition as a political concept was first used publicly by the founder of the nuwabians, Dwight York.
This is not correct.
The word "woke" as a political term predates that group- York started trying to found a group in 1967, and "woke" was first used to warn black men of threats from racially motivated whites in 1931, by a singer named Lead Belly, then even more directly as a political term in 1971 in a play called "Garvey Lives!"
Whether York used it that way or not, it's clear that he didn't invent the usage.
I'm pulling most of this info from Wikipedia and Google to save anyone else reading the effort.
😂😂😂😂
Woke means you spread hatred and discrimination against white (caucasian) hetero males.
Woke means you spread hatred and discrimination against white (caucasian) hetero males.
In that case show me an example of SBI spreading hatred and discrimination against white (caucasian) hetero males, seeing as they're so Woke and all.
Open YT write sweet baby inc and you get tons of videos giving you some examples. But in case you are that lazy, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4p_O9dSJHw
Finally someone who tries to present an actual reason for avoiding SBI! The difficulty in trying to get someone to clear this very low bar is not a good sign.
To start with we have some tweets from @legobutts from 2016. The tweets are bad, I will not try to defend them. Deleting them was the right call, you say something stupid or bad or should delete it. I have no idea where in the SBI hierarchy @legobutts works, but he appears to be a consultant, not an employee. I suppose the argument is SBI should not have them as a consultant, but should SBI be searching the internet archives for everything someone has ever said in the past before working with them?
I will note: The tweets are from 2016, SBI was founded in 2018, so they were not working with SBI at the time. I will also note that @legobutts worked on Tunic, Untitled Goose Game, and Firewatch. I do not see any of those games mentioned on the SBI detected group, so whatever the curator's issue is with SBI it is not this person's past tweets.
Then, we have the reaction from SBI to the SBI detected group. Yes, their reaction is bad and was full Streisand effect. However their reaction to SBI detected is not the reason SBI detected was created in the first place, so we can strike that reason as well.
Moving on he didn't like some of the things said at GDC, but the clips don't seem problematic to me. They never said they were trying to eliminate all "white male" characters from games, and she gave a story about a cast full of white people and got push-back when suggesting making one a POC. I don't see the problem with that story.
So the reason's the YT leaves us with for people not liking SBI is because of DEI and bad writing. Bad writing doesn't require a curated list. Reviews will tell you if the writing is bad.
This leaves us with, surprise surprise, DEI being the reason. Anyone boycotting a company because of DEI is a bigot. Even if you think DEI is pointless and wasteful, then the company is wasting money on it. Companies waste money on stupid shit all the time. To be so opposed to the idea of DEI to boycott companies speaks volumes about the type of person they are.
The first half of the video is about context-less tweets that a consultant for the company made a decade ago, and the second half is about how they don't like how some things were phrased at a GDC talk. The guy in the video also talks a lot about Sweet Baby Inc supposedly wanting to exclude straight, white, male characters, but one of the anecdotes they play from the GDC conference was about how some game studio had made a cast of all straight, white men and were thinking of diversifying by making one of those characters very stereotypically french, and so SBI consultant tried to get a little more diversity out of them by also making that character black.
I'm not seeing a lot of hatred or discrimination against white people, or men, or heterosexuals in this video you linked.
But there is the end segment, in the last 3 minutes or so, where he doesn't understand that there's a difference between being a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consulting firm, and a narrative/writing consulting firm that helps promote diversity and inclusion, so that's fun. He also ends the video by saying that the consultant with the bad tweets from a decade ago is one of the company's leaders.
All in all, not a lot of evidence that Sweet Baby Inc is doing anything wrong, really.
some game studio had made a cast of all straight, white men and were thinking of diversifying by making one of those characters very stereotypically french, and so SBI consultant tried to get a little more diversity out of them by also making that character black.
Oh no! They had a cast of 12 straight white men, considered making it 12 straight white men with one who might not be American and in the end its 11 straight white men and one who is not white! Wont someone please think of the poor white children!
Denial is strong with this one.
Seriously now, why don't you provide some clearer evidence showing what SBI is doing and why it's so bad? And why respond to my short summary of the video when @CileTheSane did a much more thorough breakdown?
We all know it's because you don't actually have any proof or solid reasoning for thinking these things, and you probably responded to me and not them because you're too lazy to read their longer post and think up a lie. But Cile watched a half hour video because of you and put some thought and effort into applying it to your fake arguments, you could at least try to defend your bigoted views.
I don’t think there is any clear evidence that will satisfy person with your mindset :)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=N4p_O9dSJHw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
And you wonder why nobody takes people like you seriously.
This is how assumption presented as knowledge look like :)
Based
Ding ding ding we have a winner. People hate the truth
Are you stupid...?
I love how parkplace is literally the kind of single-minded insanity this article talks about (which is significantly longer than 2 paragraphs btw)
Like, skimming through their articles and you get stuff like this https://thatparkplace.com/wish-actor-harvey-guillen-says-he-believes-disney-will-make-a-queer-princess-in-his-lifetime/ where they relay the quotes then immediately jump to:
If this does indeed happen it’s likely to lose The Walt Disney Company millions of dollars as seen with Lightyear.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Yes, it is perfectly possible that the studio's writing work might be a bit shit, I dunno. If you find they are consistently involved with writing you don't enjoy, then sure, whatever. The point of this article is the absolute insanity this kind of stuff gets taken to, like it's a massive conspiracy rather than just the work of another studio managing the struggles and interests of our age.
To quote the 2+n paragraph article:
It’s a conspiracy theory that checks all the boxes: It conveniently explains pretty much everything happening right now, ties it back to organizations of which people are understandably suspicious, links it to a much larger ongoing panic (DEI), validates preconceived notions like “go woke, go broke,” sprinkles in a few kernels of truth regarding powerful interests, and – most importantly – provides a clear and identifiable enemy. It’s also almost entirely bullshit.
significantly longer than 2 paragraphs btw
This is all I can see
Pethaps it has some ads or paywall which causes adblockers to hide remaining content.
skimming through their articles and you get stuff like this
Why referring to other articles and not the ones releated to this subject? I honestly didn't know any of the linked authors before but it's great they did talk about the stuff the mainstream media failed to mention.
I've got an ad blocker on mobile and yeah the article goes on wayyyyyyyy longer than what you show there
The complete lack of a period makes your comment really hard to understand
Fair point, I wrote it on my phone lying in bed in the morning, didn't think it would be this long.
woke
Gaming's problem isn't wokeness, but are overbloated budgets and scope.
when the curator list on steam exceded 200.000 subscribers
They have a discord too.
These are the same people who say things like "I don't care if someone's gay, just don't make it your entire personality." Meanwhile I don't know what the fuck these people talk about in a "SBI worked on these 16 games" Discord group.
Oh, and apparently they had to delete every post in their discussion forums and lock them to make sure they didn't break Steam's rules. Because that's a sign of a group of reasonable people...
It's not a story when it's a couple of conspiracy theorists making horrifically inaccurate deductions. It's a story when it's hundreds of thousands of people led on by a bunch of horse shit.
show what SBI management have been actually saying before all of this came to light, what their founder and employee have been tweeting
And you don't show that either. As someone who is trying to understand the issue people have with SBI, can you show something the founder / employees have actually said? I'm not going to search through a random webpage / Youtube page to see if they actually have something relevant.
They locked their twitter account. So internet archive is your friend.
The guy below me seems quite slow. I'm not OP.
You are trying to convince people that they said inappropriate things. Again, I am not going to go somewhere to do your job for you and dig through some random archives in case there might be something relevant. Especially if I think you're making it up.
Internet archive is your friend, if it's as easy to find as you claim then it would make your arguments significantly more persuasive if you just included a direct link to an archive of whatever it is you are concerned about.
I have better things to do fortunately. It's pretty clear from other posts that you already made up your mind. So there's no use. We can end the conversation here.
Also I'm not trying to convince anyone. I just wanted to help you.
I'm not trying to convince anyone. I just wanted to help you.
Pro tip: dO yOuR rEsEaRcH!!1! Has never convinced or helped anyone.
I am willing to have my mind changed if someone were to actually show me any evidence of SBI being bad for some reason. The Steam group says nothing other than "SBI worked on these games," implying they are bad but not even making the step to say why. When I try to ask people why I should care if SBI is involved I get:
- "I don't have to explain myself" which is true, but does nothing to discredit the claims of bigotry.
- "SBI is woke" which we all know is the dog whistle of the bigot, and
- "Do your own research" which is the desperate cry of people who believe things without evidence or sources.
Showing me one of these "terrible" tweets by SBI would sure shut me up if it was anywhere near as terrible as claimed.
I swear people don't understand the burden of proof and you're one of them
Can you reference how exactly I hold the burden? Did I state anything that I have to back up? I only said their twitter is locked. I never said anything else. Looks like the room iq is quite low here.
For the people downvoting. I'm not op. I never claimed anything.
Can you reference how exactly they said you hold the burden? The only said you don't understand burden of proof, (due to your statements implying that the person making bold claims doesn't need to provide any evidence of those claims.) They never said anything else.
I swear people don't understand the burden of proof and you're one of them
Lmao. I'm losing braincells here lol. Where did I say or imply "the person making bold claims doesn't need to provide any evidence of those claims".
My only intention was to help you find those tweets if you were interested. Some of you behave so chronically online. Get a life.
Where did I say or imply "the person making bold claims doesn't need to provide any evidence of those claims".
Right here:
They locked their twitter account. So internet archive is your friend.
OP made them vaguest of all claims ("SBI leadership said awful things") and I simply asked them for specifics and a link. You know, to "provide any evidence for those claims."
Your reply to me was basically "look it up yourself", which is not how the burden of proof works.Lmao. I'm losing braincells here lol.
Some of you behave so chronically online. Get a life.
It's always projection...
How did I imply it? Can you also reference where I refer to OP. I replied cause op's comment was posted 2 days ago and it was clear they weren't going to reply.
This is just a misunderstanding in my opinion. So let me make it clear that I'm not on op's side. I don't care if sweet abby inc is in a game I play. I do care about Kotaku tho. I have a hard time believing their stories.
I only called you chronically online because you have at least 50 comments on this topic in 2 days.
So I'll end the conversation here. Idk why it was even dragged on this long.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/channel/UCSJPFQdZwrOutnmSFYtbstA
https://www.piped.video/channel/UCQeRaTukNYft1_6AZPACnog
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Don't forget the employee who led a harassment campaign against the curator, came back from Twitter suspension just to disrespect Akira Toriyama's legacy.
Nailed it. You know how I know? I see all the down votes.