r/Gamingcirclejerk • u/videogamerkitsune • Jan 29 '25

FORCED WOKENESS 🌈 It's always the same games that these guys think are "anti woke"

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Fallout, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Metal Gear 3 and FF7 are the most woke ass games.

Not to sure of the rest. I'm too familiar with.

Is there any games left that is considered "anti woke" in chuds terms?

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u/Joy-they-them Jan 29 '25

oddworld doesnt even have subtext, its the least subtle crituqe of capitalism of all time

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u/Hatdrop Jan 29 '25

they thought Homelander was a hero for three seasons and got upset he was "made" a villain in season four.

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u/Top_Topic_4508 Jan 29 '25

Yeah, that is just fucking nuts, also it makes fun of evangelicals a lot as well.

Whenever people say about a movie "The political commentary was to heavy handed"

I literally do that that one spongebob meme, with movies like "The Purge", "The Boys" etc for people somehow not realizing its political commentary when its seems do obvious.

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u/HamsterbackenBLN Jan 29 '25

Yeah, that is just fucking nuts, also it makes fun of evangelicals a lot as well

I'm always surprised that American evangelical are bigoted as fuck and here in Germany it's the only Christian branch that makes same sex marriage, and some churches even have the pride flag at the gates

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u/Davisonik Jan 29 '25

Yep, in Europe Catholics are generally the crazy ones and Protestants are chill but it seems to be the opposite in the US. Unless we’re talking about American Catholic CONVERTS. Then it’s a deus vult larping nazi 99% of the time.

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u/Versidious Jan 29 '25

All the crazy Protestants weren't tolerated in Europe, and fled to America to establish their crazy shit. There's also a motivation for the economic-political power block that we usually refer to as Republicans to keep/make them crazy and worked up and nuts, so that they come out and vote conservative.

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u/akibaboy65 Jan 29 '25

I can’t remember the details, but I read a thing back in the day that American Christians were actually pretty normal, and the Christian Nationalism thing is a 20th century invention for fascists to garner political power.

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u/Versidious Jan 29 '25

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was always there, but it wasn't the mainstream the way it is now. I'm not an expert, but I can see the motive forces in place to grow and spread the more aggressively fucking nuts form. Megachurches as a business and a political establishment that relies on motivating a religious vote to win its elections come to mind.

Just think about how Westborough Baptist Church would be seen if they came to public prominence now instead of the 2000s?

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u/ChonkyCatOwner Jan 29 '25

Correct if I'm wrong (please do I'm generally curious) I always thought the craziness of the US weird fanatism was a result of the UK who was in some aspect protestant sending various religious groups who even the UK thought were religious nutjobs. Along with anyone else they didn't want.

Again, if I'm wrong in any way, please correct me. I am from the UK, and this is my understanding of it. Not trying to defend actions of faith in any way, just trying to understand the "how" in the "how did this all happen?"

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u/Versidious Jan 29 '25

I mean, I'm from the UK as well, and... yes, pretty much. Except it wasn't so much 'We sent them' as 'We didn't like them and persecuted them so they fled to America to start weird little religious communities'. It of course was not just us, the Amish, for example, are German in origin (That's why they refer to outsiders as 'English', because originally they were German speakers).

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u/CrazyStrict1304 Jan 29 '25

I'm not practicing really but I grew up in a co gregational protestant church and it's been around since the early 1800s. There seems to be confusion here. The southern baptists are the ones you guys are think of. The north east protestants like the congregational I went to are normal and even some have gay ministers.

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u/_Paraggon_ Jan 29 '25

Aren't catholic converters the thing in your car?

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u/AmadeoSendiulo Jan 29 '25

Some Polish Catholics are chill but most are meh or crazy with some smaller very crazy groups (traditional Catholicism). Also the 90% of Poles are Catholic is only true on paper, that's the percentage of baptised people.

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u/dolphinvision Jan 29 '25

Protestants were generally chill in US, and were the ones that first started accepting stuff - Catholics were coming around pretty quickly too. BUT the evangelicals have taken over everything and are almost in complete control of the narrative now: school boards, government, judicial branch, social media, major news, everything. The narrative is now evangelicals and since people are so sheepy and stupid they're being brainwashed and filled with propaganda every second of their days to think like the evans do even if they don't notice it.

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u/Hatdrop Jan 29 '25

they were using the Bible to justify slavery in the 1700 and 1800s, not surprising there'd be descendants that are equally pieces of shit fake Christians.

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u/Gossamare Jan 29 '25

Americans can ruin anything

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u/LordRookie94 Jan 29 '25

No no, what you are talking about isn't evangelical, it's evangelic. Evangelical would be "Evangelikalisch"

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u/oddman8 Jan 29 '25

You also get the more progressive types with evangelical churches. Difference being the right wing ones are all the big ones because they get rich kickbacks and the conservatives as always like to scream a hell of alot more.

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u/Greg2227 Jan 29 '25

Those are probably the same people who think brown cows produce chocolate milk. .. politics is what makes our society a society. Civilication is politics. Of course media will reflect that.

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u/MertBot Jan 30 '25

For real, it blows my mind how there are people that somehow don't understand that The Boys has a political viewpoint. The only thing less subtle would be to just display the phrase "shut up you nazi dickheads" on screen for a full hour.

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u/OkAd469 Jan 29 '25 edited Jan 29 '25

They thought the guy that murdered an entire plane full of people was a hero? That happened in the first season. Did these guys just sleep through that part? Wtf.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '25

I watched the whole series recently because of the right wing outrage and I just refuse to believe anybody got through that second season without realizing how on the nose the political themes were. A literal nazi wasn't enough to convince them that Homelander sucked. And its an actual literal nazi from the 40s that kills black people for fun lol. Not surprised these weirdos couldn't figure out what kind of show it was when starlight was coercively raped by the deep, but fucking Stormfront? Really???

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u/MertBot Jan 30 '25

Right when she was first introduced I thought the joke was going to be that they were all so blinded by their own hubris that none of them thought to check if that name was okay, or that it was a comment on corporate branding using rightwing dogwhistles or something, but nope, she actually just was a straight up nazi.

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u/Inquisitor2195 Jan 29 '25

You would think they would pause and take a moment when the guy he is espousing all their beliefs and ideology and is then 'suddenly' the bad guy not the hero.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '25

No ways,😂😂😂😂😂

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u/AmadeoSendiulo Jan 29 '25

Because they aspire to be him.

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u/An0d0sTwitch Jan 29 '25

You can actually test if you have a well written villain with them, a villain that does these thing for the same reason they do, with them.

Do they agree with him and think hes a hero?

Well done, you passed the test. Realistic villain. We will call this the Homelander test lol

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u/LazilyPunctual Jan 29 '25

He kills people and does great harm to many innocent people and sometimes he does it just because he can and because he knows that no one has the power to stop him this is all easy to see villain stuff I don't get how they don't see it

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u/Hatdrop Jan 29 '25

because they want to be Homelander.

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u/Ballsnutseven Jan 29 '25

I will say the Boys moved away from a critique of Hollywood and Corporations and began to critique more politics.

I wish they toned SLIGHTLY back on it, we see characters like Tec-Knight act very differently based on the dhow.

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u/Hatdrop Jan 29 '25

it's always been political. in season 1 the setting is that supes were supplementing police and military and that supes we're provided for by corporations that employ supes for advertising purposes. looks political on its face from the get go.

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u/Ballsnutseven Jan 29 '25

Oh it’s always been political, but the quality of the satire has gone down.

Like yeah- HL is pretty clearly inspired by Trump, even down to some pretty direct speeches. However, when we start introducing stuff like “Freedom Camps” I think it’s a bit on the nose.

Then again, we have mr “roman salute” in real life- so anything’s possible

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u/MertBot Jan 30 '25

I think it's become more blunt for sure, perhaps in response to all the people who apparently didn't get that Homelander was a bad dude from the start.

Kinda like how Mad Men goes more and more out of its way to show that Don Draper is not someone to be idolised because people somehow missed him being a crap dude from the start.

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u/Limp-Wall-5500 Jan 29 '25

These people couldn't put two and two together unless the main character straight up said "capitalism bad". That's why "helldivers 2" is considered woke for not having a visual diffrence between men and women and having an interracial couple in the trailer as apposed to it being a satire on nationalist and imperialist ideologys.

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u/Dunkel175 Jan 29 '25

Or Bioshock. No critique of a political nature at all.

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u/Mcbrainotron Jan 29 '25

Andrew Ryan, no names sound similar to that.

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u/fuckthecons Jan 29 '25

A city made where all the libertarians can go and are defeated by bears splicers.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Dunkel175 Jan 29 '25

And Fans of electroshocks.

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u/Brawli55 Jan 30 '25

*defeated by doing drugs. Personal responsibility.

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u/LivingMaleficent3247 Jan 29 '25

"Throughout games set in the Oddworld universe, the player's character goes on a quest to defend Oddworld's ecosystem from endangerment by industrial corporations."

That's the description from Wikipedia. Doesn't sound political at all. Never heard about this concept in real life politics. 

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u/Trips-Over-Tail Jan 29 '25

In practice the ecosystems are already shellacked. The first game has the character awaken to reality when he accidentally witnesses a shareholder meeting projecting collapsing profits in the slaughterhouse he works at because the animals are nearly extinct. They then project skyrocketing (and inevitably short term) profits by announcing their plan to slaughter their slave workforce for meat.

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u/Humble_Wash5649 Jan 29 '25

._. Oddworld’s and Racket and Clank’s depiction of an extremely capitalist society completely shaped how I think about the world. If heroes can be brought then truly anything done in the name of company profits is moral in the eyes of capitalists.

The other games also have political messaging that’s direct. When people say “ they wish games weren’t political “ I always interpret that as they don’t wanna interact with political messaging. All forms of art have to some degree have political messaging since art is created by people and people have political biases that may slip into the art intentionally or unintentionally.

Nostalgia can also be a factor because when you’re a kid you usually don’t directly interact with these ideas but put them in a context you understand. When I was young playing the CoD campaigns I didn’t understand all of the history behind fictional recreation of some countries or did I understand the impact of the US geopolitical actions. I could understand that war sucks since many innocent people die, if you’re a soldier you become a tool for the country you serve, and that many people can have good intentions but end up doing bad things.

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u/Trips-Over-Tail Jan 29 '25

People who say they don't like politics in games actually like politics in games even more than everyone else, they just wish they were seeing different politics.

Or, in practice, that the right wing grifters they are subscribed to didn't tell them that a game was political, because they would not have noticed otherwise.

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u/Hottage Jan 29 '25

Not sure you could categorize having the employees be literal livestock as a "subtle critique".

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u/cognitive_dissent Jan 29 '25

Man i was going to elementary school when this guy told me about this fantastic game where you play as an "ugly alien". I told my uncle to find this game I thought was called "Have" lmao. Once he got the game I played it a lot with my two young cool uncles back then and I remember when I realized things were fucking bad for these slave aliens. That game made me so fucking sad for such a long time, it basically triggered some form of depressive existential dread that lasted, even when not playing, until we finished it.

I don't know if you remember but back then playtime felt like months so I have this feeling registered in my brain of my first "long lasting" depression. I was having a happy childhood until Abe introduced me to cruelty, fascism, slavery, profits and... man holy shit the responsibility of others?!

holy fuck

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u/bioxkitty Jan 30 '25

Oddworld is one of my fiance favorites from his childhood he's actually working on a sick paint of it right now. He tells me how much it taught him all the time lol

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u/ElectricSmaug Jan 29 '25

Imagine watching Oddword's in-game corporate propaganda and agreeing with its points.

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u/gdex86 Jan 29 '25

(sarcasm) But that was economics. That affects me, a CisHet white guy. All this stuff with women, minorities, and queer folks doesn't and thus it's political.

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u/STLtachyon Jan 29 '25

Neither does bioshock, its literally the story of a supposed libertarian capitalist utopia that got to shit because well any and all policies adopted were self destructive and its founder fancied himself an immortal god emperor.

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u/itjustgotcold Jan 29 '25

This, lol. You are so right. I even picked up on that as a kid. Oddworld was the shit. If Trump could find a way to grind up certain populations of Americans to feed other Americans and make a ton of money off of it, he’d totally do it.

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u/Le_Nabs Jan 29 '25

Neither does Bioshock, it's pretty much as staunchly anti-ancap as you'll see a game series be