So, looks like I’ve had to add a further clarification (which people refer to as “rules”) here.
Simply put, I’m not accepting the bypassing of civilized conversation by framing statements at memes to be farmed for likes. I will, after work, be going through and removing all those posts from the memes thread (RIP my Friday afternoon).
This is not really a “new” thing, its just one that has cropped again recently after a long period of inactivity. The most memorable and certainly the most labor intensive of these was an individual who went by “coflash” and used to put an impressive amount of work into his attempts to abuse IO Interactive over their decisions in the promotional material of Absolution.
When he was told he wouldn’t be allowed to keep doing this, he chose to leave the forum while bragging to me he’d already gotten the attention he needed and would now go on to independent success under his name. That he no longer goes by that name tells you how well that worked out for him.
What’s the harm?
The harm is first and foremost, this kind of thing encourages toxicity and, left unchecked, strangles actual worthwhile discussion. The accepted method is to start with a conclusion, ridicule the concept of exploring it further and then farm for likes so that people feel social pressure to either agree or leave.
There is always a huge overlap of people who support this kind of thing, and people who otherwise never contribute anything of worth to the forum - they’re not here to discuss Hitman, they’re here to try to dictate what Hitman should be to the fanbase and the developers. Coflash had pretty much zero people follow him off the forum because, despite the work he put into his photoshops - they weren’t really appreciated for the craft, just that they were mocking IO Interactive.
Likewise, pretty much zero of the forum members who rallied behind him and cheered him on are memorable for any contribution, or active in any of the fan communities today - because they didn’t get their way and so they dint’ have anything further to talk about (except maybe joining reactionary gruops and stuff like that)
Can’t we make jokes?
You absolutely can - however your jokes must be 1. within the forum guidelines and 2. actual jokes
As stated above, the problem with these is they invariably do not actually hinge on any sort of real humour - rather the reasserting of a simplified statement in a way that avoids conversation or exploration. They are only “funny” or entertaining if you already agree with the premise.
It should be obvious to people in today’s climate why this is bad - its the same mentality that drives racism, sexiism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. “I’m not comfortable with it, and it should all be about my feelings and the harm it does to others is their own fault.” When discussing games it also leads to a culture of elitism - which is already not welcome here.
If you want to make a joke, consider the following:
- Do you actually know enough to joke about this? If you’re just operating on assumptions or a YouTube video by someone with no real experience in the field (or worse one who’s brand is being outraged and insulting) then you don’t and should probably… have discussion to learn.
- Do you feel comfortable justifying why anyone who is the butt of the joke deserves to be? The forum is not a podium to yell at people for having different tastes or making creative or business decisions that don’t benefit you personally and will absolutely not tolerate using it to harass people just trying to live their lives or do their jobs.
- Is there actually some comedic structure to the joke? If, for example, there’s no setup and payoff, no surprise twist, etc then its probably not actually a joke or runs a high risk of not being read as a joke but rather the shield of faux satire on an otherwise unacceptable statement.
Can’t we criticize things?
Yes, you can. With words - civilized conversation.
If you are struggling to find a way to criticise something like video games while being limited to words, then its a good sign you should probably take on more information before putting your opinion out there.
Video games are complex multimedia projects in a complex industry that sells on a complex marketplace and there is no shame in not understanding all of it or the motivations involved. Even relatively small aspects like character design or difficulty settings have vast amounts of quality discourse and varying approaches and philosophy.
If you don’t know something, you may have an opportunity to learn - and learning might give you ideas that help you or increase the appreciation you have for things you already enjoy. You won’t, however, have that opportunity if you spend your time posting MS Paint memes that hinge on not understanding.
But you allow jokes ridiculing Nazis…
That’s because a core aspect of the Nazi doctrine is the violent elimination of various groups of people based on nothing more than arbitrary aspects of their identity - that is the opposite of civlization.