An Honest Look at DEI

This isn’t about whether or not DEI is needed (that’s a whole different post for a whole different day) rather this post is about whether or not DEI in this iteration actually helps minorities in the gaming space.

The whole SBI/Gamergate 2 drama made me realize something, and apparently, I've been circling around this realization for quite some time, but I didn't fully realize it until the whole SBI/Gamergate 2 drama kicked off.

Since its inception, DEI and SJW's have made it worse for minorities in the creative business. I grew up in the late 90's early 2000's and there was a plethora, and abundance of minority characters everywhere, and no one cared. Every fighting game had women and minorities fighting on equal ground with everyone else. So what if Mario and Zelda rescued the princess? Marle from Chrono Trigger didn't need to be rescued, neither did Ayla. The Androids in DBZ? the women in Naruto? Celes and Tifa in the Final Fantasy games. I could go on and on, the point, of course, is no one cared about minorities and women in video games. We all saw ourselves in every protagonist. We were all Goku, Master Chief, Max Payne, Naruto, and Ryu. It was less about what they looked like and more about the ideals and characteristics these people embodied.

These images pretty much sum it up:

As far as I know, older millennials are the last generation to have a shared media experience, meaning we all grew up watching the same shows and movies, because that's all that was on T.V. Streaming platforms with thousands of different options didn't exist back then, and no one felt video games, cartoons, or anime was racist. No one felt they needed more representation, until of course, the whole DEI/SJW blew up and it became socially acceptable to rewrite their own history and virtue signal about how it really was racist and they really needed representation.

I vaguely remember the first iteration of "representation" stirring up around 2009 when Disney was set to release The Princess and the Frog, and people were saying how there was "finally" representation. Meanwhile, there was The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Martin, The Jaime Foxx show, The Waynes Brothers, Girlfriends, Mr. Cooper, One on One, Sister Sister, Smart Guy, Family Matters, the Cosby Show and I'm sure I'm forgetting others. 

There was HELLA representation.

In 2018, it got even worse leading up to the release of Black Panther 1, but people conveniently forgot that blade, a black super hero, literally birthed the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. They also forget other black superheroes like Spawn, who was one of the biggest superheroes in the 90's, who also had an animated movie on HBO and a live action adaptation staring John Leguizamo and Michael J White.

What lack of representation?

Anyone claiming lack of representation was either lying or ignorant. Willfully ignorant.

When the whole DEI/SJW thing blew up, gamers and anime fans got upset and started pushing back because everyone talking about "lack of representation" was lying. They were literally making it up and using the false information to push for more "representation" in games and media.

The problem with this, is the push for more "representation" resulted in less quality. The message became more important than actual skill at creating good media, and after a while, people started to notice a pattern; the more DEI/SJW themes, the worse the game, and it didn't help when game journalists, who were sympathetic to DEI/SJW's, wrote "raving reviews" of terrible games.

Now, after almost a decade of this behavior, when people see media with any sort of minority, they automatically assume it will be low quality with modern day politics shoved in without any sort of skill or creativity, and as a result they'll vote with their wallet and ignore it, leave a bad review,  or create a list games an SJW developer worked on in order to warn people. Now, when people just want to make a good game that happens to have a minority lead people aren't going to support it.

But the SJW's don't care, they've already been paid millions of dollars to point out and "solve" problems they literally created, and, had they just shut up and let people make games, none of this would be happening. It would be just like in the 90's, when people didn't bat an eye when they saw women/minorities in their media, and all that matter was quality and skill.

I've said this before and I'll say it again, skill covers a multitude of sins. If you're good enough, NO ONE CARES about anything. If you have enough skill, you can literally crash into a pregnant woman and flee the scene while high out of your mind, and people will still support you. There are so many instances of people with incredible talent doing the most heinous of crimes (R KELLY!) and still receiving support, meaning, if you're skilled enough, you can have a game full of LGBT characters and people will support you.

Which brings me to the real issue. 

Talent.

As much as I hate gatekeepers (and I do. I do, I do, I do!), the only good thing about them was how they kept people with Dunning Kruger out of the industry. Now, thanks to the internet and the fall of gatekeepers, the Duning Krugers having taken over everything and have made it so talent comes second to the narrative and as a result, minorities who just want to tell a good story or make a good game are suffering because of the talentless, narrative driven SJW's.

I really want to see a lot of support for this project but it seems like their lack of funding is due to the manufactured controversy I've described in this post.

Am I saying there isn't racism and sexism in the industry? or customers aren't racist and sexist? No, but there's racism and sexism and everywhere, since the beginning of time, and yet, everything I said about the 90's media is true, which means racism and sexism might be there, but ultimately, its irrelevant. As I said before, as long as the media is good, no one cares.

So Get Good.