Helldivers 2’s Politics Appear To Be Flying Over The Heads Of Some

There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor. Their faith was been shaken by an Arrowhead community manager they believed they found to be (gasp) progressive who was then subsequently harassed, but their head-scratching reading of Helldivers 2 as a “non-political” game is worth examining.

The only thing that makes sense is that these players have the shallowest of surface-level readings of the game. You are a patriotic soldier serving Super Earth. You must kill bugs and evil robots trying to hurt your brothers-in-arms and innocent citizens. There are no storylines to insert progressive causes into, everyone wears helmets so no “forced diversity.” Therefore, no politics.

Of course, this is…wildly off the mark, as Helldivers 2 is about the most blatantly obvious satire of militaristic fascism since the film that inspired it, Starship Troopers.

FunderPants,

I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don’t.

Brutal. He did it too, he did it.

tooLikeTheNope,

Especially brutal considering the average quality of right wing humor in media across the ages, a merciless yet very revealing index of the capacity of the average right winger to gets what is humor and what is not

iegod,

That’s so much more polite than the commentary that is warranted for that very same capacity.

0xD,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

I mean, if he didn't want us killing bugs he shouldn't have made it look so cool.

Luckily, our fascists aren't cool at all.

Godort,

Paul Verhoeven is about as subtle as a brick to the skull with his messaging, and people still think movies like RoboCop are pro-police

xantoxis,

Speaking of which, they made a Robocop videogame recently, too. I haven’t played it but I can’t imagine it goes any better than this game does, as far as authentically delivering the message of the movie. If you’re the cop holding the gun, how does the story deliver the message that police authority is just gang violence done for the rich and powerful?

EldritchFeminity,

It’s always going to fly over the heads of conservative chuds no matter how obvious you make it. Helldivers 2 is absolutely blatant with its satire, and people still miss the point. I’ve never played Spec Ops: The Line, but I’ve heard it praised for its brutal depiction of the horrors of war, and people completely missed the point with that one, too.

Some people are so media illiterate that a dictionary to the face would miss them, and conservatives are wilfully ignorant to these messages because it supports their worldview to take things at face value and never dig any deeper. If they thought about things, they wouldn’t be able to stay assured in the righteousness of their hatred or the belief that they’re the real victims of any situation.

givesomefucks,

But he still toned it down from the book…

The first chapter is them taking a village of anthropomorphic insects over. They didn’t have any soldiers, it was just a random village and there’s a part where a mother and infant are hiding in a closest, get blasted by a flamethrower, and as the soldier jetbacks away he just shoots rockets everywhere because they get in trouble if they return with any unused ammo.

Just completely blasie about genocide.

Trimming it down to just the one 100% bug race really made it easier to write them off as monsters. But makes sense for a movie.

ouRKaoS,

Those weren’t bugs, those were “Skinnies”, humanoid aliens.

They showed up in the animated series, but not the movie.

givesomefucks,

humanoid aliens.

I never watched the cartoon, and it’s been a while since I read the book, but for some reason I always pictured them like the aliens in Invincible where they’re humanoid aliens, but bug like.

I dunno. That’s the thing about books, our brains just fill in the gaps.

Venator,

I don’t remember that in the cartoon, but maybe I missed that episode.

Kallioapina,
@Kallioapina@lemm.ee avatar

A skinny joined the squad in the Roughnecks cartoon. It seems that you missed the whole cartoon.

Venator,

Or I just forgot 😂

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

Yeah, if I saw that movie I definitely wouldn't have wanted to sign up to go kill bugs after I saw it.

Maybe it should be rebooted as a gritty, Vietnam-esque series.

sxt,

I mean wasn’t the author of the book saying that’s how things should be run? I had always heard the movie was basically mocking the premise of the book.

givesomefucks,

Nah, dude was a Naval officer that became disillusioned and wrote Stranger in a Strange Land. Hippies called that one “The Hippy Bible” because, well it basically was.

Then there’s his modern retelling if Job.

Like, if you read the Lazarus Long novels, there’s gonna be some sexism and toxic masculinity, along with some libertarianism shit. But we’re talking late 60s/early 70s pulp SciFi. It would be like judging current media because there’s always sex scenes and huge explosions.

Its rarely there because the creators want it there, it’s there to sell the media.

Starship Troopers is basically about what he feared the military could easily become if it took over the government.

That was kind of Heinleins whole style, you enjoy a book all the the way thru, but by the end everything is completely different and almost unrecognizable from chapter 1.

Ciderpunk,

If conservatives had any media literacy, they wouldn’t be conservatives anymore.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

This is why the humanities are important

TheBat,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

Really? I’m fed up with one humanity. Can’t think I can handle any more. 🫠

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

Oh the humanities.

Thassodar,

humanities

Hue-manatees*

ArbitraryValue,

Because people disagree about whether a certain ideology is desirable, you could have an accurate portrayal of it accepted as positive by its supporters and negative by its opponents. The supporters aren’t necessarily missing “satire” - maybe they see the same thing that the opponents do, but they like it.

theodewere,
theodewere avatar

conservatives do not comprehend satire

NaibofTabr,

It’s very dangerous to oversimplify your opponents (in a strategic sense). Generalization is also very risky.

Also, to label them as particularly different from yourself/your social group in some way (especially a way that you consider to be inferior) is the first step on the path to dehumanizing them, as a basis for justifying disdain/anger/hatred/etc. It’s far more likely that they have different life experiences from yours which have lead them to understanding the world differently, but are generally similar otherwise. They “do not comprehend satire” in the same way that you do, that does not mean they are incapable broadly.

Skasi,

I never played the game but watched some trailers and gameplay videos. I’m 99% certain that Helldivers 2 is following the Starship Troopers formula and purely making fun of patrionism, propaganda, war, the military, military personnel, “freedom”, heroism, politics and military advertisements and turning that into a game. There’s just so many obvious signs, it seems impossible to miss. In other words, it is a political game. Or maybe I just really don’t get either of the two.

narrowide96lochkreis,

Maybe these people are too young to know Starship Troopers. How old is it now?

EldritchFeminity,

Even when the movie came out, people didn’t get that it was satire and thought it was 100% serious.

MacAttak8,

You definitely get it. Pure satire.

Cold_Brew_Enema,

I mean, yeah. That was extremely obvious.

EldritchFeminity,

You nailed it. It’s 100% inspired by Starship Troopers and is a criticism of US propaganda in the same vein while also being an incredibly fun co-op game.

The only thing you’re missing is just how obtuse some people are. It runs into the same thing as the Warhammer 40k universe, where the humans are obviously just as bad as everybody else, but people praise their fascist military industrial complex society. Either people are so incredibly media illiterate that it makes your head spin, or they’re wilfully ignorant because it supports their worldview. Take your pick, but I go for a little of both.

exocrinous,

To be fair, some Warhammer writers also don’t understand that they’re writing satire. The Imperium lights it’s spaceships with candles because they’re too religious for common sense, and yet some claim only a fascist government is efficient enough to save humanity.

The Administratum is such a tangled and immense bureaucracy that entire planets are a rounding error to them. Their propaganda says this is because the Imperium is too big to manage efficiently. But the true reason is, fascists are bad at math

gibmiser,

It’s an easy worldview. Those people need the world to make sense, and fascism and authoritarianism give easy answers.

thisbenzingring,

fascism and authoritarianism give easy answers

Because you don’t have to think about it, big brother does that for you. You just have to cheer the loudest and not ask any questions.

littlebluespark, (edited )
@littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

I don’t disagree with this synopsis, but I’m sadly unsurprised that your familiarity with the source material stops at the movie — which, in fact, was preceded (nearly 40 years) & inspired by a (far better) book of the same name from Heinlein. 😅😶 What’s more, Helldivers 2 seems to take more cues from the book than the movie, and it does the original more honor than the cult classic did in '97, too.

Lastly, who in their right mind ever expects alt-right fucknuts to parse irony? Isn’t that integral to their M.O., the consistent whoosh so frequent that it must be like white noise in their skulls 24/7? (Yes, there’s a supremacy joke in there, but I’m too tired to dig it up)

brandon,
@brandon@lemmy.ml avatar

The main difference from the film being that the novel isn’t a satire–Heinlein was being sincere.

Forester,
@Forester@yiffit.net avatar

You’re not wrong. I have no idea why people are downvoting you

littlebluespark,
@littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

While it is no secret that Heinlein was a closeted auto-fellating fascist with a fetish for ubermensch fantasies, neither is it argued that he was disingenuous in writing the book as unabashed bootlicking propaganda. His earnest attempt to aggrandize the measuring of individual citizens’ worth by hardline nationalism, et al, is precisely why Starship Troopers is an unintentional satire.

The 1997 movie underscores this in its simplicity, and the chucklefucks described in the article above are yet more reasons why the rest of us need to be vigilant against the normalization of this bullshit.

Semi-Hemi-Demigod,
Semi-Hemi-Demigod avatar

We're dealing with people who read at a fifth grade level at best. They barely understand the text, let a lone the subtext.

littlebluespark,
@littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

They’d have to know what the concept of subtext meant first, and then be able to perceive such, before even beginning to understand the blatant (to most anytime else in the human species) undertones of eviscerating sarcasm.

NaibofTabr,

I think you are criticizing the movie for not being more overt in its political messaging. As a counterpoint, I think that if it had been more overt, it would have been less accessible overall and particularly to those who most need to be exposed to that message. It’s intentionally subversive, which means that it can exist in homes, in conversations, and in minds where a more direct stating of the same idea would be rejected out of hand.

littlebluespark,
@littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

I apologize if I gave you that impression, as that is incorrect and I completely agree with your assessment: the movie was a cult classic for many reasons that include it being just subtle enough to almost feel sincere but overt enough to deliver the cheeky dark humor that Heinlein himself was too fervent a fanboi to grasp.

NaibofTabr,

Ah, OK… then what did you mean about the book being far better?

littlebluespark,
@littlebluespark@lemmy.world avatar

Those that don’t need their subversive undertones delivered with the subtlety of an axe handle behind the wood shed might recognize that the book is a far more effective source of multilayered and sardonic humor.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

These are the same people that thought the machine RATM was raging against was a refrigerator or something.

wirelesswire,
Corkyskog,

Thats amazing… also Jeez he is old… oh jeez… I’m old…

Death_Equity,

Also that Homelander was someone to idolize.

mindbleach,

See: Does Call Of Duty Believe In Anything?, by Jacob Geller.

Conservatives think they’re the default. They don’t have an ideology, a religion, a sexuality, or an ethnicity. They’re normal. It’s everyone else who’s different.

infinitepcg,

There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor

The game does of course have a political message, but I think there is a slightly different take that could have merit. The “political” part of the game is to make fun of the interventionist foreign policy of the US. This was a major culture war issue from the 80s to the 2000s, but since the 2010s, the culture wars have shifted towards identity politics. The ‘self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers’ are right in pointing out that Helldivers avoids these topics.

GregorGizeh,

I mean, the game is really on the nose with its parodic elements, how could they possibly not see that? Just talk to the supply officer ladies in the back part of the ship.

They are full of gems like “the bot society is wholly built on war. If they ever won they wouldnt know what to do“ (paraphrased), or the ministry of truth which ensures all citizens are properly indoctrinated informed, or the ministry of economy which makes sure resources flow to the “most deserving”.

gramathy,

Poe’s law

Daxtron2,

Doesn’t really apply outside of text. It’s entire tone of the cutscenes is very blatantly satirical

Aurenkin,

And the loading screen tip (I think?) saying that the bots are socialists

SkyezOpen,

Because actual fascists are hearing shit they agree with. Yes, it’s over the top, but they’re also too stupid to understand satire. If they had the critical thinking skills to realize they were being made fun of, they wouldn’t be fascist in the first place. A fun little catch 22.

JJROKCZ,

Same thing happens with WH40k and GW has to put out memos telling Nazis to fuck off every few years.

Media literacy is apparently difficult

ours,

Some people somehow miss the over the top, in your face satire of the Starship Troopers movie so I’m not surprised.

Duamerthrax,

Professional reviewers missed the satire of the movie. Or pretended to as fake outrage sells papers better and being the loudest to scream offense means you’re the most right.

Honestly, I can’t tell anymore what’s an act, what’s shitposting being misread and what’s genuine. There’s no way to tell what’s a widely held belief and what’s a hand full of idiots in the corner being put on blast. Take Forbidden West and Stellar Blade. How many of the people making hours long rants about either actually play games? How can they? They’re spending all their time just chasing the outrage algorithm.

exocrinous,

I personally choose to believe the people complaining about Aloys peach fuzz have never seen a real woman

GBU_28,

If anyone says their favorite primarch is Konrad of the night lords… Keep an eye on em

Mossheart,

They put out a notice on the topic more than once?

DragonTypeWyvern,

If they want Nazis to stop liking Warhammer, they should try putting the satire back in it. It’s been fascist sympathy for decades at this point.

Short of the Emperor coming back and correcting his title to “Dictator of the Proletariat” I don’t even know how’d they’d fix it now.

Canonize Chaos just being rebels with no demons? Horus Heresy already canonized them as being even more fashy than the Imperium. Tyranids or Necrons or whoever winning wouldn’t do shit either. The chuds would just whine about people diverting resources from the war by fighting for “rights” and “food”

melpomenesclevage, (edited )

Simple solution tho, ‘american gods’ nailed it.

See, they knew they were gonna have a Nazi problem; having one of the main characters be ‘sleazy grifter ultra american Odin on a quest to restore The Old Ways’ even though he’s transparently a total piece of shit and everyone knows it and hates him. (Especially with an actor that good playing him)

So they added a bunch of really explicit queer Fucking every season. Just gayed it UP. You think the taxi driver doesn’t do anything for the plot? He doesn’t directly. But he does keep the Nazis away for a whole season.

We just need to do this with all media! Just add long explicit queer fucking to everything, with no warning. Yeah it might be boring when the big climactic fight cuts from its beautifully choreographed martial arts set piece to some side character sucking his girlfriend’s dick outside, including foreplay and pillow talk, but I think we can agree; it’s worth it.

HelixDab2,

Couple points:

Verhoeven didn’t even read the source material. Starship Troopers (the book), is only fascist if you assume that anyone that’s pro-military is fascist. Heinlein was a very unlikely fascist, given that he was largely libertarian. The point of the book was that people needed to be directly, personally invested in a society for it to function; the bugs were a plot device that he used to flesh out his social concepts. It was closer to utopian than fascist.

Secondly, Lucas directly based Star Wars off Kurosawa Akira’s “The Hidden Fortress”. Ideas about the rebels and the empire might have been echoing US imperialism in Vietnam, but the overarching narrative structure owes a lot to Kurosawa. Ben Kenobi, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, C3PO and R2-D2 are very clearly present in the Kurosawa film. It’s a fun movie, if not terribly deep or meaningful compared to Kurosawa’s later films, and I would def. recommend it.

pulaskiwasright,

Starship Troopers (the book), is only fascist if you assume that anyone that’s pro-military is fascist.

In the book, the military is literally in the middle of genocide and killing unarmed families in civilian villages.

PhlubbaDubba,

The book makes it a lot less handwaveable by giving the clendathu a much more pronounced civilization ane culture

Meanwhile the movie literally has a scene with one of the bugs mutilating a cow, and it’s made up as poking fun at fascist propaganda, but it’s also designed, advertently or not, to propagandize to the audience outside the setting too.

Tar_alcaran,

the bugs were a plot device that he used to flesh out his social concepts. It was closer to utopian than fascist.

The book opens on an active genocide which includes flamethrowering a hiding mother and child, before randomly nuking a city. And this is complimented and normal.

HelixDab2,

We’re also not given any circumstances behind this war. We can’t draw any definitive conclusions about it.

Heinlein was a WWII veteran, and WWII was where the concept of ‘total war’ was pioneered. (And later demonstrated to be a pretty bad idea, but that’s still not accepted by everyone.) We firebombed Tokyo and Dresden, knowing that it would cause massive civilian casualties, with only the barest military excuses; civilian casualties were the point, because we believed that it would break the will of the people of Germany and Japan to keep fighting. We can look back now and see that this was a dumb idea, esp. since Hitler was doing the same thing to England, and it was stiffening the resolve of the English. But unless you argue that the Allies were fundamentally fascist during WWII–which seems plainly false–then it’s not reasonable to argue that the idea of total war was a fascist idea.

At a minimum, we know that it’s a failed idea now.

AeonFelis,

Verhoeven didn’t even read the source material. Starship Troopers (the book), is only fascist if you assume that anyone that’s pro-military is fascist. Heinlein was a very unlikely fascist, given that he was largely libertarian. The point of the book was that people needed to be directly, personally invested in a society for it to function; the bugs were a plot device that he used to flesh out his social concepts. It was closer to utopian than fascist.

I don’t think Starship Troopers really describes an utopia - the impression I had when I read it was that it describes a fascist regime from the inside. And when I say “inside”, I don’t mean a rebel that tries to fight the system from within. Starship Troopers gives us the point of view of a conforming citizen who has fully internalized the fascist propaganda he was subjected to.

Dystopian fiction tends to have the protagonist quickly figure out how bad society is (and when I say “quickly” I mean soon after the story begins - it’s possible for the character to have a long prior history during which they were completely devoted to the totalitarian rule). The reader and the author already know we are dealing with an evil government, so it makes sense to bring the protagonist up to speed and make them the hero who fights against the atrocities - or at least tries to survive them.

Rico is different. He had some doubts early on, but they are quickly crushed and by the time he finishes his training he remains obedient for the rest of the story. And it’s not like he’s unaware of the establishment’s wrongdoings - he just doesn’t see them as wrongdoings, but just as how things are. Or even more than that - how things should be. And the democracy-accustomed reader is expected to understand the horror of these practices, even through the point of view of a character who admires them.

And this, in my opinion, is Starship Troopers’ greatest and most unique trait. Something that franchises Warhammer 40k or Helldivers are too tongue-in-cheek to truly replicate.

HelixDab2, (edited )

I don’t think Starship Troopers really describes an utopia

I disagree. Rico’s family was quite well off. They lived a very comfortable life, and his dad didn’t see any reason to go to the effort of gaining citizenship, because it earned him nothing more than what he already had. They had basic rights, they just weren’t citizens with the right to vote. Rico joined because he had a more civic-minded group of friends that was joining. TBH, Rico isn’t shown as being particularly bright; when he did his aptitude tests, mobile infantry was the very best that he was qualified for, and… That wasn’t really that great. (That would be like getting a 36 on the ASVABs right now; juuuuuuuuuust enough to get into the Marine Corp, and not high enough to do anything other than the most basic jobs.) As far as a human population goes that we see in the story, there isn’t any obvious underclass, which is a requirement for fascism. Yes, there were non-citizens that had no vote, but there was always a path for them to get their franchise, if they were willing to put in the effort. (As far as I recall, there wasn’t a specific requirement that you serve in military; given that Heinlein goes out of his way to say that a position would be created for someone that was profoundly disabled, I think it’s pretty clear that it was never just military service. But Heinlein was a military vet, and he was writing science fiction for a YA audience at the time, and military service was more exciting than, say, civil engineering.)

Moreover, Heinlein goes out of his way to say that no one that is currently in their term of service has the franchise. By choosing to become career military, Rico is giving up the ability to exercise his franchise unless and until he retires. Fascism is often–if not always–characterized by military control over large areas of civilian life. But if the military has no direct political power, that’s sharply undermined.

And the democracy-accustomed reader is expected to understand the horror of these practices,

…But it was a democracy. It just wasn’t a birthright democracy. Every person had to affirmatively choose to work for citizenship, rather than citizenship being granted based on where you were born, or who your parents were, but the right to work towards citizenship was afforded to everyone regardless of parentage, etc. I think that’s a pretty positive thing, TBH. I think that the US would likely be a lot better place politically if everyone had to be personally invested in the system, and if everyone had to actually pass civics and history tests before they were allowed to vote. I know, I know, it’s crazy, but maaaaaaaaybe a basic understanding of civics would mean that someone like Trump never would have gotten elected in the first place, since he’s so bent on undermining and destroying the entire system.

I think that Heinlein gets some things very right; people value a thing much more if they have to put in some kind of personal effort to get the thing than people who simply have it handed to them. I also think that he gets some things very, very wrong, like his ideas on corporal punishment. (Which, TBF, were not that out of line for 1959.)

And this, in my opinion, is Starship Troopers’ greatest and most unique trait.

I think that you haven’t read very much Heinlein if you think that he was writing satire at this point in his career. Stranger In a Strange Land had elements of satire, and Job was absolutely satire, but things like The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is very straight forward. Heinlein is remarkably consistent in a lot of his writing; he’s largely libertarian and believes people should be able to be self-reliant, but he still mostly believes in the gov’t as a positive force. He’s deeply distrustful of religion though; any time religion shows up in his books, it’s a net negative.

Harbinger01173430,

I am all about killing fucking bugs in the name of humanity. They are the bugs, after all, not us! Hell yeah.

FluffyPotato,

Nazies are too stupid to even draw a swastika properly. There is zero hope they are capable of understanding satire.

FiniteBanjo,

I don’t think any cultures spell nazis with an added E but I could be wrong. Nazies would be the Plural form of a Nazy.

BluesF,

A nazy sounds like some sort of cute little thing that old ladies make.

Omgpwnies,

Well, now I’m picturing crocheted swastikas :p

darthelmet,

So, I think there’s something weird about the nature of the satire in Helldivers 2 that might lead to some problems.

I don’t feel like it’s that controversial to say that the game is pretty obviously ripping off Starship Troopers. Like to a point that goes way beyond mere homage. Now I don’t view this as an inherent problem, because I don’t believe IP should be a thing, but this fact, combined with the way they’ve adapted it into a game leads to some issues.

The game basically has all the aesthetic elements of the satire of Starship Troopers: The over the top patriotism, nationalism, militarism, the devaluing of the individual and life, etc. On it’s own, this is enough for people who have already become disillusioned with the US war machine to get what it’s saying. However, to someone who’s deep in the propaganda that America is a force for good in the world that is simply fighting evil enemies who hate freedom and democracy, there is no cognitive dissonance there. Of course we’re gonna be all patriotic about fighting against some big bad enemy that’s threatening us.

Not that people didn’t also misunderstand Starship Troopers, but a key difference it has in driving it’s point home is that moment at the end of the movie when they capture one of the bugs and learn it feels fear and then they all cheer. We see that no, the bugs aren’t some unthinking monsters bent on destroying us, they’re intelligent creatures and we’re the invaders, but the people are so indoctrinated at this point that this fact doesn’t even phase them.

Helldivers 2 doesn’t really have that anywhere within the main “text” of the game. Sure, you can read some lore and get a bit of that from some conversations with NPCs on the ship, but that’s not really how people interact with games, or at least a game like this. Most people are going to load into a lobby, pick a mission, maybe mess around with their loadout, then go jump into a game where the bugs ARE horrible unthinking monsters who represent an existential threat to humanity. In the ways the game lets you interact with it, there’s no option where you make peace with the bugs or come to understand the horror of what you’re doing. The bugs are just enemies and you have an assortment of guns and bombs to interact with them.

So since the mechanics of the game itself don’t really mesh well with the message of the satire, what it relies on is either a) You already having seen Starship Troopers or b) You already understanding imperialism, fascism, and recognizing those traits in America’s military culture.

It’s kind of a weird place for a piece of media to be when it’s message only makes sense in the context of another similar piece of media or when the player/reader/viewer already agrees with it’s message.

It’s not terribly surprising that it hasn’t had any success breaking through to the people who need their minds changed.

exocrinous,

Starship Troopers also has the joke earlier in the movie about the kid as a soldier, which becomes reality later on as younger and younger kids are drafted into the army. Maybe Helldivers should let you play as a child.

Space Ninjas game spoilersThe player characters in Warframe are children and Warframe players all understand that the government that made them soldiers is evil.

cmhe,

Well said!

There are other games, where you play the bad guys, like Payday. Now I am not knowledgeable enough about the Helldivers or Payday lore, so I cannot compare if similar points can be made there. For all I know Payday could be a group of freedom fighters against a militaristic fascist police state.

Or are there any other games of that genre, where you play the bad guys, and it is made more clear on which side you are on?

darthelmet,

There are some others, although I don’t know that they always need to do a “this is bad btw” message. Like Paday or GTA are crime fantasies. The player gets to have fun pretending to act outside the bounds of law and/or morality and get away with it in a safe environment. In the same way you root for the thieves in a heist movie. Although in a movies usually they do more to give you reasons to like the heroes like giving them some sad backstory.

These aren’t really trying to be a political commentary on crime. They might have a component of criticizing the society that forces people into crime, but I don’t know they have anything to say about the act or the people who do it in specific. And they don’t really need to. Not just because they don’t need to send a political message, but also because the game depends on the general understanding that crime is bad and. If it didn’t have that cultural context as a backdrop, the element of the game that makes the player feel like they’re getting away with something they shouldn’t be wouldn’t be effective.

Or to make a more direct thematic comparison: Call of Duty. They’re military fantasy games. The games are pretty much unironic imperialist propaganda. They, like a lot of big budget action movies that include military hardware, get direct support from, and in exchange cede editorial control to, the US military. In these games you are cast as a heroic soldier for either the US or an ally fighting against a bunch of evil, scary foreigners who want to destroy our way of life. When the bad guy turns out to be part of the military, it’s one rogue guy/faction. The one setting that doesn’t twist real life imperialist invasions as being good is WWII. But in the broader context, by placing the fight against the Nazis next to conflicts which have largely been about resource extraction and access to markets, they project the roles of WWII, where America is the good guy and the ones they’re fighting are evil, onto those invasions.

While CoD has to do some work to characterize the enemies to avoid humanizing them, they are heavily leaning on the pre-existing cultural assumption that America is good and brings freedom and democracy to the world. So while I’d criticize CoD for being what it is, I can’t really critique its effectiveness in conveying its message. It might not win over someone who already knows what’s up, and it probably doesn’t make any difference to the complete fascist nutjobs, for most people who don’t like violence and war, but might be convinced it’s necessary for some greater good, it helps reinforce the message that the wars we’re fighting are necessary and are for the greater good.

So yeah. My criticism of Helldivers 2 isn’t just that it doesn’t say it to your face that the things it depicts and represents are bad. It’s just that if it is a satire (and I don’t really have any reason to doubt that given a lot of context), I don’t know that it’s that effective at conveying its message. Sort of responding to some of the other comments: I don’t think you can reasonably expect that the majority of players playing a mission based co-op live service action game are going to stop to read lore or chat with NPCs that aren’t mechanically relevant. So if you want anything to get across, it has to happen in the course of gameplay, maybe even integrated into the mechanics. Granted, that game might not turn out to be fun to play, but that might just be a case for video games in general not being a very effective vehicle for anti-violence messaging.

Going back to those 3 groups:

  • For anti-imperialists, it doesn’t matter. We know already.
  • For straight up fascists, it doesn’t really do anything to make them re-evaluate their worldview. Maybe they might get something out of the way the lives of the soldiers is so valueless, but I kind of doubt it. But it certainly wouldn’t change their minds about their enemies being non-human and dangerous/worthy of being killed.
  • For the average person… they might get the overly patriotic propaganda part of it, but there are so many times when these kinds of people recognize that, but then are like “it’s just like some communist dictatorship! Good thing we’re not like that.” There’s zero self awareness. For the part of it about the nature of the enemy and the necessity of military conflict, the killer bugs and bots that we see in game really only reinforce the idea that this is a necessary conflict.

Idk. It’s fine if the game wants to just be a fun goofy shooting game, and I don’t begrudge it for trying to be something more than that even if it fails, but it’s kind of hard to give it much credit either when it basically just copied someone else’s homework poorly.

supersquirrel,

My criticism of Helldivers 2 isn’t just that it doesn’t say it to your face that the things it depicts and represents are bad. It’s just that if it is a satire (and I don’t really have any reason to doubt that given a lot of context), I don’t know that it’s that effective at conveying its message.

I think one of the biggest problems with Helldivers 2 is actually the same one with Star Wars. For a fan that doesn’t really care about thinking through the implications of the lore of a game/movie, and wants to identify themselves with the game/movie franchise what is the coolest looking imagery from that game/movie that they can slap on their car as a bumper sticker and associate themselves with? The fascists.

That is actually a pretty serious problem, and saying “but the text of the art clearly points out the fascists are the baddies” doesn’t matter because fascism is a content devoid political ideology that is obsessed with the superficial aesthetics of power without any desire to examine anything past a surface level.

Great point about the bugs, though I think gamers are really dumb as fuck, and tend to have a hard time examining the political implications of games. Most really can’t understand how saying orcs or bugs are inherently Evil and deserve to die is clearly problematic, even if it is done in a lighthearted way.

The whole concept of space bugs itself is interesting in that they are a creature designed to be so aesthetically repulsive and threatening that we don’t extend empathy to it. Take for example my pet peeve with factorio, the game never examines for even one tiny nano second how fucked up it is to trash an entire planet and slaughter countless wildlife trying to stop you, just so you a single individual can go home. The wildlife are creepy space bugs, ewwww, kill them!!

None of the factory survival genre of games do and it is honestly pretty disturbing in the context of the insane amounts of damage being done in real life to our planet in the name of more and more resource extraction. It is like Helldivers without the layer of self awareness.

Kushan,
@Kushan@lemmy.world avatar

I understand where you’re coming from, but you’d have to really go out of your way to ignore a lot of stuff in the game to just get the gameplay without any of the dialogue or text that is absolutely dripping with satire.

carpelbridgesyndrome, (edited )

They kinda threaten to send you off to freedom camp if you disagree with them. The fascisim ain’t subtle.

darthelmet,

Maybe I missed it, but do they say that anywhere in the course of the gameplay or required interactions for getting into the gameplay? If it’s missable, it’s going to be missed. That’s fine for some stuff, but if your messaging relies on people with the most incurious ideology actively seeking it, you’re going to be disappointed.

thisbenzingring,

play the tutorial again

I_Clean_Here,

Blaming the game devs for making it not obvious enough is really highlighting the lack of media literacy. The game is not subtle at all, man.

darthelmet,

We’re talking about it because it is something people misunderstood. You can’t wholly blame the audience without acknowledging the flaws of the media. Not that they bear no responsibility for their reading of it, but it’s not without value to critique the way the message was delivered.

red,

Idiots will always misunderstand shit, however obvious and in front of their faces. It’s like flat earthers etc. nutjobs.

KeenFlame,

It’s not that wierd or hard to get dude. For a teen maybe. Please get real. You talk about the indoctrination, that’s what explains some of the wierd reactions. That and teens. It’s a super clear tone you see immediately in the opening cinematic, and not hidden in text lore on the map. It’s humor, joking about very serious things as the backdrop to a coop shooter. Not a wierd place for a game to be in any way.

MolochAlter,

I think what a lot of people miss here is that when people say “keep politics out of x” what they mean is “keep blatant cringeworthy soapboxing out of x.”

Helldivers is tongue in cheek and doesn’t feel the need to bash you over the head with “But actually fascism bad” every five seconds, instead it has gag recruitment ads and an overall really funny presentation that works whether you get it or you don’t.

I guarantee you that no rightoid looks at a one world government “super earth” with fond eyes.

  • If you’re an identitarian the fact that the Helldivers can be men or women is unacceptable, not to mention it’s not clear if they’re ethnically homogeneous
  • If you’re a libertarian the de-individualization and constant surveillance/propaganda from a totalitarian state is unacceptable, double that if you’re an ancap
  • Monarchists would probably like this if it were an explicit monarchy, but it’s not, so they would probably also not like it

The only faction who would like this game’s world is classical fascists, the kind Mussolini was, which ironically a lot of people seem to really really like on any side of the political spectrum, cause it’s literally just totalitarian ideological illiberal authority.

Renacles,

We are talking about the same people who think Fallout isn’t political and the Brotherhood of Steel is a cool good guy army.

MolochAlter,

We are talking about the same people who think Fallout isn’t political and the Brotherhood of Steel is a cool good guy army.

Firstly, in the Bethesda games the political aspect of Fallout is so paper thin they may as well be correct, most people have not played the Black Isle fallouts.


Secondly, you need to realise that people don’t see something as political if there is no dilemma in their mind, they see it as moral instead.

A good example: the Megaton ““dilemma”” in Fallout 3. Ostensibly, you could make an argument that the conversation of land development vs settler rights is a political one. The argument as to whether the lives of rando fucks living in shanties and slowly dying of radiation exposure are worth preserving if the alternative is starting over and building something better for other people could also be political at some point in history.

But in modern society, shaped by enlightenment ideas of equality and the concept of human rights and dignity, these have stopped being political questions because they sit in conflict with the basic social mores (hence moral questions) our society is built upon, and thus they take on a moral character instead.

The question “should we slaughter a bunch of useless peasants we are not in charge of to turn their land into my 15th palace” would hardly have been a matter of debate for some Mongolian horde for instance (yes, I know they didn’t have palaces, you get the point), the debate would have been about ratios of enslaved captives vs killed in battle, if anything.


The vast majority of people’s engagement with politics doesn’t even approach the level of brainrot you see online.

People want security, prosperity, and for people not to suffer needlessly. That’s about it.

In fact, most debate in society is about what those 3 concepts mean, not whether they’re good ideas.

Some people also demand freedom but they’re not the majority, and definitions of such and whom it should extend to also vary greatly.

So looking at the fallout 3 and 4 Brotherhood and saying “those are the cool post apocalyptic knights and they’re the good guys” is a perfectly in line read for the average not politically savvy person. The Brotherhood is not perfect, but they want more or less those things.

That’s also why New Vegas is by far the better game because it actually poses 2 forces (Legion and NCR) in opposition as to the meaning of those concepts and not as to whether they are goals worth pursuing, an actual political dilemma, unlike say “should people be allowed to drink water without getting radiation poisoning.”

Renacles,

I never actually mentioned Bethesda so I don’t know why you went straight there.

Fallout is inherently political, it’s a gigantic criticism of the US after all, politics and everything.

The dilemmas are definitely there. Should we turn humans into super mutants since they are much better suited to the environment? Are the old world values of the NCR worth restoring? Are synthetic humans the same as other humans or should they be treated differently (this is a gigantic metaphor for racism and slavery btw considering their saviors are literally called the railroad).

Everything you said about Megaton is wrong, Tenpenny wants to blow it up because he doesn’t like looking at it, there are no plans to develop the radioactive hole left in it’s place if you do blow it up. It’s 100% a black and white choice that’s there because it’s memorable and nothing else.

I’m not going to bother with the rest, it’s too long.

MolochAlter,

I never actually mentioned Bethesda so I don’t know why you went straight there.

When someone says “fallout is not political” what I hear is “the fallout games I played are not political.”

The Bethesda games are the ones most people have played, and those have absolutely shit political depth, so the idea that “fallout is not political” is valid. It technically is but the message is so dirt simple it would make Will Smith’s musical career look like the epitome of edgy content.

Fallout is inherently political, it’s a gigantic criticism of the US after all, politics and everything.

Technically so is calling americans fat and lazy, doesn’t make it insightful or particularly complex, which is my point: if a “political” dilemma is shallow enough it decays into a moral one or simply into a non-issue.

It’s 100% a black and white choice that’s there because it’s memorable and nothing else.

I was being exceedingly charitable but my point stands, this is the caliber of choices you have to “think” about in the bethesda fallout games: cartoonish evil or sensible normal person.

I’m not going to bother with the rest, it’s too long.

Sorry for trying to have an actual in depth conversation and not a soundbyte like “hurr durr the people who disagree with me are media illiterates.” Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Olhonestjim, (edited )

Eh, in Fallout 3 and 4 Bethesda diverted the canon a bit too much for me. It never seemed like they understood the universe. In 1 and 2, the BoS was, if not good, at least lawful neutral, and quite helpful, despite isolationist. I haven’t played New Vegas yet.

Renacles,

I mean, they send a random stranger who wants to join them to die in a radioactive hole for fun. They are just kinda there in the originals until something bigger shows up.

Olhonestjim,

Yep, that’s lawful neutral for you. They safeguard and preserve technology while biding their time, but they don’t share it with those in need. I’m sure lots of people bother them, and they send them all over to get rid of them. They’re not really good guys, but they’re also not bad guys. I like them well enough.

Renacles,

Yeah, I can see that.

I think Bethesda made them too much of the good guys in Fallout 3 and overcorrected in Fallout 4.

melpomenesclevage,

Are you high?

Fascists are really good at misreading shit. They can assume ethnic homogeneity

‘Double that if youre an ancap’ wut?

‘Everybody likes Mussolini’ citation n… No. I like that he was dragged around on a meat hook. Nobody left of an ultraconservative like Obama likes any fascist (though if we time travel to kill 40s nazis, i call coco Chanel; and yes I’m stealing most of her wardrobe after, no you can’t have any. I have a seam ripper for those parts, or I’ll buy a trophy case)

AngryCommieKender,

You can have Coco Chanel. I’m taking Hugo Boss. The Nazis did NOT deserve to have that stylish of uniforms.

melpomenesclevage,

I heard an argument that they put style before function and that’s why so many froze to death.

So maybe a few of them deserved the jackets.

MolochAlter,

Are you high?

No but the fumes off of this comment might get me there.

Fascists are really good at misreading shit. They can assume ethnic homogeneity.

Ok, important distinction: fascists don’t give a shit about race, identitarians (nazis) do. And yes, it’s different, that’s why I used the word “identitarian” and not “fascist.”

Nazis would literally never assume homogeneity, nazi groups purity spiral around what ethnic group you belong to, let alone fucking skin color, they would absolutely want it to be an explicit ethnically homogenous group.

Everybody likes Mussolini

Which, not whom. The pronoun refers to the world in the prior phrase, not the person.

And on that topic, a lot of people really really like the idea of being free to remove people they disagree with from society, either by straight up violence, or by starving them out of work, civil liberties, protections, etc, regardless of political side.

Which is basically exactly what fascism is in thoery and in practice. Fascism is a non-ideological anti-liberal totalitarian government.

It explicitly has no tenets other than “whatever the few running the party believe works” and “you disagree, you disappear”.

And I’m going to go out on a limb that since you called fucking Obama an ultraconservative, you probably have a sizeable list of people you’d get rid of “after the revolution,” so forgive me if I’m not surprised that you don’t see that the fascists’ mentality is a lot more widespread than you think.

melpomenesclevage,

Totally, that’s me, ms. ‘Kill em all, God will know his own’ human disposability advocating authoritarian.

Everything else you said is wrong, except that fascists hate libs-but hate fucking and hatesturbation in front of a mirror I think still counts.

Belastend,

Obama an ultraconservative. I have seen enough for today

melpomenesclevage,

He was though? He was absolutely not a fascist, which is what we mean when we say ‘conservative’ today, but if you put him in white face, or included some ‘magically not be racist’ in your ‘magically bring back the dead’ spell, onald Reagan and Winston Churchill would’ve both adored him.

Belastend,

Sure, Ronald “let the poor die” Reagan, Ronald “cuts for welfare, debt for military expenses” Reagan wpuld have adored Obamacare, stronger Wallstreet Regulations and the most extensive climate protection bills up that üoint. Yeah, thats what Reagan stood for.

BluesF,

I think you are expecting a lot more subtlety in people’s interpretation than the people doing the interpretation deserve. Yes, super earth is clearly a military dictatorship to anyone who recognises that it is a political satire. But for those who don’t, and who don’t see beyond the surface veneer of “we’re defending Earth from invaders”… It looks a lot like AmericaWorld, where everyone is happy and free and kept safe from the nasty aliens.

MolochAlter,

But for those who don’t, and who don’t see beyond the surface veneer of “we’re defending Earth from invaders”… It looks a lot like AmericaWorld, where everyone is happy and free and kept safe from the nasty aliens.

If you don’t think of it as a military dictatorship (remember, this is not the real world, it’s fiction and people read into it whatever they want) then super earth is the good guys.

Super earth is painted as the most pristine fascist ideal of the polity united under a single uniform banner (because everyone who wasn’t in line has already been purged or will be, shortly), why would your average normie (who by definition won’t be strongly objecting on principle) ever oppose that if not for the means it was achieved with?


Most people come into fiction assuming the author agrees with whatever they think.

That’s why you can hear lefties praise Ocarina of Time as anti-monarchist because Link is deposing Ganondorf, when it’s obviously restorationist since Link is actually reinstating the rightful king of Hyrule, not ending monarchy altogether.

That’s also why preachy, obnoxious, clumsy propaganda that bludgeons you with its political stance sells about as well as a kick to the teeth. Anyone who agrees will be bored by hearing repeated talking points, and anyone who doesn’t will despise the message, not be moved or convinced.

Good art with a political message makes you actually come to the conclusions the author came to through the process of enjoying the art and having the experience the author has built in it.

For instance, by humanizing a character with ideas or traits you find distasteful.

Like the original Starship Troopers book, whose main character is not a blonde blue eyed all American boy, but Tagalog-speaking Filipino Johnny Rico, whose ethnic background Heinlein hides until the final chapter to make his 60s mostly WASP teenage boy audience identify with him, so they can have the realization that in a society that does not care about race they would not even realise which race the characters are until something practical comes up (his natively speaking Tagalog in this case), which was exceedingly anti-racist for the 60s.

Bad art tells you the political conclusion you should reach then calls you a bigot for rejecting its message. It’s less than worthless as a political tool, it’s actively detrimental because it creates the kind of staunch opposition and attempted purges we see weekly at this point trying to get woke shit out of media, the same way we had those in the 2000s with conservative trash like the “drugs are bad and a single joint will ruin your life” we would see in sit-coms every fucking season.

Every side does this when they have hegemonic control of media production, and everyone who isn’t aggressively brainrotted eventually gets fed up because not only is it not helpful, it makes for bad art even when you agree with it.

Tar_alcaran,

Super earth is painted as the most pristine fascist ideal of the polity united under a single uniform banner (because everyone who wasn’t in line has already been purged or will be, shortly), why would your average normie (who by definition won’t be strongly objecting on principle) ever oppose that if not for the means it was achieved with?

Spacetravel is fueled by bugblood (element 710, or “oil” upside down) which the government actively “farms” by letting them rampage freely around civilian worlds, for the benefit of the homeworld. They likely engineered the terminids to increase the 710 production, making them more aggressive.

The Automatons are the direct descendants of the cyborgs, whom Super Earth keeps enslaved on Cyberstan, for the crime of disagreeing with the government.

These things aren’t subtle at all, or hard to see in-game. Every dead helldiver is a direct result of the actions of the government.

melpomenesclevage,

Also, uh, try walking out of bounds. What does that tell you?

MolochAlter,

The Automatons are the direct descendants of the cyborgs, whom Super Earth keeps enslaved on Cyberstan, for the crime of disagreeing with the government.

They are also depicted in Black-Red-White pattern, with skulls on their heads, are deemed to be “socialists” by the government, and are rebuilding coming off of a punishing defeat, sound familiar?

There is a deliberate series of conflicting points of satire in the game precisely to make it so you can read it multiple ways.

Spacetravel is fueled by bugblood (element 710, or “oil” upside down) which the government actively “farms” by letting them rampage freely around civilian worlds, for the benefit of the homeworld. They likely engineered the terminids to increase the 710 production, making them more aggressive.

Which is a very on the nose parody of the US foreign policy regarding the middle east, and the US crucially isn’t a military dictatorship.

Every dead helldiver is a direct result of the actions of the government.

Every dead soldier always is, doesn’t make their cause automatically unworthy. Obviously in this case it is, that’s the joke, but that’s not an argument in itself.

Also I know plenty of dead helldivers who caused it to themselves, but I digress.


My point is, the game is political satire, but it doesn’t have a single valid interpretation. Nothing does, but this does even less than usual.

It satirizes fascism, but also liberalism, it satirizes those who look at an oppressed group and can’t see their current evil behaviour because of their oppressed path, it satirizes those who see conspiracies everywhere but in plain sight, I’m sure there’s jabs at communism too (or maybe that was just twitter lefties identifying with bugs again…)

There’s a lot of variety because it’s not some garbage propaganda piece, but an actually well made piece of satire and, as such, it should make you think not tell you what you ought to think.

supersquirrel,

Which is a very on the nose parody of the US foreign policy regarding the middle east, and the US crucially isn’t a military dictatorship.

*looks over at the Palestinian genocide being supported so hard by the US military industrial complex it might actually cause the sitting President to throw their entire campaign over refusing to budge to voters REALLY not wanting the US to support Israel in committing ethnic cleansing…. *

You sure about that one? Yeah it doesn’t say “Military Dictatorship” on the tin but ommm….

MolochAlter,

What does foreign policy have to do with local governance, exactly?

The US is not a military dictatorship. There is no debate about it. Case in point: you are allowed (or would be in case you’re not from the US) to post this and not get disappeared by the FBI tomorrow.

The US has a very hawkish foreign policy that you can absolutely condemn and disagree with, but words mean things and “military dictatorship” does not mean “mean to brown people.”

supersquirrel,

I am sorry, voting has no measurable impact on what and how the military and government of the US chooses to commit genocide and fight wars.

Edward Snowden would be put away in jail for the rest of his life for the second he stepped on US soil for speaking up against the US government.

I am equating living under a typical military dictatorship with living in the US? No, but honestly we aren’t very far from a military dictatorship given how incredibly, incomprehensibly powerful the military industrial complex is in the US. There has never been a more powerful military either in absolute terms of force or in relative terms of force compared to similar peer militaries, it doesn’t really matter that we can vote, the votes don’t have any meaning against that degree of entrenched power.

melpomenesclevage,

Its pretty easy to aim at lib or fasch and hit the other. They’re kind of fucking. Have been since that one free city in the alps with all the cocaine and nonstop street fights, orgies, and street fight orgies at the end of, I wanna say, the Austria Hungarian empire?

Socsa,

I guarantee you that no rightoid looks at a one world government “super earth” with fond eyes.

My brother in Christ, “rightoids” are literally falling over themselves to support a man who openly proclaims his intentions to become a dictator.

EldritchFeminity,

You’re giving these people too much benefit of the doubt on their critical thinking skills. The kinds of people you’re talking about aren’t the ones who complain about politics in media. It might annoy them when it’s as bad as you’re talking about, but it bothers everybody else as well when it’s that bad. The ones who can’t see the satire here are the same ones who scream about the main character being a woman.

To them, any politics is blatant cringeworthy soapboxing, and their definition of politics is anything that disagrees with their black and white worldview. When they say “keep politics out of x”, they mean “never give me anything outside of my echo chamber.” And they absolutely love the Super Earth world government. They don’t think any deeper than whether something affirms their worldview or not. They’ll go from supporting the cops and government taking away other people’s freedoms to screaming at a cop a second later for giving them a speeding ticket because the cop “violated their first amendment rights” or whatever. As somebody else put it in the comments:

Conservatives think they’re the default. They don’t have an ideology, a religion, a sexuality, or an ethnicity. They’re normal. It’s everyone else who’s different.

These kinds of people believe that there are two groups of people: an in-group that consists of themselves, and an out-group that is everybody else. And they aren’t political, but the out-group is.

They believe that there are two races: white and political. Two sexualities: straight and political. Two genders: male and political.

MolochAlter,

You’re giving these people too much benefit of the doubt on their critical thinking skills.

I extend the same benefit to people who make comments like this one, despite their blatant disregard for the humanity of their opposition and their expectation that disagreement with them means inability to conceptualise the world to the same level of complexity, instead of simply conceptualising it differently.

I might be wrong to do either, who knows, maybe I should treat all people who disagree with me with the contempt someone unintelligent and beneath me would deserve, I’m sure that never went poorly before.

To them, any politics is blatant cringeworthy soapboxing, and their definition of politics is anything that disagrees with their black and white worldview. They don’t think any deeper than whether something affirms their worldview or not. They’ll go from supporting the cops and government taking away other people’s freedoms to screaming at a cop a second later for giving them a speeding ticket because the cop “violated their first amendment rights” or whatever.

You know absolutely nothing of rightwingers or right wing thought. The fact alone that you’d flatten them all into one mass with a black and white worldview when “the right” encompasses such a massive swath of political ideologies to dwarf the left in variety should make you re-evaluate how much you actually understand them and how much of this is partisan hatred and dehumanisation.

By that exact same token I could paint the exact same picture of a leftwinger. Hell, it was all the rage to do so in 2016, and i’m sure you know exactly what I’m thinking of if you are old enough to have been politically involved back then.

These kinds of people believe that there are two groups of people: an in-group that consists of themselves, and an out-group that is everybody else. And they aren’t political, but the out-group is. They believe that there are two races: white and political. Two sexualities: straight and political. Two genders: male and political.

Good job erasing conservative blacks, conservative latinos, conservative immigrants, conservative women, and what few conservative LGBT people exist (not that many admittedly, but a few nonetheless).

It’s really funny to see someone decry the inability of others to conceive and appreciate diversity, while doing exactly the same on a different axis.

EldritchFeminity,

I’m not talking about conservatives as a whole. I believe there’s plenty of conservatives who get that this is satire. And plenty who probably didn’t pick up on it, but would get it if you explained it to them. I’m saying that you’re mistaking the vocal minority for the silent majority. The majority of people, conservatives and progressives alike, only really care about political stances in media when it’s hamfisted in awkwardly. Nobody enjoys that. But you usually won’t see people complaining about it because people don’t usually care enough to bother. All art is political, but not all art is a stupid hamfisted attempt to appeal to some minority group in a way that even they hate. Art has a piece of the artist’s beliefs and convictions behind it, so it is inherently political regardless of whether or not it’s attempting to say a specific political message. That’s just the way that life is. Steven Spielberg’s biggest regret is making Jaws, because it is directly responsible for the mass culling of sharks. It wasn’t his intention, but it changed the way people saw sharks and terrified them all across the world. He just wanted to make a horror movie and ended up changing the cultural landscape of the entire world. If you look specifically at what the “no politics in my media!” crowd is crying about, you’ll usually find that it’s something like “two men kissed on screen and now I have to unpack the fact that I search for femboy porn every night” or “I can’t believe that they dared to make Deadpool bisexual even though he’s been canonically bi since the character was created” or even “I am upset that the Punisher hates cops despite the fact that he was literally created for the sole purpose of being a bad guy who doesn’t hesitate to kill bad cops as well as criminals.”

I’m talking about that specific subgroup who visit /pol/ on 4Chan. Who would call themselves Gamers with a capital g. That vocal minority who make up a very specific block of the US Republican party. The people that you’re referring to from 2016. The ones who hung effigies of Obama from nooses and carried them through the streets while he was in office. The kinds of people who have no actual values themselves, just supporting whatever hurts the people that they’ve been told to hate. The people who support DeSantis and the others who pushed forward 200+ anti trans laws in the first six months of last year (it was somewhere around 1.2 new bills every day) because trans people are the new boogeyman after the gay boogeyman failed. Who only take up an ideological stance as long as it supports their argument and will support the exact opposite ideology the next moment when the first one becomes inconvenient to their worldview. The people who supported quotes from Hitler and Mussolini when they were misattributed to Trump, and when told who actually said them responded with stuff like, “If Hitler said it, then no. But I would if Trump had said it.”

Like my first boss, and my grandfather before him, who would look at you like you insulted them if you asked them who they were voting for and respond every time with “I’m a Republican. I vote for the nominee.” It wouldn’t matter to these people if the nominee was Trump, Bush, Obama, or Stalin himself risen from the grave to finally destroy the specter of capitalism once and for all. So long as the letter next to their name was an R, that’s who they’d vote for.

These are the kinds of people who don’t get that the game is satire and decry media as being too political when it’s pointed out to them. They see the Super Earth world government and go “See, this is how a country should be run!” The same people who saw Starship Troopers as an ideal we should strive for. This is a group for whom no bridge is a bridge too far, because it’s in the name of “freedom” and “democracy”.

That’s who this article is about. Not conservatives, but conservatives who see no difference between fascism and conservative ideologies. Conservatives see two women holding hands walking down the street and don’t give a shit. These people go home and rant about how gay people make their whole lives revolve around being gay and need to stop shoving it down everybody else’s throats on Reddit. These people literally harassed one of the devs on the Steam forums for “being too liberal and pushing an agenda”. There are conservatives, Republicans, and then these people, and they’re a subset within a subset. Not all conservatives are Republicans, and not all Republicans are these guys, but they sure as hell do exist.

But you should check your own biases, because stuff like this:

The fact alone that you’d flatten them all into one mass with a black and white worldview when “the right” encompasses such a massive swath of political ideologies to dwarf the left in variety should make you re-evaluate how much you actually understand them and how much of this is partisan hatred and dehumanisation.

Is just straight up false. There are as many varieties of left leaning ideologies as there are right. Because no two people believe in exactly the same thing. You did right in that quote exactly what you were accusing me of doing. If we want to get into the weeds of politics, the two party system of the US leaves no room for any nuance on either side, but the political compass of both parties leans more conservative than progressive. The Republicans are a right-wing party while the Democrats are largely a left leaning centrist party. There are many people who vote Democrat not because they support the Democrats, but because they oppose stuff like the current Party of Trump’s push towards authoritarianism. There’s a whole swath of left leaning ideologies that have no representation in the government, and many of them are so different from each other that they have opposing and conflicting ideals. There is something to be said about the conservatives rallying behind the authoritarians and fascists in the Republican party instead of saying “Maybe we should take the L this time so we can clean out our own party”, but there’s also something to be said about Democrats funding these extremists in the first place because they think that they’ll be easy to beat; but all of that goes far beyond the scope of an article about Helldivers 2.

Socsa,

How about we “flatten” then to supporting the most comically idiotic fascist on the face of the earth?

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