So, I’ve been out of the loop for a bit. I’ll do a mad sprint of articles and then take a few days off. However, during my time off, I noticed there was a discourse happening about Sweet Baby. Initially, I thought people were hating on the barbecue sauce favorited by Mark Zuckerberg. But, after reading into it, all I could think at the time is “Fucking GamersTM“. But let’s get into it.
What is Sweet Baby?
Sweet Baby is a narrative consulting firm that works in the gaming industry. The company only exists to make sure a story makes sense. Have all the necessary plots been resolved? Did someone go up the stairs never to be seen again? Is there a gaping plot hole somewhere? Sweet Baby fixes that stuff. They also do some superficial stuff that isn’t even a part of the main plot.
But that’s all they do. They are a consulting firm. As a consultant myself (yay for new job), I know that my input on something can be taken or discarded. I’m only paid to just be listened to and contribute if I feel that something is needed. The people I work with don’t have to what I say. And it’s the same thing with Sweet Baby. The company that hires the consulting firm doesn’t have to take any of the suggestions.
How did we get to this point?
Well, it seems that some people have taken to point at Sweet Baby as the reason why games are failing or the reason that people of color or other marginalized community members are being represented in games. It’s as if the game developers themselves didn’t make any of those decisions. Like, it couldn’t be that there are more diverse voices in a room making decisions that could driving this.
The people who seem to be behind this latest campaign to chase the boogieman known as “woke” seem to be some repressed horny incels who want to watch women in skimpy clothes parade around for them because it’s not what they’ll get in real life. But let me not forget the racists who don’t want to see any shade darker than khaki as a main character in a video game.
So, just like 10 years ago a-la-GamerGate, these keyboard jockeys take to the internet to express outrage about things they know nothing about. “How dare this entity come in and change what we’ve known for years?”
But why?
As I said before, it comes down to this idea of “woke”. In 2014, those participating called it “political correctness”. Now, thanks to Ron Desantis, anyone can just scream “woke” and others around will get it.
The problem is, if asked, Ron Desantis, the GOP, or these folks railing against Sweet Baby can’t even define “woke”. Why, you ask? Because they co-opted the term from the Black community. They stole the word and didn’t stay for the definition. So now we get to spend all this time listening to them misuse a word they know nothing about.
What now?
Well, unfortunately, becomes of GamerGate and anonymity of the internet, coordinated attacks like this will unfortunately still happen. The one thing to remember, though, is that if you aren’t a part of this, you’re objectively having more fun enjoying life than those who are trying to police a naturally occurring thing.
What these people fail to realize is that people of color and marginalized folks were kept out because we were objectively better and it makes them look bad. These people can stay mad as more of us get seats at the table and finally get a chance to tell our stories and make our games.
If they don’t believe we belong there, then they should put their money where there mouth is.
But don’t forget to put your name on it. Anonymity gets you nowhere.
Until next time, stay woke!
– Marcus “MajorLinux” Summers
It’s pretty convenient that all the bigots are outing themselves so clearly with stupid catchphrase terms like ‘woke’ and ‘groomer’. Because you used to have to find this out about someone when they slipped up or mistakenly thought you were also a hateful gremlin like them. Sometimes it took years of knowing someone for it to come up. Now they just can’t stop saying it & they’ve painted the red flags on themselves in neon colours.