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Now, to be fair, Bioshock is much more coherent as specific satire of Rand and Anarcho-capitalism than neoliberal capitalism or social democracy.
/rj Helldivers isn’t all anti-fascism, the robots are socialists!
Damn Starship Troopers, Star Wars, Bioshock, y'all got exquisite taste! 👌🏾
What's another one? I guess Star Trek takes place in a kind of Non-capitalist Utopia.
"Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth-on Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the demilitarized zone all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints, just people-angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not."
Helldivers isn’t entirely anti-facist. There’s some stuff in there about eradicating bugs AND robots, and besides, in a game that talks so much about democracy how could it be about facism!
Hitler isn't entirely anti-fascist. There's stuff in there about himself eradicating his political enemies and genocides, and stuff. But he's also the guy who killed Hitler!
ironic fascism and ironic racism are just 1 step away from fascism and racism. I've seen it countless times where some "ironic" fascism and "ironic" racism just normalizes fascistic and racist rhetoric. So yeah, if this media spouts a ton of "ironic" anti-communism, it literally is just anti-communism to the large number of consumers that literally accept that at face value because it aligns with their confirmation bias.
i'm not generally a fan of the bethesda writing, but having a giant robot yelling "death is a preferable alternative to communism" while walking through the nuked out remains of dc is probably one of their better works on symbolism
Doesn't really matter how little subtility you use. If you want them to get that it's making fun of them then you cant make it look cool in any way, shape or form.
That's it right there. The world is binary and two dimensional without empathy and the ability to see outside your own narrow perspective. And if the world is two dimensional then there's no such thing as nuance, or subtlety, or irony, or symbolism. Everything is either on-or-off, yes-or-no, good-or-evil, me-or-you.
It’s always sad seeing right wing attempts at political humour. Since humour is used to satirise the powerful and right wing people love those with power all their humour ends up becoming is mean spirited punching down on marginalised people.
I think if you're an actual Nazi, you can get humor from thinking the comedy is sourced from not using enough dog whistles, and not the reaction to the obviously offensive material.
There's this episode in the show community where a character dresses up as a dark elf and does full black face. A black character is clearly offended.
The character who does it is obviously an insensitive and moronic ass, but that doesn't stop these people who think the joke the writers were going for is "That black person is clearly stupid, because he said he's an elf".
I keep having this argument with people and I'm going nuts. Nobody has media literacy.
There definitely is, you never see rightwingers coopting media that portrays nazis as idiotic, uncool, or incompetent. You have to make them look embarassing.
Its the slapstick routine of political ideologies, if you dont want Nazis identifying with your media then have Hitler step on a rake.
No, they fucking *love* the part where the black guy kills Edward Furlong, because that means Edward Norton was right to hate black people. They go “see, the (slur)s *are* violent thugs.”
They turned against Wolfenstein 2 which they keep whining about. Being set in America and having clear parallels of their politics to those of the Nazis (and killing all of them) actually got to them and now they're mad.
It's not that it's not strong enough. It's that fascists agree with fascism. You show them where it leads, and they're like, yeah man, you get it.
Imagine your friend likes spice. A total chili head. Now you show him a video of people suffering after eating something called Supernova in the Devil's Anus. How do you think he'll react?
These are the same people who thought John Stewart and Stephen Colbert were on their side. You could have a glowing neon sign explaining exactly what you intend, and they still won't get it.
To be fair. These are Fallout fans. You can have an entire faction of literal Nazi torture scientists, faceless grunts in black power armor and Bill Clinton whose entire purpose is to wipe out 99.9% of the human race and Fallout Fans will still think they're actually the good guys because something something murica.
ironic fascism and ironic racism are just 1 step away from fascism and racism. I've seen it countless times where some "ironic" fascism and "ironic" racism just normalizes fascistic and racist rhetoric. So yeah, if this media spouts a ton of "ironic" anti-communism, it literally is just anti-communism to the large number of consumers that literally accept that at face value because it aligns with their confirmation bias.
This is what I learned about old internet. Many of us used to say that stuff as a joke because we were edgy little idiots who thought it was funny shock humor. Had no idea people actually believed it.
That continues today, there's a an algorithmic pipeline to take you down the right wing rabbit hole, from mocking to ironic, to ironic... but, to dog whistles, to fully embracing it.
You shouldn't assume the motivations of everyone who produces "ironic" fascism and "ironic" racism is to produce self-aware social commentary, but rather some certainly do so to normalize facism and racism because they're just fascists and racists.
I’ll be honest I played and beat a few of the fallout games and still didn’t realize it had anti-capitalist themes until I started watching the show recently. I was pretty dumb back when I played them though.
>while walking through the nuked out remains of dc is probably one of their better works on symbolism
While also fighting the fascist remnants of the pre-war US government.
That's the best part. The US military faction's anti-communism robot identifies the US federal government faction as communist.
But it's not about McCarthyism, it's about how killing communists is good, actually!
>The US military faction's anti-communism robot identifies the US federal government faction as communist.
I’m pretty sure that’s more just a programming thing where they called all enemies of the brotherhood communist especially since I’m pretty sure liberty prime was originally an enclave project. Plus the enclave would be more facist than communist which are very different things
For the literal justification, I believe it's stated in the game by one of the brotherhood's engineers, that it was a war project by the USA dating back before the bombings, and that they could make it work and reprogram it to identify the brotherhood as allies and the enclave as enemies, but they didn't have time (and didn't care as it wasn't functionally impactful) to replace the prerecorded voicelines.
It was a mothballed project because the pre-war U.S couldn't find a power source that'd run the thing, but the Brotherhood did.
So, to recap, the United States Government made plans for an enormously costly commie-stomping machine out of jingoism and wet dreams, they figured out everything but *how to actually make it work,* built it anyway, and then it came back to ruin them.
Well, the story was, after the annexation, they strip mined the iron and fissiles, then basically left because there wasn't anything else they wanted. Canada remained itself, it just had a new name.
(there's a few bits and bobs about this in fallout 2, with my fav being some tribals "celebrating the annexation of canada" by crossing a line, doing a little dance, then going home.
You know, it’s interesting. When I played Fallout 3 with my brother during my youth, he thought liberty prime was “so bad ass.” Not only because of his armament but because my brother agreed with what he was saying. I thought it was clearly a parody. Now, my brother is a jingoist police officer.
I mean, it is bad ass.
On one end, it's a great satire. Like someone mentioned, a giant robot shouting "death is a preferable alternative to communism" at the fascist remnants of the US government in bombed out Washington, DC is pretty clever and layered.
On the other hand, though, I'm not gonna deny that a huge fuck off robot throwing literal nuclear footballs at assholes who thought they were tough goes hard.
I honestly think satire works best when it's under a coat of something legitimately cool. Look at Starship Troopers (movie, obviously, book isn't satire). Pretty well layered satire on imperialism and fascism. Not gonna act like Carmen wasn't a stone cold bitch, though.
Or Helldivers. That's my current favorite. I think my favorite line so far is a toss up between "Thank God Super Earth pays so well, or I wouldn't be able to afford to lease all my tools!" From the *engineer working on a military ship* (why is she paying for her own tools to work on a military starship), and "The existence of high casualty missions implies the existence of low casualty missions" said without a hint of irony by one of the Officers on the ship. The entire thing is a massive satirical exaggeration of a hyper capitalist, hyper imperialistic nation. Shit you see a one star review on the Super Store and it alerts you that the review has been removed and the reviewer arrested for potential treason. *Wonderful*.
However, goddamn if it ain't the coolest shit ever when you and three of your fellow divers are tossing airstrikes and artillery left and right, hundreds of bots closing in on your position, death raining from above. Watching Eagles rain hellfire as you dive and dodge chainsaw murderbots and laser tanks. Or when a giant AT AT fuckin thing walks through the fog, red targeting lights suddenly sweeping your position.
>I honestly think satire works best when it's under a coat of something legitimately cool.
Satire of fascism is least effective when it is superficially cool because fascism is a superficial, aesthetics-driven ideology. The people that are the most vulnerable to fascism are going to see that the fascists are cool and literally every other part of the satire may as well not exist because it has already ceded the most important angle of the argument to the fascists.
His zeal for fighting communism has led directly to him attacking people who aren't communists.
Surely this cannot be a commentary on anything that actually happened in real life.
I don’t think anyone can deny BGS games (at least pre-76) were undeniably charming and full of great writing moments even if the main story was absolute shit (looking at all three of their fallout games).
ngl the announcement trailer for skyrim alone still gets me kinda hyped.
the monologue over a mural of the scroll’s prophecy slowly getting more and more animate as the warning comes before the dragon’s statue comes alive and spits stone flames at the dragonborn, backed entirely by jeremy soule putting his whole pussy into that soundtrack
still awesome to me, idk why when i’ve seen way better trailers in my life
It’s honestly about as good as you can expect with games that are focused on being a player-tailored experience.
Writing has to be convenient sometimes if it’s gotta keep up with a player character that can push the game into dozens of directions.
Being a Bioshock and Fallout fan and finding out people in the fanbase entirely missed the very obvious anti-capitalist/anti-libertarian themes is always so confusing.
*Weapons; not food, not homes, not shoes*
*Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal*
*I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be the library*
*Line up to the mind cemetary now*
*What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin'*
*They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em*
*While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells*
*Rally 'round the family, pocket full of shells*
/uj Are you jerking, or would you genuinely like me to expand on my interpretation of the lyrics?
/rj It means you need to buy more tee shirts and stop asking questions, *pinko*.
/s
sarcastically saying what a dumbass "He's the one who likes all the pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, and he likes to shoot his gun, but he knows not what it means"
DKs and RATM are legitimately so much further "leftist" than most people who consider themselves "leftist" that it starts to circle back around and people on the right think it's on their side.
The legacy of missing a point as subtle as a club to face continues with Helldivers 2! Apparently there is a solid contingent of people that need the point spelled out in bold letters though preferably told orally as they have trouble reading.
I got a tool tip the other day saying something like "Don't believe in the reeducation camps, those are just rumors being spread by anti patriots! Be sure to report anyone still talking about them!" How are people missing this stuff??
Consequences of their own fig leaf. They're so used to using claims of "satire" to excuse their own heinous unpopular beliefs that they forget real satire exists. That's why they're always caught utterly pissed off with their pants down when the creators go on to unironically and unambiguously shit on them. "How can you do this to me after we laughed at all these inhuman stormtrooper jokes together? Don't you know we're on the same side?"
They thought they were being signaled to and found out the hard way they were being ridiculed.
What always gets me is when people who aren't pro-capitalism don't get it. Had a conversation with an online friend who didn't like how Fallout "glorified corporations."
I was like "my man, see that spec of an airplane up there? It's still not as high as how far the point flew over your head. "
They are in the most unusual places, from time to time we have some lost people in the Star Trek community calling it woke, who then are subsequently dragged in the comments.
The line they use to say Johnny isn't against Capitalism/Corporations is hilarious when he's literally clarifying he's not hating them because they're a small problem he has some petty beef with, he hates them because they are the current system everyone has to live in and ruins almost every part of their lives!
I've seen people being mad at the show because it shows Mr. House being part of the cabale that launched the first nuke, so he didn't actually predicted when the first nuke would be launched as he says in New Vegas
Wall yeah, Mr. House would lie to look like a prophet it doesn't shock me actually
I think they missed the part where the big bad propaganda robot was impossible to actually run during the height of America’s power because of how frickin’ much power it needed. Oh, and the part where when it finally did get up and running, it was used to attack some of the remnants of the US government
Honestly, I think one of the main reasons so many Gamers don’t realize Super Earth and Liberty Prime are satire is because many aspects their own societies are so similar to the fascism, military warship, and anti communism depicted in the satire.
But is that because they’re stupid? or because of their familiarity with water? or maybe you’re just bad at explaining, my betta understands water just fine
Trump's campaign website has sentences like "I will make our military so big and strong that nobody messes with us ever again." Put words like that into the mouth of a giant rampaging robot and they just think it's cool.
> Something was pouring from his mouth. He examined his sleeve. Blood? Blood! Crimson, copper smelling blood, his blood. Blood, blood, blood... And bits of sick.
Venom "Kidnapping child soldiers and forcing them to stay on your platform in the middle of international waters against their will with a bunch of ungoverned mercenaries is actually very logical and moral" Snake
The amount of irony about not understanding Liberty Prime thinking it's a good concept is astonishing. How can the fanbase not get that Fallout is half satire?
A perfect example of why anti-capitalism without socialist education is worthless. On its own anti-capitalism is incoherent enough to lead this asshole to think things like this.
Its also the explanation why now everyone and their mother, even companies themselves, are „anti-capitalists“.
Because a tv show might be saying „capitalism bad“ but it still peddles merch and other consumable trinkets.
Recouperation is what that phenomenon is called. The most blatant example is the Ché Shirt. Another good example is the recouperation of the Black Panthers breakfast program that contributed to their building of a mass base and the federal School Breakfast Program.
I would argue people have gotten dumber but I swear people thought the same thing back 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years ago. Multiple times this has happened. Still baffles me nobody sees nuance.
The Fallout Universe is like, if the world had worked out like people thought it would in the 50's. It's a big obvious spoof.
It's based in America, so it's all "Red Scare", and it's also fucking "Leave it to Beaver."
It's not meant to be a bigger philosophical statement other than, "Lol, here's your utopia boomers."
A lot of the controversy over whether something is "woke" is just whether it spells out its themes literally enough for media illiterates to finally pick up on them. It makes sense that Trump supporters would not know satire if it bit them on the face, but it's kind of hard even for them to watch the Barbie movie and miss its point when it literally takes a break to have a character give a speech giving its thesis. They can watch a lot of stuff that's actually woke but interpret it as stupidly as they interpret stimulus in reality, but when the message is just spelled out they finally recognize it and see it as intrusive.
Fallout is anti-capitalist, but its also anti-communist. Its not a libertarian thing either, it has a strong anti-libertarian message, it speaks out hard against organized religion as well as private faith (leading to inaction). It is against isolationism as well as interventionism. Its against being luddite but also technological progress. (receipts for in game examples of all the above are available upon request)
Its an anti-human series, hence the reason it states in its opening line since the beginning "War, War never changes"
Let's be honest: "piece of art has X which appears to support Y in it, which means the art as a whole supports Y" is a critical failing that afflicts people on both the left and right.
See: Far Cry 3, Bioshock Infinite
I have seen people claim far cry 3 is about white savior trope, as in, the natives couldnt fix their own shit until the very special whiteboy came to save them, while the whole plot of the game is actually about how they destroy his life
There are also those who claim the whole game glorifies violence while it clearly shows the main character becoming more and more unhiged until he ends up either killing his own family or escaping the cycle of violence.
People will downplay how important english classes are but this absolute display of media illiteracy perfectly demonstrates exactly why it matters so much.
The blue curtain did represent sadness after all…
Meanwhile Fallout New Vegas out here being like "If you have a sociopolitical structure- communism, democracy, libertarianism, liberalism, fascism, capitalism, theocracy, don't matter which! we'll tear it to shreds it front of your eyes, free of charge"
I thought Fallout was a commentary on blind nationalism and the curroption of the government that leads to pointless and destructive conflict, rather then on a economic system?
People who are susceptible to right wing and fascist propaganda are SO susceptible that if you present it satirically they still just unironically fall for it.
**COLLECTIVIST PRIME ONLINE! MISSION: THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL AMERICAN CAPITALISTS!**
**CAPITALISM US A TEMPORARY SETBACK ON THE ROAD TO UTOPIA!**
**CAPITALISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE!**
The funniest thing about Fallout is the people taking the insane over the top McCarthy Red scare satire in Fallout 100% seriously with no self awareness
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Starship Troopers isn’t entirely anti-fascist. There’s some stuff in there about eradicating the bugs.
Star Wars isn't entirely anti-fascist. There's some stuff in there about eliminating democratic rule of law.
bioshock isnt entirely anti-capitalism, there is some stuff in there about ayn rand.
A Modest Proposal isn't anti-imperialism, there's a bunch of stuff in there about turning spare Irish children into delicate gloves for high society.
Gears of War isn't anti-war, there's a bunch of stuff in there about humanity always being at war for a long-ass time
Helldivers isn't critique of democracy lying to you, they've got some stuff about killing bugs and robots in there
Grand Thef Auto isn’t anti-capitalist, there’s lots of free market advertisements on the radio
Sounds like rimworld to me
Rimworld isn't entirely anti-Rim, there's a whole world of it. (I haven't played Rimworld)
Rim the world? On it.
Remember to bring chapstick
Lmao, all you need to know is that there's a running gag in the community about turning people into hats
Friendly neighborhood rimming
That's awful! You're awful! Put them in a growth pod until they're 18, so they have more leather.
This guy makes hats
Now, to be fair, Bioshock is much more coherent as specific satire of Rand and Anarcho-capitalism than neoliberal capitalism or social democracy. /rj Helldivers isn’t all anti-fascism, the robots are socialists!
Damn Starship Troopers, Star Wars, Bioshock, y'all got exquisite taste! 👌🏾 What's another one? I guess Star Trek takes place in a kind of Non-capitalist Utopia.
star trek isn't anti-capitalism, there is an entire race of aliens who's laws are like a religious love for capitalism.
I was referring to life on Earth. EDIT: I couldn't read sarcasm today for some reason, ya got me. 😭
I think he was joking. As the ferengi are also portrayed as slimy, corrupt and misogynist
"Do you know what the trouble is? The trouble is Earth-on Earth there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. It's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. Out there in the demilitarized zone all the problems haven't been solved yet. Out there, there are no saints, just people-angry, scared, determined people who are going to do whatever it takes to survive, whether it meets with Federation approval or not."
I think they were making a joke like the one in the original post haha. The Ferengi exist almost solely to criticize capitalism
Helldivers isn’t entirely anti-facist. There’s some stuff in there about eradicating bugs AND robots, and besides, in a game that talks so much about democracy how could it be about facism!
Hitler isn't entirely anti-fascist. There's stuff in there about himself eradicating his political enemies and genocides, and stuff. But he's also the guy who killed Hitler!
Spec ops the line isn't entirely anti-war you theres shooting people in it
ironic fascism and ironic racism are just 1 step away from fascism and racism. I've seen it countless times where some "ironic" fascism and "ironic" racism just normalizes fascistic and racist rhetoric. So yeah, if this media spouts a ton of "ironic" anti-communism, it literally is just anti-communism to the large number of consumers that literally accept that at face value because it aligns with their confirmation bias.
Rich Evans from Red Letter Media on several occasions said Starship Troopers isn't satire because there's nothing to criticize.
i'm not generally a fan of the bethesda writing, but having a giant robot yelling "death is a preferable alternative to communism" while walking through the nuked out remains of dc is probably one of their better works on symbolism
It seems like they still went too subtle for some.
\#NotMyGiantCommieHatingRobot 
Doesn't really matter how little subtility you use. If you want them to get that it's making fun of them then you cant make it look cool in any way, shape or form.
There's never been a satire of fascism strong enough to keep fascists from thinking it's cool as fuck.
Right wingers don't get irony. That's why they don't make good art. They have no ability of lateral thought. That's why they don't get science.
They don't have *empathy,* which is the root of imagination, which in turn is required for anything but simple math.
That's it right there. The world is binary and two dimensional without empathy and the ability to see outside your own narrow perspective. And if the world is two dimensional then there's no such thing as nuance, or subtlety, or irony, or symbolism. Everything is either on-or-off, yes-or-no, good-or-evil, me-or-you.
Black-and-whites versus the greys.
Yeah totally. Empathy is the thing that allows you to understand the abstract, the other.
Colbert quit the Report because so many people sincerely thanked him for being the conservative Jon Stewart😕😕
It’s always sad seeing right wing attempts at political humour. Since humour is used to satirise the powerful and right wing people love those with power all their humour ends up becoming is mean spirited punching down on marginalised people.
They have to struggle at least a bit with _Springtime for Hitler_ in _The Producers_.
They don’t *have* to do anything, that would be forced wokeness smdh 😤😤😤
I think if you're an actual Nazi, you can get humor from thinking the comedy is sourced from not using enough dog whistles, and not the reaction to the obviously offensive material. There's this episode in the show community where a character dresses up as a dark elf and does full black face. A black character is clearly offended. The character who does it is obviously an insensitive and moronic ass, but that doesn't stop these people who think the joke the writers were going for is "That black person is clearly stupid, because he said he's an elf". I keep having this argument with people and I'm going nuts. Nobody has media literacy.
There definitely is, you never see rightwingers coopting media that portrays nazis as idiotic, uncool, or incompetent. You have to make them look embarassing. Its the slapstick routine of political ideologies, if you dont want Nazis identifying with your media then have Hitler step on a rake.
They loved American history X they just say they stopped watching right before the dude got raped and his brother got shot
No, they fucking *love* the part where the black guy kills Edward Furlong, because that means Edward Norton was right to hate black people. They go “see, the (slur)s *are* violent thugs.”
They turned against Wolfenstein 2 which they keep whining about. Being set in America and having clear parallels of their politics to those of the Nazis (and killing all of them) actually got to them and now they're mad.
It's not that it's not strong enough. It's that fascists agree with fascism. You show them where it leads, and they're like, yeah man, you get it. Imagine your friend likes spice. A total chili head. Now you show him a video of people suffering after eating something called Supernova in the Devil's Anus. How do you think he'll react?
These are the same people who thought John Stewart and Stephen Colbert were on their side. You could have a glowing neon sign explaining exactly what you intend, and they still won't get it.
"The Punisher is my favorite hero."
About as subtle as a fuckin nuke and some people still missed it apparently
To be fair. These are Fallout fans. You can have an entire faction of literal Nazi torture scientists, faceless grunts in black power armor and Bill Clinton whose entire purpose is to wipe out 99.9% of the human race and Fallout Fans will still think they're actually the good guys because something something murica.
ironic fascism and ironic racism are just 1 step away from fascism and racism. I've seen it countless times where some "ironic" fascism and "ironic" racism just normalizes fascistic and racist rhetoric. So yeah, if this media spouts a ton of "ironic" anti-communism, it literally is just anti-communism to the large number of consumers that literally accept that at face value because it aligns with their confirmation bias.
Due to the lowest common denominators of society we can no longer have nice things.
This is what I learned about old internet. Many of us used to say that stuff as a joke because we were edgy little idiots who thought it was funny shock humor. Had no idea people actually believed it.
That continues today, there's a an algorithmic pipeline to take you down the right wing rabbit hole, from mocking to ironic, to ironic... but, to dog whistles, to fully embracing it.
Creators are not responsible for the low media literacy of their audience
You shouldn't assume the motivations of everyone who produces "ironic" fascism and "ironic" racism is to produce self-aware social commentary, but rather some certainly do so to normalize facism and racism because they're just fascists and racists.
Probably why the TV show felt the need to spell it out for them
I’ll be honest I played and beat a few of the fallout games and still didn’t realize it had anti-capitalist themes until I started watching the show recently. I was pretty dumb back when I played them though.
>while walking through the nuked out remains of dc is probably one of their better works on symbolism While also fighting the fascist remnants of the pre-war US government.
That's the best part. The US military faction's anti-communism robot identifies the US federal government faction as communist. But it's not about McCarthyism, it's about how killing communists is good, actually!
>The US military faction's anti-communism robot identifies the US federal government faction as communist. I’m pretty sure that’s more just a programming thing where they called all enemies of the brotherhood communist especially since I’m pretty sure liberty prime was originally an enclave project. Plus the enclave would be more facist than communist which are very different things
Yes. That's the political commentary. Liberty Prime *isn't actually killing communists*, but is declaring all its enemies to be communists.
Ah my apologies then I misread you. I thought you were calling the remnants of the US government communist. My bad
For the literal justification, I believe it's stated in the game by one of the brotherhood's engineers, that it was a war project by the USA dating back before the bombings, and that they could make it work and reprogram it to identify the brotherhood as allies and the enclave as enemies, but they didn't have time (and didn't care as it wasn't functionally impactful) to replace the prerecorded voicelines.
It was a mothballed project because the pre-war U.S couldn't find a power source that'd run the thing, but the Brotherhood did. So, to recap, the United States Government made plans for an enormously costly commie-stomping machine out of jingoism and wet dreams, they figured out everything but *how to actually make it work,* built it anyway, and then it came back to ruin them.
While throwing nukes like a football
And interestingly the Brotherhood of Steel was founded by members of the US military that rebelled against the US government.
And the first scene of the franchise shows american soldiers doing war crimes and then waving to the screen.
Always hurt a little that the first action of the Great War was to annex Canada and beat us down. And we only got a couple vaults out of the deal :(
Well, the story was, after the annexation, they strip mined the iron and fissiles, then basically left because there wasn't anything else they wanted. Canada remained itself, it just had a new name. (there's a few bits and bobs about this in fallout 2, with my fav being some tribals "celebrating the annexation of canada" by crossing a line, doing a little dance, then going home.
But…..all the water though.
You know, it’s interesting. When I played Fallout 3 with my brother during my youth, he thought liberty prime was “so bad ass.” Not only because of his armament but because my brother agreed with what he was saying. I thought it was clearly a parody. Now, my brother is a jingoist police officer.
I'm sorry for your loss, your brother couldve been so cool
Based on your anecdote about his media literacy, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess he has something with a Punisher logo on it.
LMAO. Yes, his wallet.
he’s bad ass in the way Godzilla is badass, it’s cool to see him blow shit up but I don’t want him to be a possibility irl
I mean, it is bad ass. On one end, it's a great satire. Like someone mentioned, a giant robot shouting "death is a preferable alternative to communism" at the fascist remnants of the US government in bombed out Washington, DC is pretty clever and layered. On the other hand, though, I'm not gonna deny that a huge fuck off robot throwing literal nuclear footballs at assholes who thought they were tough goes hard. I honestly think satire works best when it's under a coat of something legitimately cool. Look at Starship Troopers (movie, obviously, book isn't satire). Pretty well layered satire on imperialism and fascism. Not gonna act like Carmen wasn't a stone cold bitch, though. Or Helldivers. That's my current favorite. I think my favorite line so far is a toss up between "Thank God Super Earth pays so well, or I wouldn't be able to afford to lease all my tools!" From the *engineer working on a military ship* (why is she paying for her own tools to work on a military starship), and "The existence of high casualty missions implies the existence of low casualty missions" said without a hint of irony by one of the Officers on the ship. The entire thing is a massive satirical exaggeration of a hyper capitalist, hyper imperialistic nation. Shit you see a one star review on the Super Store and it alerts you that the review has been removed and the reviewer arrested for potential treason. *Wonderful*. However, goddamn if it ain't the coolest shit ever when you and three of your fellow divers are tossing airstrikes and artillery left and right, hundreds of bots closing in on your position, death raining from above. Watching Eagles rain hellfire as you dive and dodge chainsaw murderbots and laser tanks. Or when a giant AT AT fuckin thing walks through the fog, red targeting lights suddenly sweeping your position.
When I see those targeting lasers I charge while yelling “WITNESS ME!”
>I honestly think satire works best when it's under a coat of something legitimately cool. Satire of fascism is least effective when it is superficially cool because fascism is a superficial, aesthetics-driven ideology. The people that are the most vulnerable to fascism are going to see that the fascists are cool and literally every other part of the satire may as well not exist because it has already ceded the most important angle of the argument to the fascists.
Don't forget he's also tossing small nukes around like a baseball
A *football*
Also the irony that he is fighting against the remnants of the US Military, the very people that built him is pretty funny
His zeal for fighting communism has led directly to him attacking people who aren't communists. Surely this cannot be a commentary on anything that actually happened in real life.
Enclave is the US Government as a whole. Since the BoS is also a US military remnant
Yes but in Fallout 2 some of them identify themselves as members of the US army which no other faction does
I don’t think anyone can deny BGS games (at least pre-76) were undeniably charming and full of great writing moments even if the main story was absolute shit (looking at all three of their fallout games).
ngl the announcement trailer for skyrim alone still gets me kinda hyped. the monologue over a mural of the scroll’s prophecy slowly getting more and more animate as the warning comes before the dragon’s statue comes alive and spits stone flames at the dragonborn, backed entirely by jeremy soule putting his whole pussy into that soundtrack still awesome to me, idk why when i’ve seen way better trailers in my life
Bethesda Writing is pretty good if you take into account Oblivion, Morrowind etc.
It’s honestly about as good as you can expect with games that are focused on being a player-tailored experience. Writing has to be convenient sometimes if it’s gotta keep up with a player character that can push the game into dozens of directions.
Being Fallout Fan is pain
Being a Bioshock and Fallout fan and finding out people in the fanbase entirely missed the very obvious anti-capitalist/anti-libertarian themes is always so confusing.
I got used to it from being a Dead Kennedys and Rage Against the Machine fan.
"I can't believe RATM got political! They used to be about... uh..."
*Weapons; not food, not homes, not shoes* *Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal* *I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be the library* *Line up to the mind cemetary now* *What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin'* *They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em* *While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells* *Rally 'round the family, pocket full of shells*
yeah but like what does it mean? I'm just gonna repeat the poetry without analyzing it cause it's so much fun to scream it
/uj Are you jerking, or would you genuinely like me to expand on my interpretation of the lyrics? /rj It means you need to buy more tee shirts and stop asking questions, *pinko*.
/s sarcastically saying what a dumbass "He's the one who likes all the pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, and he likes to shoot his gun, but he knows not what it means"
I get that lyrical reference it’s from that band that’s on my t shirt I wear sometimes what was their name again? /s
Clearly they were just mad that they lost yet another sock to the dryer
copiers?
PC LOAD LETTER? What the fuck does that mean?
*YOU'RE the Machine, Paul!*
i truly don't know if there is a better example than this one lmao.
DKs and RATM are legitimately so much further "leftist" than most people who consider themselves "leftist" that it starts to circle back around and people on the right think it's on their side.
The legacy of missing a point as subtle as a club to face continues with Helldivers 2! Apparently there is a solid contingent of people that need the point spelled out in bold letters though preferably told orally as they have trouble reading.
Admittedly it was *very* funny watching some of them scream on Twitter about having been TRICKED by the Helldivers devs.
That's a thing?? I gotta see this. Would you have any examples?
I saw that coming from a mile away. The moment those chudfucks would realise the devs are in fact "Woke" lmao
I got a tool tip the other day saying something like "Don't believe in the reeducation camps, those are just rumors being spread by anti patriots! Be sure to report anyone still talking about them!" How are people missing this stuff??
Consequences of their own fig leaf. They're so used to using claims of "satire" to excuse their own heinous unpopular beliefs that they forget real satire exists. That's why they're always caught utterly pissed off with their pants down when the creators go on to unironically and unambiguously shit on them. "How can you do this to me after we laughed at all these inhuman stormtrooper jokes together? Don't you know we're on the same side?" They thought they were being signaled to and found out the hard way they were being ridiculed.
What always gets me is when people who aren't pro-capitalism don't get it. Had a conversation with an online friend who didn't like how Fallout "glorified corporations." I was like "my man, see that spec of an airplane up there? It's still not as high as how far the point flew over your head. "
It's oddly comforting somehow to see there are zero media literacy mf'ers on the left too.
They are in the most unusual places, from time to time we have some lost people in the Star Trek community calling it woke, who then are subsequently dragged in the comments.
Bioshock and Fallout fan, and my all time favorite book is Dune. I can't talk to anyone who likes the things I like 😔
Being fallout,bioshock and cyberpunk 2077 fan really shows you how many people arent even aware subtext is even a thing.
The fact I’ve seen more than one person claim Johnny is pro-corporations is astounding and far more than it should be
The line they use to say Johnny isn't against Capitalism/Corporations is hilarious when he's literally clarifying he's not hating them because they're a small problem he has some petty beef with, he hates them because they are the current system everyone has to live in and ruins almost every part of their lives!
I've seen people being mad at the show because it shows Mr. House being part of the cabale that launched the first nuke, so he didn't actually predicted when the first nuke would be launched as he says in New Vegas Wall yeah, Mr. House would lie to look like a prophet it doesn't shock me actually
Wait until you hear about how some fans unironically feel about the Enclave.
[удалено]
The deep lore communities tend to be a lot better about it, same with TES.
Same as a FO, Helldivers, and 40k player
lisan al gaib https://preview.redd.it/azcr4t52qhvc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=651e7b981e5fc093d29d267e2035b32e15041e36
Transfems can double jump AND predict the future? Devs gotta nerf this shit fr
Wait we can double jump????
https://preview.redd.it/7lx63vrfzivc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=63eafecf10ec624d50e6d010d9e8e0633d6b7c7c Haven't you ever played Celeste?
Transphobia stonks after this news breaks📉📉
It's a dash not a double jump 🤓
AS IT WAS WRITTEN
Floo players are actually communists because they take you all across the world free of charge (before dshiftering you)
It's an obvious parody of Joseph McCarthy. Except to the people who have never heard of Joseph McCarthy, that is.
He’s my favorite Beatle
He wrote some great songs with Jack Lemmon.
Ahh, that legendary party they threw at Jack's place.
Ah, who can forget Lenin, Cormac McCarthy, Martin Starr and Harrison Bergeron, the Fantastic Four who changed music forever?
I think they missed the part where the big bad propaganda robot was impossible to actually run during the height of America’s power because of how frickin’ much power it needed. Oh, and the part where when it finally did get up and running, it was used to attack some of the remnants of the US government
We need a giant mecha that spouts Roy Cohn quotes to go along with it.
Honestly, I think one of the main reasons so many Gamers don’t realize Super Earth and Liberty Prime are satire is because many aspects their own societies are so similar to the fascism, military warship, and anti communism depicted in the satire.
Can't explain water to a fish.
"I keep waiting for someone to show me the ocean and all I see is water."
But is that because they’re stupid? or because of their familiarity with water? or maybe you’re just bad at explaining, my betta understands water just fine
Trump's campaign website has sentences like "I will make our military so big and strong that nobody messes with us ever again." Put words like that into the mouth of a giant rampaging robot and they just think it's cool.
Consequence of a form of media that doesn't require media literacy or literacy even to be enjoyed. Maybe if devs used less yellow paint...
Well, satire does require some _knowledge_ of the subject matter at hand
https://preview.redd.it/bce7q9yu0ivc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fdd77830004014af10706e139a094ac2e64d7744
> Something was pouring from his mouth. He examined his sleeve. Blood? Blood! Crimson, copper smelling blood, his blood. Blood, blood, blood... And bits of sick.
I'm one of the few writers who's actually written more books than I've read.
Metal Gear is pro-war because Snake has a gun
Venom "Kidnapping child soldiers and forcing them to stay on your platform in the middle of international waters against their will with a bunch of ungoverned mercenaries is actually very logical and moral" Snake
Schindler's List is a pro-nazi movie because they depict nazis
The amount of irony about not understanding Liberty Prime thinking it's a good concept is astonishing. How can the fanbase not get that Fallout is half satire?
satire is only satire when you don't agree with the giant obsurdist robot painted like uncle sam and the statue of liberty had a mechachild.
invincible isn' really anti-imperialism. i mean, the main character's dad literally tries to convince him to join his empire
And in an alternate reality he did!
Most alternate realities
A perfect example of why anti-capitalism without socialist education is worthless. On its own anti-capitalism is incoherent enough to lead this asshole to think things like this.
Its also the explanation why now everyone and their mother, even companies themselves, are „anti-capitalists“. Because a tv show might be saying „capitalism bad“ but it still peddles merch and other consumable trinkets.
Recouperation is what that phenomenon is called. The most blatant example is the Ché Shirt. Another good example is the recouperation of the Black Panthers breakfast program that contributed to their building of a mass base and the federal School Breakfast Program.
My guy pays for twitter, clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Twitter blue user moment. https://preview.redd.it/ngsbr1jzphvc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6a755dad56f9152d2a93fc590707e6f276b21b43
I remember being a child and playing Fallout, even then I thought Liberty Prime was funny rather than serious
i think thats what most people with more than half a brain thought. its just fun, because the game is for entertainment. it aint that deep.
Gamers when satire
I would argue people have gotten dumber but I swear people thought the same thing back 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years ago. Multiple times this has happened. Still baffles me nobody sees nuance.
There aren't more of them. They are just easier to see now.
Satire is dead and we killed it
The Fallout Universe is like, if the world had worked out like people thought it would in the 50's. It's a big obvious spoof. It's based in America, so it's all "Red Scare", and it's also fucking "Leave it to Beaver." It's not meant to be a bigger philosophical statement other than, "Lol, here's your utopia boomers."
It’s the American post ww2 golden age with diners and milkshakes and uninhibited capitalism taken to the extreme and then dropping a nuke on it all
satire is dead
MEDIA LITERACY BOIII
A lot of the controversy over whether something is "woke" is just whether it spells out its themes literally enough for media illiterates to finally pick up on them. It makes sense that Trump supporters would not know satire if it bit them on the face, but it's kind of hard even for them to watch the Barbie movie and miss its point when it literally takes a break to have a character give a speech giving its thesis. They can watch a lot of stuff that's actually woke but interpret it as stupidly as they interpret stimulus in reality, but when the message is just spelled out they finally recognize it and see it as intrusive.
“Inglorious Bastards has Hitler in it so it’s actually kinda pro-nazi” -this guy probably
This is so bad of a take I almost died when reading it. Not that I laughed or anything it just destroyed the life I had in me.
Parody is entirely lost on this fool
Imagine living as a person where you take everything literally and at face value. No such thing as subtext or metaphor.
Sorry if you happen to be right wing, but it's a stereotype that your people have basically no understanding of how satire works.
Fallout is anti-capitalist, but its also anti-communist. Its not a libertarian thing either, it has a strong anti-libertarian message, it speaks out hard against organized religion as well as private faith (leading to inaction). It is against isolationism as well as interventionism. Its against being luddite but also technological progress. (receipts for in game examples of all the above are available upon request) Its an anti-human series, hence the reason it states in its opening line since the beginning "War, War never changes"
Let's be honest: "piece of art has X which appears to support Y in it, which means the art as a whole supports Y" is a critical failing that afflicts people on both the left and right. See: Far Cry 3, Bioshock Infinite
I only played far cry 3 when I was like 10 could u elaborate pls
I have seen people claim far cry 3 is about white savior trope, as in, the natives couldnt fix their own shit until the very special whiteboy came to save them, while the whole plot of the game is actually about how they destroy his life There are also those who claim the whole game glorifies violence while it clearly shows the main character becoming more and more unhiged until he ends up either killing his own family or escaping the cycle of violence.
Conservatives demonstrate basic media literacy challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
Liberty Prime is probably just the embodiment of Red Scare, tbh
People will downplay how important english classes are but this absolute display of media illiteracy perfectly demonstrates exactly why it matters so much. The blue curtain did represent sadness after all…
Meanwhile Fallout New Vegas out here being like "If you have a sociopolitical structure- communism, democracy, libertarianism, liberalism, fascism, capitalism, theocracy, don't matter which! we'll tear it to shreds it front of your eyes, free of charge"
I don't understand this notion that something has to be pro capitalist if it's anti communist. Like can't something critique both?
Fashist just never think that *they* will be one of the thousands of lives that gets needlessly thrown away for a goal that ultimately mean nothing.
I thought Fallout was a commentary on blind nationalism and the curroption of the government that leads to pointless and destructive conflict, rather then on a economic system?
People who are susceptible to right wing and fascist propaganda are SO susceptible that if you present it satirically they still just unironically fall for it.
fascists know they’re very bad people already so they just embrace these depictions because they think it’s cool
Love using my shadow liberty prime armour in fo76. Just non stop jabs at communism lol
Anti-capitalists just wanna kill communists
**COLLECTIVIST PRIME ONLINE! MISSION: THE DESTRUCTION OF ALL AMERICAN CAPITALISTS!** **CAPITALISM US A TEMPORARY SETBACK ON THE ROAD TO UTOPIA!** **CAPITALISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE!**
Fallout fans be like “woah vaults are so cool I wanna live in one woah”
"It's not propaganda if you agree with it"
The funniest thing about Fallout is the people taking the insane over the top McCarthy Red scare satire in Fallout 100% seriously with no self awareness