Cyberpunk 2077
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_SzMP-V4mA
This is a response I had to someone sending me this video
Hot damn there is so much I can say in response to this video. The orientalism and discussion of anti-capitalistic rhetoric as a shroud for xenophobia was cool, I also liked the connection of transness and ableism.
They talked about the lack of internal communication which led to all of the trans issues, but I think that issue extends over the entire game, along with probably every AAA media experience out there: Some writer wants to create an artistic and challenging experience, some author wants to create a funny / interesting experience, and some author wants to create a digestible experience for the mass market and all of those are in direct conflict. At this point I feel like these pieces of media should be seen as litmus tests for where the general population stands on certain topics, but you just can’t expect any of them to actually push any issues.
One thing that I’ve been thinking about lately is the inherent friction between people’s ease at seeing that something is wrong but our difficulty at figuring out what is wrong. It’s easy to say “my life is shit, I’m depressed all the time, and cruel people keep getting away with things”, but it’s really tough to have the critical thinking skills to think that it might be the cause of a system you’ve grown up with your whole life, something that has been propagandized into you as good (or at the least, normal). At the worst cases, this leads to people lashing out at immigrants, or commies, or whatever buzzword they’ve been talking about recently (and let’s be real, people on the left do this too, but I digress). At it’s best (but still just as insidious), it leads to the neonliberalism that the video talked about, a frustration with the world that doesn’t present any alternatives.
