If there’s anything that social justice extremists hate more than anything, it’s having to hear a differing opinion. Honestly, they seem to despise it much more than actual injustice. Have you ever been on the end of a discussion with one of these people as they throw you a red herring? It just kind of leaves you in this position of confusion, I feel like.



If there’s one thing that rubs me the wrong way with today’s progressives and hyperliberals is that they’re always in a rush to make sure they publicly present themselves on a moral high horse. It’s always the sort of self-depictions I typically gripe about on here. The straight white male who has to make sure he proves how totally not racist or sexist he is by championing any exaltations of other demographics and shouting down anyone who belongs to his own, over the voices of the marginalized peoples he claims to be standing up in defense for. But it’s worse when it comes to a point where rather than having civil discussion and maintaining discourse, the narrative shifts to shame the person over who they are.



For instance, I happened to notice this conversation on Twitter recently.











Anthony Burch is a writer for Riot Games, the company most famously known for their creation and development of League of Legends, maybe you’ve heard of it. He’s also known for working on Borderland 2. Not a bad resume, I guess. And interestingly enough, his Tumblr is kind of intriguing in a rad way. I guess he would be the kind of guy you’d want to admire from a far enough distance that you can’t hear him or read his consistently jawing array of fuckass opinions.



This is the type of extremist who champions exaltations of demographics he doesn’t belong to. But this is to say as though there is a glorification to champion regarding the demographics of a fictional video game character. Who he’s talking about is the newly announced addition to the Overwatch heroes cast, Sombra. Now, you can go to the official website for Overwatch and check out information such as Sombra’s abilities, and her intriguing background story - you know, things that are supposed to matter in a video game. Fortunately, Mr. Burch had the foresight to realize that what actually matters is the character’s race, and style of hair.

Now, diversity is great. It’s even better when it’s not forced, you tend to appreciate it much more. But when I’m playing a game, especially a game like this where the clear differences in play have everything to do with abilities, weapons, stats, etc - I couldn’t give any of a shit less what the character’s gender or race is. I think most people can agree with that sentiment. Race doesn’t matter, but if you point this out to a social justice crusader who takes great joy in living on their own pedestal, you’d god damn better make sure you can’t be attacked for something you can’t control, like the color of your skin. Because that’s what matters! Any essence of a point of view is only as valid as your privilege. But for some reason, this was the direction the conversation spun out into:





Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin had nothing to do with the subject at hand. But this guy had to firmly display publicly how totally not racist he is by invoking these two slain black men for no reason. Of course, when he’s called out on his shit by a non-white person, he ends up shutting the fuck up and moving on elsewhere.

In a degree of virtue, the man that Anthony unfairly attacked, concluded his brief string of tweets with a gesture of respect for Anthony. No surprise that there ended up being no attempt at discourse with Alek from Mr. Burch at that point. It could have turned into an exchange of ideas. Unfortunately, you don’t really see these proud extremists like Anthony Burch engage in that sort of behavior, do you? It’s all initial self-projection to be seen as supportive to progressive ideas that have nothing to do with you, where there is no room for differing opinion.





Extra Innings



In the case of this news, in the end, it’s almost baffling that a number of his followers similarly focused on things that didn’t matter, or otherwise brought up unnecessary talking points.





Anytime I see attributes on specific characters such as age and birthdate, they’re almost a mildly interesting side note, not something I take any glee toward. She’s thirty. You’re thirty. She’s a fictional character likely with great stamina and physical ability in a fictional futuristic universe shooting up opponents. You’re a real human being who may likely never achieve anything close to the ability she was programmed to have. Overall, the comparison of her age means jack shit. So much so that in 3 years, she will still be 30, and you’ll be 33. Not much to be happy about at that point is there?





How is this a shocker? None of the characters in this game, from my understanding, have backstories in which they were victims of sexual assault and come from abusive families. Here’s a list of other female characters in video games that don’t suffer from these sort of tropes: Princess Peach, Zelda, Samus Aran (let’s just get the Nintendo trifecta out of the way), Terra Branford, Sonya Blade, Bayonetta, Jill Valentine, Ellie (The Last of Us), Lara Croft, Chun-Li, I mean, seriously - almost every major, and even minor, characters who were women don’t have these sort of stories attached to them. This is a ridiculous assessment.



Except for the fact that she doesn’t exist. She’s a fictional character in a video game. She was designed, and she was designed to be a programmer, and to look cute. Never mind the actual latina women in programming and development that DO exist who (depending on your standards) are also cute, such as Mayra Urrutia, Vanessa Larco, Julissa Ramirez, and Giselle Agosto.



I can’t argue this. Having unrealistic expectations in your life going forward is probably important. And considering the original tweet that this is being responded to, I’m not sure how you can aim to be latina through your transitioning if you don’t already belong to that demographic. The punk-hair thing you can always do no matter who you are, though.



Now, if these final four pieces of criticism offended you, rest assured that you are more than welcome to assume my race, sex, gender, and even my sexuality, and shame me over them for thinking all of these things are fucking stupid and have no bearing on whether or not a game is worth playing, or if a specific character is worth putting your greatest efforts into learning how to properly play.



