We’ve reached peak insanity. Moderators on forums are now enforcing users to use the designated pronouns for fictional robot characters. I wish I were kidding, but it’s sadly real.

Kotaku In Action 2 spotted the news over on the Gearbox forums, where users were talking about which characters they were planning on playing in Borderlands 3. A moderator hopped in during the middle of the discussion to warn people not to misgender FL4K.

This may seem like some bizarre tirade or harangue from a fictional novel where the world has turned insane, but unfortunately this is real life, and moderator Tokesy97 actually said the following.

Thankfully, a couple of people actually did push back against Tokesy97, with Eraldus writing…

“Wow… are you for real with these statements? “Considering we’re talking about a fictional character, this is just plain silly.”

Eraldus was challenged by the mod and some of the other users for taking a stance against the clear insanity of gendering a robot and punishing people for misgendering a robot… a fictional robot.

Tokesy97 tried justifying why proper pronouns for a fictional character was important, writing…

“Gearbox are serious. And as to why, deliberately misgendering people can, and may, cause offense to people using the forum. […] “For brevity they didn’t list every single thing that the rules covers, but it does extend to them all. I know in the UK at least there’s 9 “protected characteristics” that people can take action if they’re discriminated against for. They include Sexuality, Gender and Race. “Ultimately, referring to FL4K as a “he/him/his” knowingly is misgendering. As was said, the odd slip-up will happen, that is understandable. “[FL4K is] A fictional character wrote (either in part or in whole) by someone who, unless I’m mistaken, is non-binary themselves and as such has the right, as their creator, to dictate.”

Eraldus decided to make one last post before leaving for good, writing a somewhat lengthy rebuttal to to Tokesy97, saying…

“Ok, even thought I just registered yesterday, this will be my last post in this board. Literally nobody here was making this topic about politics or anything of the sort, but now we have a moderator acting like as if he’s part of the “thought police” and bringing in politics in here, when the main topic was about which character we would play first. “I agree with the forum rules you listed, and I avoid any threads involving any of these topics, because they’re usually made by trolls seeking attention, but no one in this topic was talking about a character’s gender, until YOU started to make a big fuss over it, and if even the moderation in this board are this toxic, persecuting forum users for not using the terminology they think it’s acceptable (which contradicts the part you said that “you are not forced change your beliefs or viewpoint”), then I don’t wanna be part of this community at all.”

And with that, Eraldus was off.

Tokesy97 used that time to address him one more time before getting back on topic.

The major issue here is that we’re seeing this increasing, encroaching cloud of censorship where everyone has to abide by the rules of the Left, since the Overton Window is now chiefly on the Left.

You cannot speak ill of the alphabet soup, you cannot say anything mean about another race (unless they’re white), and you can’t point out the facts such as Communism killing millions of people over the years, lest you get branded a heretic and made a pariah in a community you used to call your own.

The typical Centrists will keep playing off this kind of lunacy as “a private corporation and their rules”, but it will continue to escalate and expand into other forums of communication, just as we’ve seen with social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, to name a few.

As for Borderlands 3… nothing about the game is looking particularly enticing to me, and injecting this kind of Left-wing identity politics into the game’s community well before its release – on top of 2K Games bullying Supmatto off of YouTube and Randy Pitchford’s antics – this has ensured that I probably won’t pick up a copy of Borderlands 3 anytime soon at all, if ever.