On the Merits and Pitfalls of Progressive Ideology in Creative Art

…Something Begins.

The recent years have seen the meteoric rise of a certain ideology. I don’t quite know what to call it, since it isn’t exactly a concrete ideology with tenets set in stone, and subsequently, the ideas vary from person to person. And it’s not one ideology either, it is a collection of multiple, seemingly unrelated schools of thought: feminism, anti-racism, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, etc. Come to think of it, that description is a bit misleading as well, since most of those words are something known as “charged” words, meaning even their most basic meaning creates a debate(if not an outright fight), let alone their comprehensive definition. Nevertheless, most people will understand roughly what I’m referring to. While it does(or doesn’t) have a number of different names, I will simply be referring to this recent way of viewing the world as progressivism or progressive ideology. And when I say recent, I mean it has recently become popular, not that it’s a recent ideology, since quite a few of it’s ideas have been around for more than a decade, some even for multiple decades. And I probably confused quite a few readers by this point… sigh. I often wish I could think as simplistically as the followers of certain ideologies(not just progressivism, by any stretch of imagination) do. It makes things so much easier: I could just casually put a number of different people into a neat little box, declare them all evil, all their ideas wrong, demonstrate this with selective information gathering and confirmation bias and then feel very good about myself. Alas, I seem to be hardwired for at least partial(partial being a key-word here, after all I’m still human) intellectual honesty, so that is a course of action that I cannot take.

But back to the matter at hand: This ideology has become so prevalent that it permeated many facets of public life, most prominently journalism, academia and left-wing politics. But it has a dominant presence in most other aspects of all life, to the point that it even influenced U.S. Republican politics, as hard as that is to believe. It has become the zeitgeist of the modern age. No matter where you go, if someone asks you: “do you support diversity, equality, etc.”, the ‘polite’ answer is “yes, obviously, diversity and equality are an important issue, and we, as a people, need to have a discussion about it”, even though I would prefer asking “what kind” or “well, diversity is not a clear-cut issue, it has benefits and downsides” or etc. But I’m not going to talk more about that here, since that is not the purpose of this essay. What I actually set out to do here, is to examine something that has been bothering me for some time: the progressive critique of art. Think of this piece as a critique of a style of critique.

From a Point of View

More and more I happen upon reviews or critiques of a movie, book or video game and find that the entire review deals almost exclusively with whether or not a work of art conforms to progressive expectations/demands. There often is no deeper analysis of the work’s message, what it says about the human condition. There isn’t even any analysis of the cinematography or writing or game mechanics or anything related to how the work, ahm, works. Mostly it’s a simple recounting of the plot with praise for it if the work conforms to the reviewer’s expectations and scolding if it does not. Such critique can come from various perspectives which are contained under the umbrella term of progressivism, whether that be race related, gender related, etc. And the critique usually contains only one of the perspectives, depending on both the reviewer and the work of art(but I found that which viewpoint it is analysed from, depends more on the work than the reviewer themselves). In this article I will focus on only one, for the sake of cohesion and length: feminism. I chose this one, since it is the most popular sub-ideology of progressivism, but the very same analysis can be applied to race related or other type of critique. So, without further ado, let’s look at some concrete examples: Mad Max(s). There have been two works with the title “Mad Max” this year: the movie Mad Max: Fury Road and it’s videogame spin-off Mad Max. Now consider these: The New Yorker’s review of the movie and Polygon’s review of the game.

Here’s a choice quote(mine) about the movie from the New Yorker:

I have been looking forward to this movie for months, trying not to watch the trailers more than twice a day, but, fool that I am, I hadn’t foreseen its feminist ambitions — crystallized in the sight of one Wife, heavily pregnant, flinging wide the door of the War Rig and flaunting her belly, like a bronze shield, at her enraged pursuers. (The Wives were coached in preparation for the film by Eve Ensler, the author of “The Vagina Monologues.” This must be a first. Gloria Steinem was never hired as a consultant on “The Dirty Dozen.”) Later comes a droll sequence with a sniper’s rifle, as our hero aims at a searchlight, in the distant gloom, but misses. Only one bullet remains. Furiosa takes the gun and hits the target, using Max’s shoulder as a rest. The tough guy is nothing but a cushion.

Now here’s a choice quote(their choice quote this time, since this has been the only portion of the review which has been highlighted by the author/editor themselves) about the game from Polygon:

After the progressive characterization of this summer’s excellent Mad Max: Fury Road, the game’s treatment of its few women is especially disappointing. The closest thing Mad Max has to a female lead, a woman not coincidentally named Hope, is a concubine for the villain and a love interest for Max. Her sole purpose in the plot is to make the bad guys more evil and provide motivation for the hero to fight. She’s a damsel in distress stereotype, and it’s more disheartening after having seen such a great example of the opposite in theaters just a few months ago.

The movie got a perfect 10/10 from the New Yorker and a measly 5.5/10(after an update, it was a 5/10 originally, but gained an extra 0.5 points, because the reviewer missed certain mechanics of the game) from Polygon. Incidentally I consider the movie a good action movie as well, while I consider the game an uninspired open world game as well, but not to this extent. I generally don’t like assigning arbitrary numbers to works of art, but I’ll do it here for the sake of simplicity: a 9/10 for the movie and a 7/10 for the game. The reasons for my scores (i.e. my opinions of said works) is of little consequence to this essay, therefore I won’t elaborate on them(usually my elaborations are extremely long, so me not elaborating also spares you a lot of pain).

I do have to state, that these two paragraphs are a small portion of the reviews, about 1/10th of them. But I also have to wonder just how much did the fact that the movie conforms to it’s respective reviewer’s ideology, while the game does not conform to it’s respective reviewer’s ideology colour the rest of their assessment of them. Neither of these reviews delve into other aspects of the works too much. The New Yorker spends the majority of the article recounting plot elements and in a few paragraphs examines the connections the movie has to the franchise as a whole, doing all of this in a very colourful and poetic way(I always enjoyed that, when reviewers or critics are at their wit’s end, i.e they run out of substantial things to say, but they still have an article to churn out, they always resort to long, colourful sentences filled with the entirety of the “obscure words vocabulary”, which don’t actually add anything of note, except length, to the article). The most it does is praise the director of photography in a few sentences towards the end, but that’s it. It does not examine the world view, or it’s implications, that is apparent in George Miller’s movie, even though that world view would conform nicely to the reviewer’s own. Nor does it examine any of the technical aspects of the movie in any substantial way. Polygon’s review follows a different, but not better, pattern. The one and only time it examines the story is in the aforementioned paragraph. The rest of it is a simple description of the game’s core mechanics, which can be summed up thusly: “it’s an average open world game and I didn’t like it. Not even a small portion of it”. It stays away from deeper examinations as well, but I won’t fault them on this one too much, since, unlike the movie, there isn’t much to examine in this game’s generic plot, and the setting and aesthetics are poorly replicated from the movies(for the most part, there are a few scenes it got right).

But arriving to the end of this subtitle, I have to mention that nothing I discussed above are cardinal sins. But reviews of this nature are not something I consider praise-worthy in any way, either. They don’t offer any substantial or interesting analysis of a work of art, and I can’t even trust them as product reviews either, because I’m not certain just how much of the score, the praise or the scolding is influenced by the reviewer’s ideology, and not the actual quality of the work. Fact is, even though I went to see the movie and I bought and played the game, I have not regretted either of these decisions. From a critical perspective I cannot in good conscience praise the game, but I had a moderate amount of fun playing it(when not waiting for the unskippable minute-long animations to finish or facepalming at the plot). But judging by these two reviews, I should be in awe of the movie, and I should abhor the game. But I hold neither of these views: I consider the movie an excellent action movie, but not exactly one of the greats, and I did have fun with the game, even if it could have been significantly better in almost every respect. At this point, dear reader, you might be shouting in that nugget of yours: ”but, but, different opinions and all that”. And you are correct, in that different people have different opinions of a piece of art and that there is nothing wrong with that. But that’s not with what I have a pickle with. What I fail to understand is what purpose do these reviews have, since they offer nothing of value to the creator of a work(they lack insightful critique)(also, I won’t talk about Metacritic(both of these reviews appear on the site) and it’s implications on creators, since that is a whole different rabbit hole) and they offer little of value to the consumers of a work. I suppose informing people that an artwork conforms(or not) to their own ideology is somewhat helpful, but even in that case, the reviewer might be unintentionally over-(or under-) estimating the quality of the work, therefore misleading the people viewing his or her review. The only genuine reason I can think of for the existence of such reviews is that it feels really good to hand out(and/or read) moral judgement from on high.

“Everything is Sexist […] and You Have to Point it All Out”

If the previous section seemed mostly inconsequential, it’s because it was. It started out as an introduction to this one, but while writing it, I eventually said: “what the hell, I might as well finish my train of thought”. But it was not the reason for writing this. That reason is…ahm…coming soonish. Now, I personally have no particular problem with other people’s taste in entertainment or art. Sure, I sometimes laugh at people whose artistic aspiration begins and ends with the Transformer movies, and I laugh really hard at uptight imbeciles who wax poetic about a painting made by a monkey called Pierre Brassau, but that’s it. Otherwise I practice a live and let live mentality. I can’t say the same things about progressivism though.

The fundamental issue with that school of thought is that it’s an ideology with it’s own version of morality. It has it’s own ideas of good and evil, and if my knowledge of history serves me correctly, such notions never ended particularly well: when people are viewed as evil, every action against them, no matter how abhorrent, can be justified, since they are evil. And most often, said evil person is not actually evil in any universal sense of the word, but merely someone who defies, or disagrees with, the ideology, i.e. a member of the outgroup. But I digress. To the best of my knowledge, no critic or reviewer tortured or killed or burned at the stake or whatever a creator of any work, because said work disagreed with them. At least, not in the literal sense. But they did declare it “problematic”. Oh, and they did that a lot. To quote, arguably the most famous feminist critic of video games, Anita Sarkeesian: “[such notions] reinforce harmful patriarchal ideas about women as a group and about women’s bodies in our wider shared culture”.

Different opinions are all fine and dandy, but when you start declaring certain works of art “harmful”, “damaging”, “problematic”, you and I are going to have problematics. This whole idea, that works of art which disagree with progressivism are a negative societal force, is predicated on the assumption that human beings can be manipulated and influenced through art and entertainment. Such a notion is utter nonsense. I mean, hell, Communism tried desperately to manipulate people using the arts, but it failed miserably. Children might be mildly influenced, but I find it hard to believe that any adult had his or her life or biases changed by a summer blockbuster. The most any work of art can hope to achieve is to make you think about life and the human condition, and perhaps offer a new perspective on it, which you may or may not accept. But this is reserved only for the best of the best, the truly greats. The idea that summer blockbusters influence the consumers, and not the consumers who influence the creation of summer blockbusters is thoroughly misguided and a tad too conspiratorial. And preachy art, the one that tries to jam something down your nugget, is the same as any other preachy stuff: you either already believe it and then you’ll love it, or you don’t buy what they’re selling, and then you’ll be repulsed by it, either way, of all the influences that art can have on people, this one is the least powerful.

Progressives vs. Tropes in Video Games

There is a fundamental difference between “I don’t like this”, “I find this lacking” and “I find this evil”. I guess it goes without saying, but I said it nonetheless. Critiquing something as not your own cup of tea is just fine, critiquing something because you observed mistakes in it(such as writing, pacing, mechanics, etc.) is just fine, but critiquing something because it’s it is morally wrong is, well, not fine, kind of. See, it’s fine in theory, since a movie celebrating a mass murderer is a very clear cut case of morally objectionable. But when you try to apply this theory into practice, you get into a few issues, for instance a little series known as Grand Theft Auto. Works of art are a far more complex beast than simplistic morality, and I find it hard to establish a moral code which can adequately cover all the subtleties of human expression, and take into account the often nebulous nature of art and metaphors.

I spend a lot of times with my own thoughts. I like to think about various Big Things, especially after reading about a certain issue. Anyway, on one of these lonely nights I got to thinking about how the world of art would look like if all of it conformed to progressive critique’s demands. And with that, we’ve finally arrived at the inspiration for this essay:

There is a little concept in the world of creative expression, known as a trope. Ever since Anita Sarkeesian started her video series, every wannabe critic has misused this term to annoying degrees(I guess because they think using it legitimizes them as critics, when their wit and knowledge(or lack thereof) failed to achieve this). Due to this reason, I feel like I have to explain what tropes are, and why they shouldn’t be confused with cliches: Tropes are literary devices and conventions that a creator can use in his or her own work. Tropes are usually established in an audience’s mind(since they have probably seen them before), therefore the use of tropes makes it easier for the audience to relate to said work of art. Even if a particular audience is not familiar with a certain trope, it still should work, since a majority of tropes have been “field tested” on other audiences, and humans are awfully predictable creatures. Tropes are also not set in stone. They can be changed, modified, subverted, combined, etc. A useful way of thinking about them is that they’re modular schematics: a creator finds certain schematics, maybe he or she uses one, maybe more, maybe he or she uses one, but changes it drastically, maybe he or she combines two, or three of them into one, etc. Also, tropes make up everything. I cannot stress this enough for those people who hear the word trope, and sigh, as if they were a bad thing. They’re not. Every single work of art is made up of one or more(usually more, obviously) tropes. Creating a story which doesn’t contain tropes is literally impossible. I guess the reason why people recoil at the sight of the word, is because in recent years, especially in the world of video game criticism, the word trope has been used interchangeably with the word cliche. Suffice to say, a trope is not a cliche. A cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel, i.e: a cliche is a severely overused trope. Hopefully that clears things up.

But back to the topic at hand: the reason I brought up tropes, is that on this previously mentioned faithful lonely night I decided to do a mental exercise to see just how much of Sarkeesian’s famed tropes are unacceptable to feminism and subsequently progressivism. I used Feminist Frequency’s videos and a number of Polygon’s and Kotaku’s reviews of games as a baseline. I also needed a list of tropes to rummage through, and for that I used tvtropes.org. It’s not perfect, but the site has the longest(but by no means exhaustive) list I could find. There is a sub-section of character tropes known as “always-female”, meaning that these tropes are used in the creation of female characters, and almost exclusively female characters. Since most often it is the female character which receives the most scrutiny from feminist critics, and since it’s a female character not living up to feminist expectations which earns titles the “problematic” description, I examined these, instead of the male or non-gendered tropes. I went through each one in the list, and, based on the most prominent feminist critiques of games, I judged whether or not such a trope can be used in the creation of a work in such a way that the work avoids the feminist’s “problematic” badge. The trope can be used in any way: it can be modified, expanded upon, etc. The only rule of this game is that the core of the character has to be the trope itself, i.e. the character has to be recognizable as that trope, and the trope can’t be subverted (otherwise, this exercise would become mostly pointless). A fair disclaimer here: I said it in the beginning, but I’ll say it again, that progressivism is not an ideology set in stone, merely a collection of similar views and concerns, and that there are multiple types of feminism, not just one. I made my judgement based on a specific, currently the most popular, school of feminism. If you were to try my little exercise with a different one, you will get different results, might be even a substantially different one. What I’m saying is: your mileage may vary. Okay, now that we’re done with the disclaimer:

Of the roughly 400 tropes found under the always-female section, only 64 of them can be safely used in a work of art, if someone wishes to avoid their creation to be featured on the “Tropes vs. Women” series. That’s only 16% of all available tropes. The list of these tropes can be found → here. If you’re a creator and wish to avoid scrutiny from progressives, then I suggest you brush up on these pronto. Suffice to say, 16% is not all that much. Ironically, for people fighting for women’s representation in art, they sure do limit their possibilities. And, as you might imagine, these tropes share a lot of similarities, to the extent that you could easily be forgiven for mistaking Action Girl with Go-Getter Girl, making female representation in art all the more narrow. The more diverse range of tropes all feature certain no-no traits that disqualified them, such as being a housewife, being dumb etc. The whole thing takes another turn for the worse when you examine the always-male tropes. Apparently, patriarchy runs feminism as well, since after getting halfway through, only about 50% of these tropes ended up off limits(actually going through the entire list and examining all tropes is a long and arduous process, and since the male tropes were not the subject of the article, I decided a general idea would suffice). That’s a whole 34% percent more than the always-female tropes. Sure, I did not examine all of them, but I personally doubt that the ratio of acceptable/not would change halfway through the list, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be substantial. You need not look further than last year’s Dragon Age Inquisition to see this problem in action: in it you can find diverse and even some memorable male characters, while you can find mostly interchangeable, uninspired ‘strong’ female characters. Another turn for the worse is taken when you consider that a lot of the female-only tropes don’t have a clothing or visual design addendum, meaning creators could dress them up as they please and create them with whatever body type they wish. And when I say they can, I mean they can’t, or they’ll be “perpetuating harmful stereotypes”. So, even if you feature one of these feminist-accepted tropes, you have to take extra precaution in their visual design.

Object Persona

Which brings me to sexual objectification, the most talked-about issue feminists have with art. Even if you have a badass heroine in a video game, such as Bayonetta, her being scantily clad is enough for the entire work to be condemned as sexist by some. Well, I find such notions ridiculous. For a single element of design to completely overshadow all other traits of the character and the work she’s featured in is a bit knee-jerky and dumb. I never quite understood the modern(or come to think of it, not so modern, since, before progressivism took over, this has been the obsession of the old zeitgeist, Christianity, as well, albeit from a different perspective) obsession with sexual objectification. The reason I never understood it is, on one hand, because sex is a fundamental part of life, and on the other, since it is presumed that sexual objectification dehumanizes someone: they are no longer considered persons with desires, opinions and sense of self, but merely sexual objects. For some, sexual objectification and personhood is a zero-sum game. What a load of nonsense. That’s not how any of this works. If it did then there would be no such thing as marriage, where two people treat eachother both as sexual objects and people with their own feelings, thoughts and aspirations. I mean, how removed from reality can someone be to think that people are so simple that they can’t view eachother as both people and sexual objects. The simple fact that the notions of human and sexual object are talked about as separate is already ridiculous. We’re both. All of us. The most fundamental human drive is to reproduce before we inevitably die. So of course most of our lives is spent finding the right way and the right person to do that with, even if we refuse to admit it.

This zero tolerance policy towards “sexually objectified” characters in art usually comes from one of two arguments: male gaze and inclusion. I find neither of these very convincing. Inclusion is fairly easy to deal with: not every work of art has to be inclusive to every type of human being that might gaze upon it. Shocking, I know, blasphemous even, if you take the modern politeness’ word for it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a piece of art catering to a wide audience(although I often find the wider the audience, the smaller the enjoyment for everyone, since contradictory preferences tend to dilute the quality), but there is nothing inherently wrong with a piece of art catering to a smaller audience either. Not everything has to be for everyone. Even if we take something very basic, we get into issues. Every piece of art dealing with sex or sexuality is almost guaranteed to be exclusive, unless the sex is avoidable. Different people have different preferences, so not everyone is going to like it. Shocking, I know. I am always baffled when someone states, for example, “game X features a naked woman, hence this game is not inclusive towards women”(oversimplified example, but accurate nonetheless) and then proceeds to assume that everyone understands this is a bad thing and then continue based on that assumption. But, no, actually, it isn’t a bad thing. The creator of that work decided to cater to a male(and/or lesbian) audience at the expense of female(and/or gay) audiences. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Why would there be? Different strokes and all that. If the creator decided that he/she wants to cater to an adult male audience, he/she is no more compelled to change that, than George Martin is compelled change the fact that he caters to a masochistic audience. I already mentioned this very simple truism(I guess is what it would be) in a different essay, but I’ll mention it again: there is a place for the inclusive work, which everyone can enjoy, and there is a place for exclusive work, which only a niche will enjoy, since there is a market for both(exceptions apply). Why is this a point of debate, I don’t really know. Why isn’t this an obvious thing to say, I don’t really know. Are we really that mired in political bickering and talking points, that we can’t think outside of all that? The male gaze argument seems to have little to do with the actual theory titled ‘male gaze theory’, but more with the assumption that somehow sexually objectified female characters reinforce certain negative perceptions about women in general in the men consuming that piece of media. But that does not seem to be the case. And it is quite a ridiculous argument to make, that the actions or demeanor of a fictional character would influence someone’s attitude towards the character’s entire gender, that somehow people are incapable of distinguishing between the individual and the group they are a part of.

Something ends…

I know this essay has been titled “Merits and Pitfalls of Progressive Ideology in Creative Art”, and I have not discussed the merits bit at all, but that’s because I can’t think of too many. So far, this recent fad hasn’t produced anything meaningful. The most I can think of is Mad Max and a few other movies or games like it, ones touting the feminist worldview. But that is merely a different perspective, and it’s different only in the action movie genre, since that same sentiment has been around for almost a century in different genres and mediums. It’s not actually an improvement of the genre on its own, nor does it automatically make the movie into a great piece of art. After, it’s worldview isn’t some mindblowing revelation, nor is it something that makes you think deeply about the human condition, nor is it original in any way. Or take Dragon Age Inquisition, the posterchild for the progressive worldview in videogames. The words I’d use to describe it are: solid mediocrity. And this is coming from someone who was a big fan of the original Dragon Age. But this one had boring gameplay, uninspired story, uninteresting characters, etc. It doesn’t really have anything going for it. I’ve seen quite a few comments from its developers, and they seemed to think that the fact that they were very progressive, had an equal number of male and female companions, gay and lesbian romance options and a transgender character present, plus they used the female Inquisitor in the marketing material(!), would elevate their game to high art. But it didn’t. Actually, I think that part of the reason for its mediocrity was their attempt to be very progressive: in trying to be a little something for everyone, the game became something for no one. I guess the one thing both this game and the Mad Max movie could have achieved was to provide a fantasy game and an action movie, respectively, to an audience which doesn’t have an abundance of these: the female audience. But that is a “could”. As in a “maybe”, because I do have my doubts about it.

But I’ll give them that. They did achieve something, but at what cost? The fundamental problem with this recent fad isn’t that there is a new ideology out there, but the fact that, that ideology bars no dissent. Whatever it deems problematic has to go, like 84% of female-only tropes, along with 50% of male-only tropes, and whoever disagrees with it’s definition of problematic has to go as well. This has had a chilling effect, both on creators and critics. Creators have to be careful what they make, lest they face a giant backlash, and smart, sensible and insightful critics have been either slowly disappearing, or they’re still there, but when it comes to social issues, they joined the herd and are parroting the party lines.

“I feel desperately sorry for every woman playing [Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain]. Every time Quiet steps into frame is a reminder that male society only asks two things of women. To get their tits out, and to stay fucking quiet.[emphasis not mine]”

This was written by a man named Danny O’Dwyer. He is the presenter on Gamespot’s “The Point” series, and I like him. He generally has a lot of insight to offer about various things in the industry and overall he seems like a smart person. But then he turns around and says something so profoundly dumb, incredibly sentimental and just so, so wrong. I’ve had my fair share of problems with the Quiet scenes, namely I don’t enjoy cynical fanservice, and I genuinely think being that in-your-face with her private parts(almost literally) takes away from her brilliant character. But how in the genuine fuck can you say that since Quiet is half naked and quite fanservicey, it means that “male society” asks women to get their tits out? I mean how do you make that connection? No, that’s not what any of it means. She’s one, single, liberally dressed character(who has some convoluted and very Kojima-esque reasons for that). It says nothing about what “male society” asks of anyone. And what world do you live in where straight men don’t(or can’t) enjoy the sight of a, single, one, naked woman? And since when is society male, by the way? Seriously, where do you live? Urgh. But most egregiously, the guy takes an important and quite brilliant part of her character, and instead of, like any reasonable person, assume that her quietness is a brilliant, tragic, yet courageous story(the one truly praiseworthy aspect of this recent Metal Gear), and an integral and, by the way unique, part of her character, he goes on to claim that her being quiet means that “male society” expects women in general to “stay fucking quiet”. I mean, how can a generally alright, smart person say something so batshit?

It may sound all doom and gloomy, but it’s not. There’s a lot of people I’ve seen who massively overestimate the effects that progressive ideology has had on art and entertainment. But so long as something makes money, no amount of twitter outrage or petitions or judgemental critics will stop people making it. But, even though rumours of its prominence have been greatly exaggerated, it did have an effect. And it’s an effect I don’t particularly like. Aside from everything that I mentioned, the part that bothers me the most is actually something that shouldn’t even bother me. It’s such a petty thing, but it still buggers me: every single worthless jackass who’s so inept at art and its critique that they can’t tell the difference between a trope and a cliche, let alone tell the difference between a Monet and a Picasso, thinks that being progressive somehow validates them as connoisseur of high art, profound critics, certified hipsters, complete with a typewriter, monocle and penny-farthing bicycles (yeah, the name is just as funny as the actual thing). Progressive critique has become the poor-man’s high-brow critique, and it just annoys me to no fucking end. And worst of all, in gaming, it is the only thing that we have. Not only don’t we have our Roger Eberts, we have to deal with these wankers thinking that they are the Roger Ebert of videogames, as well.

And so I come to the end. I don’t have anything deep or insightful to say here, merely that: don’t be that guy. Be a bit open minded, don’t shut the doors of your mind by subscribing to one ideology or the other. Art should be about wonder and amazement, not judgemental moral condemnation or political bickering. That is all, folks. Thanks for watching.