For as long as there have been fandoms, there has been hate. I don't even necessarily mean the full-on capital-H hate of racism or homophobia, although yeah, that too. Those things predate fandoms, in fact. But 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:as the internet swirl♉s with ar🐼guments over Yasuke in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin's Creed Shadows, it’s become very clearౠ that the way we hate things has changed, and for the worse.

We used to only hate things we loved. Contradictory I know, but it's also the central premise behind several dozen epic poems, tragic novels, and murder-suicides. There is a form of hate that only comes from a love twisted into something rotten. It's hard to go from zero to hate. You need the running start that backs up all the way to love in order to springboard yourself into hate. Let's look at a few examples.

Fandoms Used To Be For Fans Only

Back in the day, if something appeared in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars you didn’t agree with, two things happened. Firstly, if you loved Star Wars, then you would rant and rave and post on forums via dial-up modem that this thing that you loved, that you helped build with your pocket money and eyeballs and fistfuls of popcorn, was being taken from you. You loved it, and they added something to it that you hated. That made you hate Star Wars. You hated them. You hated the world! All because of love. Alternatively, you didn't love Star Wars to begin with. In this case, you never heard about this thing you might have hated, and didn't care even if you did.

This hypothetical thing being hated might be motivated by racism, homophobia, or sexism. It might be a lore issue. It might be something motivated by racism, homophobia, or sexism that you blame on a lore issue because you think Black people or gay people or women shouldn't be allowed to do a cool thing. The motivation doesn't really matter in this scenario. What matters is you only cared if you cared.

I don't believe we've gone backwards as a society. In any era there's some gentle rocking on specific issues, and as a trans woman in the UK, there seem to have been progressively more angry column inches dedicated to my existence over the last handful of years. But if you zoom out a little, I feel lucky to be able to live relatively freely as a trans woman now compared to what my life would have been like one, two, or really any other number, of decades ago.

On most progressive issues, I see similar traction (with, admittedly, similar rocking back and forth over a handful of years). We're more accepting and more diverse as a society. And yet on a fandom level, the hate seems to be getting worse. Yasuke is not the only example - 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:consider the anger aimed at Abby in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us, decades after female protagonists had already blazed that trail. The difference between the reaction to Aloy in 2017's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Horizon Zero Dawn, when she was heralded as a cool new hero for the modern age, and 2022, when she was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a𒉰n ugly man with hair all over her face. Even the reacti♔on to a light peck between women in Lightyear, contrasted with gay dads in Frozen.

The Culture War Is Fuelled By Outrage

You no longer need to care. Lightyear was a below-bar Pixar movie - it warranted no real discussion outside of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disneycentrics and animated film fans, but suddenly everyone had an opinion on the prequel spin-off that canonised a toy commercial featured in a different animated movie. The love was not bringing people to the conversation anymore - it was the hate. They weren't people who wanted to talk about Star Wars but were so blinded by homophobia that they could no longer enjoy it, they were people who just wanted to be homophobic.

Doesn't matter if it's in a movie or a video game or a breakfast cereal - if they can talk about how the gays have an evil agenda, they're there! It feels like this is what's happening with Yasuke. There will be some people out there who may take legitimate issue with the specific historical accuracy of how Yasuke is portrayed relative to his rank, history, and that era in Japan. They don't care that he's Black, they are just extreme nerds - maybe 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin's Creed and its Pope punchery isn't for them.

Then there are people who love Assassin's Creed and really wanted to play a game set in Japan, but a mixture of being racist and sexist means they're not happy about Yasuke and Naoe. Those are bad people, but at least they live here. They really do love Assassin's Creed and as silly as it may sound, maybe that love for the series can eventually guide them out of these toxic, hateful thoughts.

Then there's the third group. By far the loudest and worst to deal with, who have invaded every corner of the internet to make it worse, they do not care about Yasuke. They did not care about Aloy. They did not care about Lightyear. They care about nothing. A few of them have Patreons or subscriber Discords or YouTube channels or websites called The Daily Wire and rely on stoking culture war fires for relevance, but most of them are just here for the carnage. No love. Just hate.

It is endless and inescapable - they drag you into arguments and they win by default the moment you participate because they are here for the argument and nothing else. Yasuke is just the latest powder keg they have set their sparks shooting towards, and there will be plenty more before the day is out. It makes me miss the days when someone would tell you women can't use the Force because the encyclopedia third edition page 234 says 'he'. At least they believed what they were saying.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Open-World

Action-Adventure

RPG

Systems

Top Critic Avg: 81/100 Critics Rec: 82%

Released

November 15, 2024

ESRB

m

Developer(s)

ꦡ Ubisoft Quebec

Publisher(s)

Ubisoft

Engine

AnvilNext

Franchise

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin's Creed

Where to play

Close

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL

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