Back for yet another round of talking about writing a novel in November. Here is my post from yesterday in which I touched on the same topic. In rereading the last post, I realized that I didn’t write about writing at all. That’s hilarious, but so true to my heart.
Jerks like to complain about ‘woke’ characters in pop culture. It happens a lot in video games, and I see it in other mediums, too. If the main character of a video game isn’t a cishetwhiteman, then, it’s pandering to the ‘woke’ crowd. Including pronouns in the game? WOKE. Nonbinary as a gender? WOKE. I’ve told this before, but there’s a document floating around the internet that is a list of all ‘woke’ video games. What makes a ‘woke’ video game? (And, yes, I’m going to keep putting ‘woke’ in quotes because as long as it amuses me).) According to this doc, a Pride flag made a game ‘woke’. Any major character being anything other than a cishetwhitedood was ‘woke’. Of course, anything LGBTQ+ was ‘woke’.
I’ve heard this whining for so long. It was called affirmative action in the nineties/aughts, and my god, cishetwhitemen like this are so goddamn fragile. They like to call us special snowflakes, but they are the ones who are sniveling and whining when a game’s protag is anything but (say it with me), a cishetwhiteman.
Bro. Brah. My dude.
Do you know how many video games star a cishetwhitedude? Even with all the diversity that has floated into games (and I, for one, am very pleased about it), I would guess that 75% of games (and I’m being conservative here (the only time I will be conservative)) star a cishetwhitedude. If you want to play as a cishetwhitedude, you have SO many options!
Also. I just need to point out that women (and, I’m assuming women-adjacent people) make up nearly fifty percent of gamers. In some countries, they (we) are in the majority of gamers. In other words, by putting more so-called diversity into games, developers are acttually making the games more realistic than they were before.
I’m Asian, AFAB, agender, areligious, queer, not married, and no children. That’s my life. That’s who I am. I’m not a made up character; I’m living a so-called ‘woke’ life. I’m environmentally conscious, pro-choice, an anarchist, and I would be a small-l libertarian if it weren’t such a dirty word. I believe in the collective and lifting up each other.
None of that is fake or an affect; it’s simply who I am. And there are a lot of people like me. We’re not trying to be weirdos or out there or ‘woke’. We just are. I know it’s hard for some people to believe, but we are not who we are AT them; we. just. are. Are some of a bit extra because of them? Hell, yes, but that’s a pretty normal reaction.