Juno News - March 28, 2024


GamerGate 2.0 is OUT OF CONTROL!


Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

166.16934

Word count

2,079

Sentence count

141

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

15

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Why is it normal to discriminate against white males in video games? And why does it matter if you like or don't like white people in the games they play? In this episode of the podcast, we discuss the controversy surrounding a Montreal-based diversity and equity firm called Sweet Baby Inc. and the people who work there.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.120 Maybe MJ was right. Why would the city need me when it has you?
00:00:07.940 We may seem weary and ragged, but we know secret routes of England's coasts.
00:00:13.780 What you got there?
00:00:15.720 Bigot sandwiches. 0.93
00:00:24.400 Gamergate 2.0 has been dominating the internet over the past month,
00:00:28.140 and this new ideological flare-up all centers around a Montreal-based diversity, equity, and inclusion gaming firm named Sweet Baby Inc.
00:00:38.140 Like every artistic, cultural industry, you simply are not allowed to be left alone to enjoy the medium.
00:00:44.880 You must be inundated with divisive political messaging.
00:00:49.420 You must be reminded of the new hierarchy that social activists and large corporations adhere to.
00:00:55.300 That hierarchy, by the way, places straight white males at the very bottom.
00:01:00.320 However, when the new untouchable class begins noticing this pattern,
00:01:03.860 and begin noticing that despite being loyal customers,
00:01:07.300 they are now the enemy and target in the video games they play in,
00:01:10.560 that's when these social activists begin to show their true colors.
00:01:14.240 When you notice, for example, that large gaming studios have decided to erase white males from their games,
00:01:19.880 or add pronouns to every single playable character,
00:01:23.360 or, for example, put Black Lives Matter messaging in the latest Spider-Man, for goodness sake,
00:01:28.480 and dare to question what's going on, or even worse, dare to push back against what's going on,
00:01:34.480 that's when this activist class, the new Maoists, initiate their struggle session against you.
00:01:39.800 And now, it seems as though these activists are taking it to the next level.
00:01:44.200 According to the BBC's gaming presenter, it's time for a, quote,
00:01:48.800 final purge against all of those who dare to disagree with diversity, equity, and inclusion in video games.
00:01:57.000 I'm sure all of this will end well.
00:01:59.240 Before we get into the show, drop a like in the video,
00:02:01.180 help us out by subscribing to the True North YouTube channel,
00:02:03.620 stick around for the ratio of the week,
00:02:05.260 and the common question for the episode is this.
00:02:08.540 Why is it normal to discriminate against white males? 0.98
00:02:12.240 Let me know your answer in the comments below, and let's get into it.
00:02:15.460 Let's do this.
00:02:16.540 Let's be honest.
00:02:17.840 Most new movies, music, and video games are awful.
00:02:21.820 Diversity above all else seems to be the priority.
00:02:25.380 Not talent, not writing, not character depth.
00:02:28.360 The most important thing seems to be making sure that there aren't too many white males on the screen at once. 0.84
00:02:34.700 Now, nowhere is this more acutely felt than in video games.
00:02:37.660 Large gaming studios like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts
00:02:40.440 have been ramming through divisive political messaging in their games,
00:02:44.120 race swapping characters to make sure there are fewer white characters in the game,
00:02:47.820 and of course, lots of pronouns.
00:02:50.500 Now, this story has been going on for over a month now,
00:02:53.340 but I want to go back to where it all began,
00:02:55.180 with Sweet Baby Ink,
00:02:56.440 and with someone who dared to commit the crime of noticing,
00:03:00.100 something you're really not allowed to do in this day and age.
00:03:03.100 Now, a social media user set up a Steam page
00:03:06.300 to document all of the games that Sweet Baby Ink was involved in making.
00:03:12.000 Now, you might be asking,
00:03:13.120 why would they bother doing that?
00:03:15.200 Well, according to Sweet Baby Ink's website,
00:03:18.720 the company's objective,
00:03:19.940 and one of the things they offer to larger game studios,
00:03:23.080 is cultural consultation,
00:03:26.040 sensitivity and inclusivity reading,
00:03:28.420 risk and opportunities assessment,
00:03:29.820 and more.
00:03:31.220 Furthermore,
00:03:32.380 the people who work at Sweet Baby Ink,
00:03:34.480 and who previously worked at Sweet Baby Ink,
00:03:37.020 don't seem to like white people very much.
00:03:39.340 According to this article in The Shortcut,
00:03:42.240 Sweet Baby Ink has been accused of making games worse
00:03:44.920 in a bid to help companies meet their ESG and DEI targets.
00:03:49.580 It has also come under fire for allegedly forcing its employees' political ideologies
00:03:54.000 into the games it has worked on.
00:03:55.920 Sweet Baby Ink's CEO,
00:03:57.940 Kim Belair in a 2019 Game Developers Conference
00:04:01.200 basically told the crowd to threaten marketing departments
00:04:05.400 with the consequences for not adopting racial politics into your video games.
00:04:11.400 If you're a creative working in AAA,
00:04:13.040 which I did for many, many years,
00:04:15.100 put this stuff up to your higher-ups,
00:04:17.860 and if they don't see the value in what you're asking for
00:04:20.360 when you ask for consultants,
00:04:21.360 when you ask for research,
00:04:22.820 go have a coffee with your marketing team
00:04:24.920 and just terrify them with the possibility
00:04:28.240 of what's going to happen if they don't give you what you want.
00:04:30.720 Another ex-Sweet Baby Ink employee
00:04:33.140 said at a game developers conference
00:04:35.280 that she just wouldn't hire white people.
00:04:37.800 We have no white people on our team.
00:04:39.600 I did that because I wanted to create a safe environment,
00:04:44.680 and I know the best way for an environment to be safe
00:04:47.360 is to be around people who are just like me.
00:04:49.800 Sometimes it is hard to work with white people 0.99
00:04:52.240 because they think that something made okay,
00:04:56.300 but it was really a microaggression.
00:04:58.360 Now, the only thing that this person on Steam did
00:05:01.060 was create a list of the games this company is involved in making.
00:05:05.440 The person didn't say to boycott the games,
00:05:07.960 didn't say to harass the company,
00:05:10.100 but just simply notified people
00:05:12.160 about what games this company was involved in making.
00:05:14.960 Some of these games are some of the biggest games in the industry.
00:05:17.700 One of the employees of this Montreal-based
00:05:20.340 diversity, equity, and inclusion firm
00:05:22.380 went on a campaign to get this Steam page deleted,
00:05:27.120 report the F out of this group,
00:05:29.320 and report the creator since he loves his account so much.
00:05:33.020 Now, that Sweet Baby Ink employee for this harassment 1.00
00:05:35.640 was banned from Twitter for six days
00:05:37.640 for breaching the company's policies.
00:05:39.860 Now, this is not an isolated incident.
00:05:41.840 Sweet Baby Ink is just one company
00:05:43.840 that have been doing this in video games.
00:05:46.200 It's the large video game studios,
00:05:48.680 the ones that make the games,
00:05:50.240 that have fully bought into this idea.
00:05:53.120 I mean, just look at some of these examples.
00:05:55.180 It's absurd.
00:05:56.220 We begin with God of War Ragnarok,
00:05:59.360 where they race-swapped a Norse mythological figure
00:06:02.540 to be a black woman. 0.74
00:06:04.380 I'm Anger Voda. 0.91
00:06:07.040 You must have a lot of questions.
00:06:09.080 As we've already mentioned with Spider-Man 2,
00:06:11.860 we have this rather subtle BLM messaging in the game.
00:06:16.660 In another Sweet Baby Ink video game,
00:06:19.560 Kill the Justice League,
00:06:20.940 again, we have some more subtle political messaging.
00:06:25.340 Slept with a guy once,
00:06:26.400 for this little yappy dog.
00:06:28.960 Way less annoying than you.
00:06:31.000 How about this in Assassin's Creed Valhalla?
00:06:33.740 Again, another Sweet Baby Ink video game.
00:06:36.000 Some black Vikings. 0.96
00:06:37.700 They apparently know the secret routes to England.
00:06:40.240 We may seem weary and ragged,
00:06:42.540 but we know secret routes of England's coasts.
00:06:46.160 In the Gotham Knights Batman game, 0.98
00:06:48.700 apparently all the NPCs are gay. 0.97
00:06:51.460 There's this guy. 0.57
00:06:52.740 We've been flirting, and he asked me out,
00:06:55.120 and I maybe said yes.
00:06:57.900 And how about this in The Last of Us 2?
00:07:01.060 This is my favorite example.
00:07:02.740 Some bigot sandwiches.
00:07:04.560 I think I had a few of those before recording this show.
00:07:07.460 What you got there?
00:07:08.320 Bigot sandwiches. 0.93
00:07:11.240 They want to force their ideology into video games.
00:07:14.520 So you can't just enjoy the medium.
00:07:16.360 You can't just enjoy the video games
00:07:18.440 because you like playing the video games.
00:07:20.020 You have to be subjected to the political ideology
00:07:23.320 that they want you to see.
00:07:25.660 That ideology is clearly anti-white male.
00:07:29.760 There's no point in pretending that it isn't.
00:07:31.300 And no one is even trying to hide that.
00:07:34.260 For example, take a look at this post
00:07:37.120 from the Xbox head of marketing. 0.74
00:07:40.640 Raise your hand if you're not a white man 0.71
00:07:43.100 and you buy video games. 0.91
00:07:45.220 No hate to white dudes.
00:07:46.860 It's just another day in the gaming industry
00:07:48.960 that minorities have to fight to prove they exist. 0.99
00:07:52.020 This anti-white male bias, 0.96
00:07:55.900 this anti-white male hate, 0.99
00:07:58.140 if you want to call it that, 0.98
00:07:59.160 because that's what others would call it
00:08:00.420 if it was against a different group of people,
00:08:02.620 is pervasive in the gaming industry.
00:08:05.460 It is everywhere.
00:08:06.740 And if you dare to question it
00:08:08.260 and dare to notice it,
00:08:09.960 that's when you become the target.
00:08:11.940 But this is starting to backfire.
00:08:14.060 Elon Musk, for example, isn't taking it.
00:08:17.600 Sweet Baby Inc. is an evil blight on the gaming industry.
00:08:20.700 All they do is make games terrible
00:08:22.640 and try to cancel people.
00:08:24.360 They cannot go broke soon enough.
00:08:27.020 It should not be acceptable
00:08:28.140 for any company in the gaming industry
00:08:30.260 to be racist and sexist against white guys.
00:08:34.000 Even UFC star Sean Strickland got in on this.
00:08:36.880 Sean, why aren't you in the UFC game?
00:08:39.060 Years later, being a top contender,
00:08:41.000 wow, your stats are so low.
00:08:42.920 Well, you guys, 0.70
00:08:43.680 the video game industry is a leftist cesspool.
00:08:46.580 I am the definition of what these people hate.
00:08:48.800 But I take it as a compliment.
00:08:50.820 Thanks.
00:08:52.440 Perfect.
00:08:53.260 The only way you can actually respond to this.
00:08:55.200 And of course,
00:08:55.840 for the Maoists who happen to work at the BBC,
00:08:59.240 none of that has been sitting too well for them.
00:09:01.320 According to BBC's gaming correspondent,
00:09:04.440 gaming presenter,
00:09:05.740 well, there needs to be a final purge
00:09:07.840 on all of those who disagree with them.
00:09:10.040 A final purge.
00:09:11.680 I wonder what she means by that.
00:09:13.280 Can we agree that for round two of this,
00:09:16.080 it can be the final purge of these kinds of gamers?
00:09:19.300 It's 2024.
00:09:20.600 I've been arguing about this for decades.
00:09:22.760 Can we have a last full detox of these dudes
00:09:25.300 so we can get back to the positive gaming community
00:09:27.540 we have been creating?
00:09:28.720 Why don't you just let people
00:09:29.700 enjoy the games they want to play?
00:09:32.080 None of this is actually about diversity.
00:09:34.760 Most sane and normal people
00:09:36.360 are actually okay with diversity.
00:09:38.460 They don't have a problem with diversity
00:09:40.020 in and of itself.
00:09:41.460 But this is not about diversity.
00:09:43.380 These people who work in the video game industry,
00:09:46.240 who are video game journalists and reporters,
00:09:49.040 if there even is such a thing, 0.99
00:09:50.620 hate white people. 1.00
00:09:51.740 They say so explicitly. 1.00
00:09:53.460 They want to have a final purge
00:09:55.360 of those that disagree with them. 0.98
00:09:56.760 They want to not hire white people 1.00
00:09:58.280 at video game studios.
00:09:59.980 So none of this is really about diversity.
00:10:02.300 This is about aggressive political conformity.
00:10:05.700 However, we've seen where this all ends up going.
00:10:08.620 These people always end up losing.
00:10:11.060 Because of course,
00:10:12.100 you can only push people too far.
00:10:14.140 The first Gamergate was largely a failure
00:10:16.200 on the side of the dissidents.
00:10:17.880 The activists ended up winning.
00:10:19.740 They still infect video games with this ideology.
00:10:23.000 They still are making video games awful to play.
00:10:25.900 And they're still attacking people
00:10:27.160 who dare to question them.
00:10:28.480 But now things seem different.
00:10:30.420 People are beginning to push back.
00:10:32.260 And eventually, these social activists,
00:10:35.000 the Maoists, will lose.
00:10:37.060 All right, ratio of the week time.
00:10:39.000 The winner this week is the Globe and Mail
00:10:41.140 for publishing this opinion piece by Justin Ling,
00:10:44.620 someone who we have talked about on this program
00:10:46.560 quite a few times before.
00:10:48.440 This one is a special opinion piece
00:10:50.140 that didn't seem to sit too well
00:10:52.040 with Canadians on social media.
00:10:54.000 The title,
00:10:54.960 Canada must empty its cupboards for Ukraine. 1.00
00:10:58.500 If you ask me,
00:10:59.700 Canada should be emptying its cupboards
00:11:01.220 for its own military.
00:11:02.660 Apparently, to the Globe and Mail and Justin Ling,
00:11:04.940 earning $13 billion in aid is not enough.
00:11:08.400 We need to be sending more military aid.
00:11:10.360 Obviously, things that we do not have.
00:11:12.300 No mention in this article
00:11:13.280 about the hundreds of thousands of deaths
00:11:15.220 on both sides of this conflict.
00:11:16.740 No mention about the fact
00:11:18.100 that an entire generation of Ukrainian men
00:11:20.540 are dead now.
00:11:21.840 And no mention, of course,
00:11:22.800 as to how Canada could play a peace role
00:11:25.340 in ending this war,
00:11:26.720 to end the suffering and to end the death.
00:11:29.220 Just more money, more aid,
00:11:30.700 more things that we do not have.
00:11:33.040 111 replies to only 38 likes
00:11:35.840 at the time of this recording.
00:11:38.020 I think we already did.
00:11:39.500 Defense contractors really appreciated it,
00:11:42.160 one person writes.
00:11:43.640 Cupboards are empty,
00:11:44.740 another person writes.
00:11:45.940 Probably not the opinion
00:11:47.220 that the Globe and Mail
00:11:48.040 were expecting to receive
00:11:49.400 when they wrote this opinion article.
00:11:51.760 All right, everyone,
00:11:52.200 that's going to do it for us
00:11:53.040 this week on the show.
00:11:53.920 Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:11:55.420 My name is Harrison Faulkner,
00:11:56.600 and this is Ratio.
00:12:00.700 We'll see you next time.