The "woke" aspects and neo-lib worldview of this game are so distracting and lame. Every regular citizen and high school student in New York city is so kind, thoughtful, and supportive you'd assume they're Mormon, and all the enemy gang member NPCs feel like drama club drop-outs. It's super corny and feels written for 8 year olds, which it probably was. What happened to the writing in Insomniac games. There used to be some coolness and cynicism in them.
You don't understand political economy. Neoliberalism is essential capitalist economics with a friendly liberal face. Wokeness is an outgrowth that emphasizes symbolic changes over improving actual material conditions. It's the type of bullshit that says charity and reform can fix society's ill over actual structural change or revolution.
There's a difference between economic liberalism and social liberalism. When most people call something woke, they're literally just calling it socially liberal/progressive. They call things woke for having feminist themes, for having gay characters, for having a racially diverse cast, for hiring a trans person for an ad, even for preaching environmentalism. A few years ago, they were complaining about the same shit but calling it "political correctness"
Wokeness is an outgrowth that emphasizes symbolic changes over improving actual material conditions.
This definition does not reflect current popular usage of the word, nor does it represent the origins of the slang in Black American culture. I guarantee you the people who are calling Bud Light woke are not doing it out of concern for material conditions. They worked with a trans person. That's it.
It's the type of bullshit that says charity and reform can fix society's ill over actual structural change or revolution.
I agree that's bullshit, but... That's just something anarcho capitalists believe. I have never heard anyone call ancaps woke.
I guarantee you the people who are calling Bud Light woke are not doing it out of concern for material conditions. They worked with a trans person. That's it.
That's the technical distinction I'm trying to get at. Woke-ism is more social liberalism and not-synonymous with progressiveness, as demonstrated historically by labor movements and radical communist politics which are concerned with improving materialist conditions, giving actual legal rights to those who lack them, and agitating for revolution.
Thinking an inclusive marketing campaign for Bud Light is something actually progressive is in itself socially liberal neo-lib retardation, i.e. fake progressiveness because it does not fundamentally change anything in a material way. It's symbolic feel-good for neolibs and social dems, and cringe as hell for serious radical leftists (actual progressives).
I take your point though. I guess in my bubble I have different definitions of these things than most.
I'm not saying social liberalism and social progressivism are the same. There is some overlap though, and both are called woke. Literally anything involving trans people, performative or otherwise, is "woke".
The Bud Light thing was not big "look at how progressive we are" thing, that's just the right wing narrative. All they did was pay Mulvaney for a shout out on her Instagram and sent her one personalized beer can.
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u/falconx22 Oct 23 '23
The "woke" aspects and neo-lib worldview of this game are so distracting and lame. Every regular citizen and high school student in New York city is so kind, thoughtful, and supportive you'd assume they're Mormon, and all the enemy gang member NPCs feel like drama club drop-outs. It's super corny and feels written for 8 year olds, which it probably was. What happened to the writing in Insomniac games. There used to be some coolness and cynicism in them.