So, there’s this movie I’ve been looking forward to. You probably heard about it. It’s a horror film that takes place at a late night show. I love horror. And, as someone who’s spent most of his career writing jokes for people talking to an audience late at night, this was an exciting prospect to see those two things converge. We all love life’s little crossovers, don’t we folks?
Unfortunately, it appears the movie has used AI for some of its art. According to the directors, the AI art is only used a few times and was inserted before the backlash had grown to its current size. According to some viewers, AI art may have been used throughout the set design, meaning it appears a lot. Either case bums me out and makes me wonder if I’ll see it. But, and I want to be clear about this, being bummed is not the same thing as a boycott.
One more time: a fan saying, “I don’t know if I’m going to buy this game” or “I don’t know if I’m going to read this book” is not the same thing as a campaign to kill. We all got that? Too bad, because here’s more words I wrote about it.
Not Spending Money Is Not The Same As Not Wanting People To Be Paid
So why split this hair? Because every time people are bummed about something online, there’s always a brave hero to stand on a hill and denounce the “boycott” - even if very, very few people have called for one. It’s a self-righteous contrarian stance that everyone else is just being too dramatic and needs to understand the real world and they would never have paid for it anyway!
A viewer saying they might not see the film in the theater turns into, “Oh, so you don’t think crews for movies should get paid just because of a couple of art cards?”. No, dummies, it’s just a person saying they personally won’t see the movie. There’s a grocery store in my neighborhood I avoid because the owner annoys me. That’s not me boycotting the place.
And this matters because - and again, listen close -people are allowed to be disappointed in something. They’re allowed to be bummed on a minor, moderate, or high level. And, furthermore, those are not the same things! Being slightly disappointed is not the same as flipping over a table and burning down the house. Also, why would you flip over a table if you were going to burn the house down anyway? It doesn’t make sense. Also, don’t burn any houses down. I don’t need that on my conscience. Let’s just move to the next paragraph and get back to the point.
Editor’s Note:See also Dragon’s Dogma 2 MTX.
People need to stop acting like fans being moderately upset about something is the same as a campaign of death and destruction. Just because someone has an issue with a game you like doesn’t mean they’re calling for it to be removed from history and all its creators thrown into a woodchipper. They’re not attacking you. They’re just saying, “Hey, man, this sucks. I wish this one thing were different”. That’s all. You’re not a better person for keeping a stiff upper lip about some bad work practices. And they are not weaker people for saying they might just pass on a game with surprise microtransactions.
Emotions do not exist in a binary state between Absolute Adoration and Raging Volcano. A person can be excited about a project and wish some of it were different. It’s a normal, rational decision to decide you’re going to skip something that’s bothering you. Someone deciding to take a pass on a game due to microtransactions is not the same thing as demanding a national boycott.
Hell, even whensomepeople are talking about boycotts, that doesn’t mean every complaint is simply pearl-clutching. When we treat complaints as all or nothing - worship the product or melt it with acid - any minor issue is dismissible as ‘just blowing it out of proportion’.
Welcome To The Internet? Sure.
You might say, “That’s the internet for you!”, or, “The internet isn’t a place for nuance!”. Which, I guess? Okay? I always thought that people posting online had agency or free will, but it turns out that they’re automatons that follow a cliche we’ve all decided is just the way things are. I guess they’re just required by law to claim that any pushback is an overdramatic knee-jerk reaction that better people would never suffer. It’s a way to avoid the issue and make the person seem too sensitive, which justifies enjoying the product as it is, no questions asked.
Fans are allowed to have legitimate concerns. There’s no rule in the rule book that says a dog can’t express annoyance at a company that expects people to pay $35 to see the real ending of a game remake. That does not mean they were ready to be haters from the start. Voicing worries is not canceling the entire staff and ruining their careers. Posting about not wanting to see a movie is not the same as a protest campaign to have the police raid the theater. It also waters down the concept of a real boycott when peopleshouldavoid a product. Because if any minor complaint is viewed as a boycott, then any actual major complaint can be viewed as just another minor one taken up by histrionic babies.
Stop it. You’re not a better person because you can ignore an issue that bothers someone else. You’re not on higher moral ground because you view yourself asabovea disagreement between fans about the way something was produced. When you - the vague ‘you’, not the you reading this, who is perfect in every way - respond to any situation with, “There go the crazies again, trying to cancel everyone” then you’re simply being lazy and taking a shortcut to not having to care.
Which is funny because you never had to at all! Someone not seeing a movie or buying a game doesn’t even affect you - especially when the piece of art in question is already out in the wild.
Yes, peoplecananddooverreact. But not every reaction you disagree with is by default an overreaction. Not every complaint is the start of an online riot. This is how we get stupid news stories about vast armies ofTikTokusers canceling someone when it always turns out to be just three or four people posting that they’re sad at a singer or something. Let people be bummed and - for the last time - being disappointed is not the same as trying to ruin it for everyone else. Unless you’re a jerk, in which case all bets are off.
