gallaetha_matt said:
rsvp42 said:
Was it at least funny? Obviously Blizzard is a big company and doesn't have the luxury of being edgy or offensive in that way without significant backlash, but if it was funny, it makes it slightly less terrible.
Of course, now I'm just thinking of this:
Pretty much this. The word ****** isn't strictly a slur for gay people, it can be used in that context but I don't think it applies in Blizzard's case. I don't think they sat down and tried to target gay people with a slur. "How can we really piss off those gay people? I just hate them so much, I just want to moderately offend them all!" And if they did, you think they'd use a better word than ******. They're a multi-million dollar company, they probably have a whole department dedicated to inventing new swear words for them. They've probably got ways of insulting the koreans that you or I will never see.
How I envy them.
(That's a gold farming joke, I don't know any koreans - just thought I needed to point that out.)
It's all about context. Louis C.K put it better than I ever could "I wouldn't call a gay guy a ******, unless he was being a ******."
Louis C.K. and the South Park episode (see speakerphone's post on the second page at the top) on the subject are what I always think of as well.
I never played WoW, but it just seems strange on one hand because having played multiplayer games online before, being called a "******" is tantamount to being called a "doody-head." Harmonic said it well
harmonic said:
Often, straight people are called ******, taking the place of "dude".
as did Mythrignoc above. It's become so common in slang vernacular as a general pejorative that even
that quickly became pretty tame. By etymology standards, that generalized insult is pretty much where it began in the first place. And by video game standards, it's pretty much 90% of the vocabulary of prepubescents on Xbox Live.
What is particularly odd is that anyone at Blizzard was ostensibly sober when approving this idea for a video to show. There is pretty much zero appeal in hearing a loudmouth twit ranting over what amounts to his favorite fictional fantasy football team. Hell, at least have a
counter point to square things off. From the sound of other news stories on this site, WoW is tapering off a teensy bit, which makes sense to me given how long it has been going. So the last thing I would do to build up my game would be to market
against one side using a moron.
The most appalling part is that there even
is actual prejudice against players of opposing factors. Not a friendly rivalry, but straight-up anger and discrimination... over a
game. Talk about needing to get a grip on reality.
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