On the PC Master Race and the Language Police

[StriderShinryu]

I think the main point should really be that it doesn't matter what you call yourself. Being a smug closed-minded dick about your game playing machine of choice (or *gasp* actually enjoying more than one game playing machine) is being a closed-minded dick, period. Considering others as somehow beneath you (and don't just pretend it's all done in some ironic self aware manner) because they don't like the same things as you do means you're a jackass, period.

 

[StatusNil]

Also, I feel people are wrong when they say that people use the term "ironically" because that would imply the opposite is true. People use the term jokingly, non-seriously, with knowing hyperbole, but not ironically.

From the first online dictionary that came up on Google, here's definition 2.b.:

"(especially in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes, etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion."

Seems pretty spot on for me.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

So wait, the guy who once changed a joke in one of his videos purely because "someone might be offended" is now a big defender of free speech and not caring if someone has their precious feelings hurt? Can't have it both ways, Yahtzee.

 

[synobal]

We are just biding our time while we prepare the final solution for the console peasant problems.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I will admit that I proudly and unironically call myself a member of the PC master race. I do it tongue-in-cheek of course, since it is a joke, but I am a PC enthusiast who truly believes that a PC is the best platform on which to play games. I read the subreddit sometimes, although it gets a bit much at times, but I personally like the term because it encapsulated how many PC enthusiasts feel, that the PC is without a doubt the best way to game.

I don't go out of my way to criticize people for playing games on consoles, I will play on my buddy's WiiU when I go to his house. I don't think there is anything wrong with owning consoles or playing games on consoles, I just happen to think PCs are better. I work in IT, I love computers, so that is probably part of it. I love to select the best components in my price range, build my rig to be blazing fast in games and in general, for me it is a great hobby.

So I will continue to call myself "PC master race", word police be damned. I don't want to go out of my way to insult or offend anyone, I would never call myself part of the "PC ban Muslims race", but I given the context and welcoming nature of the PC community I don't think PC master race rises to a level of offensiveness that would cause me not to identify that way.

 

[Amir Kondori]

We are just biding our time while we prepare the final solution for the console peasant problems.

I was sitting in Mein Campfy chair while I read this. Your talk of a final solution reminded me of the time I got hit with a head shot in CSGO, I cussed and said "Ah shwitz!", I was mad. But I don't want to hurt any filthy console peasants, perhaps we should just clean them up, put them in the showers.

/Sorry, now PC master race IS about Nazis. I dun goofed
//the preceding is a joke, I welcome our console playing brothers, they are the south america to the PC north america

 

[Nuxxy]

Good point. Then again, we could always shorten it to "bourg", which seems appropriate, given their fanaticism for their computers.

Spoiler

Now I'm imagining a Star Trek crossover where the aliens are prissy french robot-cyborgs, wearing berets and proudly proclaiming "We are the bourge! Resistance is futile, you silly Federation kniggets."

 

[RaikuFA]

Isn't the thought police the other type of PC gamer?

 

[RaikuFA]

'Clergy of Handhelds'

*knocks on your door with 3DS in hand*

Excuse me sir? Can I have a moment of your time to discuss the wonders of Handheld Gaming?

We're also holding a candlelit vigil tonight for Club Nintendo and the PSVita, if you want to pay your respects.

(Yes, I'm aware the Vita's not dead yet and Idon'tknowwhatI'mgoingonaboutgoaway *covers face with hands*)

Viva la Vita.

But I'll take a candle for club nintendo.

 

[JMac85]

So, should rushing the quarterback in American football no longer be referred to as a "blitz"? There was a video game franchise named that, too.

I suppose while we're at it we should stop glorifying all groups of people who have committed horrible atrocities. How many schools are named the Spartans? They threw babies off cliffs if they had any defects and kept slaves.

 

[Signa]

I use PC Master Race not because I hate consoles, I just hate the consoles that we have on the market. Take me back to the days of the SNES/Genesis or the N64/Playstation, and I'd be playing them all if I could. I got myself a Wii U recently, and there's nothing to hate, thankfully, but MS and Sony seem content on trying to get as much money from you as they can, and I think that does make them inferior. So that makes me part of the Master Race then I guess.

 

[Random Argument Man]

"And let me be frank: while this is a very important conversation to have, it seems to be futile to attempt to have it on the internet, where it will inevitably turn into a dual siege between two heavily-entrenched echo chambers of vocal minorities, separated by a vast landscape of howler monkeys flinging shit"

Holy shit?That summed almost every gaming controversy of the last years.


As for the term, I seen it used as a joke and as something serious multiple time. I'm pretty sure the latter never heard of Poe's law.

 

[MoltenSilver]

The only time I've personally used it is ironically when complaining to a friend about some kind of problem I'm having running with a game.

In the article though I have to disagree with the end part; I think not being aware of the etymology of the term is a very worrying phenomena, both because it shows a lack of self-awareness and more troubling because of that old phrase: "Those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it"

 

[Rozalia1]

The master race thing always bothered me. Not on the platform wars (well after certain users got banned it became easier to handle) front as some no doubt are aware I am known to tangle with such people... I wouldn't say I get fun out of it, but I do my part in stopping some of it from happening/continuing.

More on the front of it being a very clear Nazi reference and while many will shout PC (no pun intended) I just don't see it being consistent with how things go in the real world. In the real world such things wouldn't go down all that well and neither should it on the internet (well where it is "civilised").

Just makes all gamers look bad and childish by association.

I think about it this way: it started off as an insult to elitist PC snobs and it REMAINS an insult. The only people who use it "ironically" as some badge of honor are those who are obviously horrendously insecure about gaming on PC despite touting as the greatest thing evar.

Puts it more direct than I would have.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

Isn't the thought police the other type of PC gamer?

You're a little off. You're thinking of social justice warriors.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Batou667]

So wait, the guy who once changed a joke in one of his videos purely because "someone might be offended" is now a big defender of free speech and not caring if someone has their precious feelings hurt? Can't have it both ways, Yahtzee.

Somebody was offended. He changed it, IIRC, under friendly but insistent advisement from The Escapist, presumably because it had attracted complaints.

What we have here is Yahtzee choosing to defy a charge of insensitivity - and I'd say he's on much surer footing this time. That's not really hypocrisy, that's called picking your battles.

As for that PC Gamer article... ugh, that's as good an example as you could hope for of a fabricated nontroversy. The sinister associations he insists are irrevocably tied to the term "master race" are a stretch, and the fact that so many people cheerfully use the term in a casual and often self-deprecating or ironic way proves how subverted and detoothed the term has become. As a result, he comes across as a Bowdlerising killjoy. What's next, banning reference to the Monty Python Spanish Inquisition sketch as it trivialises religious persecution?

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

PC dose more, supports more games via emulation and is more stable than every. I'd had more hardware failures between 360s/Wii/PS3s than PC wise, tho a few hard drives over the years had to be replaced but I did not lose any data since I watch SMART info like a hack. An unstable OS is either user error, damaged software/OS/Driver or hardware. And its much easier and cheaper to swap a part out on a PC than a MS console with locked and paired mobo/disc drives..... If consoles were more modular so you can do more do it yourself stuff I would would not worry about my console burning itself out....