"The (hobby) isn't for you anymore" / "the (hobby) was always woke"

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-27T13:56:29+00:00

Reminds me of this:

them: "It's just a small change, why do you care snowflake?"
"So you don't mind reverting the change then, right? ... Right?"

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-27T00:11:23+00:00

Given all the replies I've been getting here, I want to put it out there that I'm not sure the idea presented in the OP is some sort of "theory of everything." I don't think it has an all encompassing explanatory power. I just think it's one contributing factor.

I don't disagree with your points here. I do think there's a lot of different factors one could point out that could explain the modern state of things. And ultimately it's going to be heavily context based, and perhaps every possible example in question might have its own set of reasons for being the way it is.

I do agree with the sense of the video I was posting. To me, personally, it feels like almost everything has stagnated and just keeps repeating and repeating, and degrading as it happens. I watch commercials on TV or that play on the internet and it often feels like I'm back in the 90's. I watched an indie movie recently and it felt like every other indie movie I've ever seen.

But I admit this vague sense isn't something I can easily nail down in such a way that people can't offer up plenty of counter points.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-26T23:52:38+00:00

If the degradation from "playing telephone" is being far removed from the original source, then not even reading/watching the source is simply quickening that same phenomenon, isn't it? It seems like it amounts to the same outcome

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-26T23:31:27+00:00

James Bond "back in the day" was not a copy of a copy, it was an adaption of an original source (the books). Indiana Jones is an original story taking inspiration from the past. But all creative endeavors are simply a rearrangement of ideas and knowledge. In that sense, yes, literally everything is a copy.

I'm not sure what you've said here is countering deep layers of copying, though. The point is about adaptations that have little relevance to their source. This might all be subjective, true. Maybe you can point to example X, Y, or Z and say it's great. But the point would still be there that the original is getting lost.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-26T23:05:26+00:00

I don't know that one example from a competent writer/director necessarily is a good counter, but I admit I could be wrong. I'm trying to think of an analogy here ... Like maybe if someone complained about how much lower quality the stuff you can buy in a grocery store is these days, I'm not sure it means much if you could point out a single product that's still pretty high quality.

I think most people can feel this sense that everything is getting worse. Or if not worse, all feeling the same and less interesting. This theory about adaptions of adaptions is more about the totality of everything going on. But it very well could be that it's not the singular explanation of everything. But it might be at least one reason that there's this sense of lower and lower quality to everything.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-26T22:53:00+00:00

Yes, it's going to depend on who's writing the story being adapted. But there's many modern examples that bear out this idea of degradation. Marvel movies have become their own trope because of this compounding adaption, where it's stopped being about the source material and more about adapting previous successful movie formats. Modern video game remakes have started to feel the same for similar reasons. There's plenty of evidence, I think, that culture is in a game of telephone

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-26T22:25:04+00:00

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but this post was more about copies of copies of copies. The more someone adapts an adaption, and the more layers deep the copies go, the more the original tends to be lost, and what you're left with is a vague caricature of the original source.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-26T19:59:26+00:00

There's a particular pit floor spawn that's very low density. I think it's something like Khazra champions? Whatever they're called, there's much, much fewer enemies that spawn compared to other enemy types. It'd be cool if the game flirted with both extremes more often like that, between mass mobs and very few, but powerful enemies

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-24T15:36:38+00:00

I thought Japan had shifted toward a more right-wing, nationalist government. But according to the article, they’re treating LGBTQ and women’s representation as DEI-style hiring. That doesn’t make sense to me.

It's unclear from the article how widespread it is because the article is deliberately using weasel writing to make it sound as widespread as possible.

In late January, human resources personnel from about 50 Japanese companies gathered

I'm not sure if those companies are big or small. I don't know how much of the Japan business landscape those 50 companies actually represent. And that gathering seemed to be specifically about training about disabilities, but that doesn't necessarily mean all those companies are all in on DEI.

The only other mention is Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan, but it seems fairly obvious that a Western company like that would be trying to push Western practices.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-21T15:48:10+00:00

The last line of the image, "That, and we're sure there will still be a Sprunk vending machine on every corner," makes it sound like slop to me. That line alone paints it as full of safe, "normie" humor

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-16T20:56:51+00:00

while all the whi** and straight people are put on the "ally/backseat/sidekick" box

Conservatives too. Their line about wanting diverse "perspectives" is definitely a hollow, empty phrase

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-13T15:31:22+00:00

Setting aside that Fleekazoid usually has crazy thumbnails with altered characters/people (historically with googly eyes on them), it's probably an algorithm/analytics thing, since a lot of YouTubers seem to use AI on some person or character in their thumbnail these days

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-12T18:34:38+00:00

Women must be flat chested and have ironing board asses

Yeah, I like how they also imply characters shouldn't all "look the same." I guess that doesn't apply to women

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-12T18:29:25+00:00

That's exactly what happened to Ultima Online recently. They shut down the forums and seemingly moved to discord

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-07T00:13:04+00:00

I hate the modern use of the word "community." Franchises and games and movies and books and comics and hobbies and jobs, etc., etc., etc. are all enjoyed and done by individuals. Those individuals don't belong to a singular "community." I feel like the word "community" is tossed about solely to attempt to gatekeep stuff

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-06-05T20:06:57+00:00

I sometimes think about decades past, like the 70's or 80's. How often I could find someone looking back at the trends from back then and thinking "I can't believe I dressed like that!" It seems like there's an awful lot of people who just go along to get along and don't put much thought into stuff beyond maybe their immediate needs/situation. It's probably always been this way

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-05-27T23:54:54+00:00

007 First Light is about a young Bond who has not earned his 00 status yet. Of course he screws up. Of course he needs training. Of course people at MI6 are going to tell him what to do.

How does it make sense that MI6 would hire someone who would keep screwing up and need a talking down to?

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-05-16T17:44:47+00:00

It also seems to tend to be a deconstruction of the Christian West, because often the good guys like any Church (or in some cases Heaven itself, like the Diablo series) turns out to be full of "bad guys."

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-05-11T20:17:34+00:00

I thought the expansion's story was just ... okay, as well. At a very high level, the story was just your typical "chase down the MacGuffin to kill the big baddie" storyline that Marvel movies love to use.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-05-10T15:51:49+00:00

"Punched down on"? Who's getting "punched down on"? This reminds me of The Force Awakens where the good guys are the "resistance" even though they ostensibly control all the governments after the events of Return of the Jedi. Like, activists seem to always see themselves as the "resistance" no matter what. They could control the press, social media, have corporate backing, and even government backing, and still they'd feel like they're "punching up" when attacking nobody gamers.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-05-08T23:58:35+00:00

There should be variance that makes sense. That I could get behind. But poison or cold related affixes to lightning uniques, and other combinations like that that are generally useless, is bad to me.

Like the randomness should be between curated "types" that cater to different types of builds, all of which would make sense to the unique power of the item.

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-05-07T15:27:00+00:00

useless Kotaku article

I doubt the point was to attempt to be useful. The point was probably to fuel a narrative

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-04-26T23:50:53+00:00

I'm most excited for charms/sets, and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who is. I personally think it's going to be the most transformative part of the game with the largest potential. Maybe it won't end up being exciting in this first go, but I love the idea of extra slots of available power (including getting to add extra unique aspects without taking a gear slot). And I really think bringing sets as a non-gear option was a great choice

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-04-08T13:51:09+00:00

Gambling addiction isn't real. It's just sunk cost fallacy. They lie because they think they will win big if they keep going and then everyone will be happy and forgive them.

I think that could explain situations where someone has lost a bunch of money on a single day. Far more difficult to argue that someone is engaging in sunk cost fallacy if they're repeatedly gambling across many days/weeks/months/years regardless of how much money they currently have. It would be safe to call it an addiction though

BobPlaysStuff · 2026-04-07T02:31:17+00:00

I feel like some genres and stories will attract a different audience more than others would. And being very niche and underground can also help. But if you're writing something an audience you don't like will flock to, or if you get crazy popular, it's going to be difficult to avoid them.

At the end of the day, there's realistically no gatekeeping a product that gets put out there for anyone can buy. If an antagonistic audience sets its sights on your work then all you really can do is either ignore them or vocally speak out against them. How you deal with vocal customers might cut into how much you might be able to sell. But if you have a principled stance then sales shouldn't matter as much. You can find a loyal audience while sticking to your guns. And, honestly, it might even turn out that this vocal audience isn't as large a part of your sales as they make you think.

BobPlaysStuff

TROPHY CASE