3 posts from January 2008

I'm serious.

Dear Dan Yemin:

SWEET FANCY MOSES, quit dropping random FUCKS in your FUCKING songs, so I can play them on the motherFUCKing radio and have those songs blast the rest of the Pitchfork approved garbage my station plays out of the water and into sub-lunar FUCKING orbit.

FUCK.

Oh, yeah, New Lexicon is pretty awesome.

Post a comment Tags: music, radio, paint it black

Xbox Live.

So, I read another story on Kotaku about the near constant stream of racial and homophobic slurs on Xbox Live. The majority of the comments ended up being "just use the mute button on your headset, and that solves the problem". Which, as a couple people pointed out, is, not the problem.


The problem is that Xbox Live is a breeding ground for this kind of behavior, not that someone's 8 year old black kids playing Madden are hearing the n-bomb dropped on them by (presumably) white, middle class kids maybe, maybe, twice their age. Yes, the simple solution is to ignore the problem, hitting the mute button, and then suddenly, you don't have to deal with it, which just ignores the problem. It does not mean the issue is solved, but that it is ignored.

Perhaps ashamedly, only a few people suggested leaving feedback, reporting the people who did use language, or speaking out (I think I was a minority there) in game, using the same voice chat, saying that that vocabulary is not cool, and I won't stand for it. Because, so long as there aren't consequences for behavior and use of that vocabulary, the kids will keep saying it. So it's up to everyone on Xbox Live who thinks that kind of behavior is not excuseable, and is offended to not mute their headsets, to (as Strike Anywhere put it) stand up and speak out, in game and out of game. There are community policing systems on Xbox Live that can be used if you want to avoid a confrontation, but don't want to let it go unpunished or unnoticed.

It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?

Post a comment Tags: video games, racism, kotaku, xbox live

A peculiar intersection.

What did Barack Obama learn from Nintendo?

He effectively used the "blue ocean strategy" that Nintendo used when they designed the Wii. Blue ocean means moving away from the traditional, where there is already blood in the water, thus, a blue ocean. Both Microsoft and Sony were upgrading hardware and promising to shove more technology into their next generation boxes. Nintendo, on the other hand, decided what they were doing new was that they were going to use motion control in their system rather than a normal controller. Professional skeptics said it was crazy, that Nintendo was aiming for a fickle casual audience that might not respond to the system.

History has proven the skeptics wrong. The Nintendo Wii is the most popular console, by far. the 360, plagued by hardware issues, and the PS3 plagued by a high price, have yet to catch up.

Barack Obama, bet his money on undecided and new voters in Iowa. Young voters, were the key, he said. Nevermind that for the Democrats in Iowa, a young voter is under 60. But. These too, were fickle voters. Better to steer your star by traditional, older voters, the skeptics in both parties said. You couldn't trust the kids. They were an unknown quantity. Undecideds couldn't make up their mind, or be trusted to vote your way. They usually made up their minds in the polling booth, for God's sake! It is a risk, and a huge one.

As you have probably heard, Obama won Iowa soundly, 8% away from his biggest competitor.

Sometimes I wonder if there is something to these videogames...

Post a comment Tags: nintendo, politics, video games, obama