As the Sweet Baby Inc. AKA Gamergate 2.0 fiasco heats up, various non-video game culture warriors are starting to take notice. Once such warrior is Daily Wire Host Matt Walsh. Walsh has been a reliable soldier in the fight against the neo-Marxists who are threatening our world and I find myself in agreement with Walsh about 95% of the time.
Matt Walsh recently released a good video where he discussed the impact of video games on our culture — specifically the recent SBI scandal:
Mark Kern thanked Matt but called him out on his past attacks on video game culture. He also left him some good advice about how to win the culture war:
Things get interesting when Kern retweets Walsh from 2018:
To be fair to the Daily Wire and Matt Walsh, they have been putting in the time and money to create alternative culture. DW produced Terror on the Prairie featuring Gina Carano, the Lady Ballers comedy film, they are also producing a faithful version of Snow White. Here’s a list of what they have produced on IMDB. There can be no doubt that the Daily Wire have been putting their money where their mouth is.
Matt used a clip where Kern was being interviewed in the video. A Daily Wire representative reached out to Mark privately and replied. Then Kern posted his above tweet, then Re replied back with an inflammatory language. Then Mark retweets the communication between Greg Re and Mark Kern:
Sure Mark Kern has a right to be suspicious of Matt Walsh and Conservative Inc.’s sudden interest in the SBI sandal, but he should have shown a bit of restraint and not posted that clip of Walsh’s previous stance on video game. At this point in the culture war, we have to resist going down purity spirals that will sabotage our movement.
I am also well-acquainted with the incestuous world of right-wing conservative punditry. There are a fair number mean-spirted, petty, pompous jerks that are staffers for some of the biggest names such as Tucker Carlson and Daily Wire. The world of punditry on both sides of the political spectrum has a high asshole quotient.
Greg Re was out of line here and overreacted. He should have been diplomatic. Kern continues:
Ian Miles Cheong who wrote an outstanding piece about Gamergate 1.0 for Human Events puts it all into perspective:
Conclusion
We are in a war that we never started.
All we wanted to do is to play our video games in our spare time. But standing on the sidelines is no longer an option if we truly love our hobby. Many gamers realize this now as they find most new games are full of DEI propaganda and almost impossible to play.
The plague of DEI is ravaging our world on all fronts and even gamers who love escapism know it too. We have to put aside our differences and become brothers in arms if we are to defeat this civilizational menace.
I don’t doubt the sincerity of both parties. I hope that Mark Kern and Matt Walsh will bury the hatchet and patch things up. We can’t let petty squabbles deter us in our quest to save our civilization.
–Wolfshead
I dare say most serious gamers have given up on AAA studios. Microsoft, Bethesda, and the many others. Look at Starfield. Look at New World. Bah. I’m not even interested in any of the news or pending releases anymore, and haven’t been for quite a while. Seriously, these large studios now need to compete with games like solitaire and minesweeper for pure enjoyment and entertainment value.
I agree with Matt Walsh. While I personally enjoy video games, and certainly this blog…it’s not a necessity. It’s an enjoyment and pass-time. I’m very choosy about which games to play, have many games purchased on sale that have never been installed or tried. Could be a personal state of life indication, but as somebody who grew up on Sierra titles, and PC Jr. game paks, I have an appreciation for PC gaming almost as long as it’s been around. AAA studios have spent their reputation. The market is wide open for new developers. Obviously: Look at the 80% by volume marketing strategy of “early access” titles…many of which never finish or release to 1.0.
I think we get what we pay for. If you don’t buy games with DEI and all of this, they won’t make it. Obviously a lot of it slips through the cracks but it’s up to the consumer to put their mouse down, and go pick up a book if they disagree with what’s being done. If you’re really bothered by it, band up with others and form a JUSTICE LEAGUE studio and capture the market share of others like you who reject the nonsense.
Great read Wolf, as is usually the case with you. There’s a lot to unpack here, and I’m not going to try. That said, some things that come to mind on the subject:
I loved Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman? Probably the most un-boring documentary I’ve ever seen. It’s alternately poignant, disturbing, hilarious, and illuminating. Bounding into Comics was so right when they said it sent the cultural Marxists into a tailspin! The film seemed like a major win for the good guys.
In watching Critical Drinker’s video, I was appalled with the scene were the demonic Harley Quinn does a summary execution of Bruce Wayne in cold blood! Can you imagine young children witnessing something like that? No words!
Critical Drinker also mentioned asshat Neil Druckmann (another game exec trying to impress a millennial or zoomer girl?) and the damage he did to the Uncharted and Last of Us series. I recently played Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and although I kind of enjoyed it, one thing that stood out like a sore thumb (and not in a good way) was ‘diverse girlboss’ Nadine Ross. She comes out of nowhere as a merc leader helping the main nemesis in the story, and 4-5 times in the game shows up seemingly for no other reason than to humiliate the player (Nathan Drake) and his brother. You can’t kill her, the best you can do is keep her from killing you, and then at the end they sugar coat her and try to make you think she wasn’t so bad after all. Puh-lease!
You are so right in that there are a lot of bad actors, opportunists, and grifters on both sides of the political spectrum, this Gregg Re (whom I’ve never heard of) possibly being one of them. Two others that come to mind are the perpetually online Malaysian social media parasite Ian Myles Cheong (even if I agreed with the post you quoted from him) and Megan Kelly. Those two have switched sides more times than Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War!
I liked your comment about being wary of going down ‘purity spirals’, something I’m occasionally guilty of.
My jury is still out on The Daily Wire, even if I agree with them more often than not. Although I mostly like what I’ve heard from Candace Owens, her close association with the narcissist loon Kayne West makes her a bit suspect in my book. Also, that’s so weird with the self-proclaimed champion of Western Civilization Andrew Klavan and his openly gay son. Finally, I had to laugh at what someone on Reddit said about Ben Shapiro, “He’s like that obnoxious nerdy know-it-all kid in high school that everybody hated.” lol Nailed it!
Anyway, thanks again for fighting the good fight. One thing I’ve always appreciated about you is you don’t sugar coat things and you aren’t afraid of naming names.
I agree. I think AAA studios are over. They have destroyed themselves by putting idealogy over players.
Part of the problem, no offense, is that as far as I can tell for American Conservatives of the more religious bent
Is that “art” is “effeminate” and if they are to appreciate “art” it has to be “real” or close to real as possible
So watching actors on the screen and guys playing sports is considered acceptable
The more stylistic and non-realistic the art form, the less acceptable or the more “for kids”
Western Europe and East Asia are more stylistic, which is why Bandes Dassines and Manga/Manwha etc are considered great art forms
Even when it comes to writing, Conservative types are a minority and even there are split between two types
The more pragmatic laize affaire and at times downright cynical T&A “libertarian” types like John “Oh No” Ringo or the more religious and theological and pro-Comicbook Code Authority censorship types
So I can see why there’s conflict
Especially since again, no offense, I’ve had arguments with more religious/social conservatives who couldn’t understand that GamerGate and ComicsGate and MagicGate etc even existed, they just thought everyone was a mindless consumer with no standards….they also couldn’t accept when I said that then sending their kids to schools/colleges was part of the problem….they just kept blaming it all on entertainment media and that schools/colleges provided “social skills”
Matt deserves to lose a lot of respect for his gaming takes. Matt is like that kind of cool friend you’d like to see get into gaming, but he’s ‘too cool’ for that. He also took a bunch of deserved crap for basically saying DW was basically first.
Interestingly, I get the impression that a lot of his staff is *incredibly* dialed in from watching him the last few years, so it’s interestingly that DW wasn’t able to avoid this drama, and that said staff apparently escalated it mightily. It’s not too late to be a little humble, Matt (and Co.).
Thing is, no offense, one thing I’ve noted from Religious Conservative types
Is that they’re more than a little idealistic and out-of-touch when it comes to Pop Culture and technology and the like
Years ago, I had lots of arguments with those types, because they couldn’t understand that GamerGate, MagicGate, ComicsGate, Sad Puppies etc were a thing
They just assumed people had zero standards and all the current IdPol originates from stuff like videogames. Even when I point out how so many normies are turned off by the Western IdPol.
I kept pointing out that sending your kids to schools/colleges results in them being indoctrinated sooner or later, they refused to believe it and kept saying schools were centers of community and provided social skills…..they also really hated on Libertarians for not liking drugs being banned or being into sex & violence and the like
So Matt and Daily Wire aren’t just too proud to admit things, they are just too old in mind to adapt, adapting doesn’t mean accepting all the current stuff, but actually knowing how to watch out and counter it all
I just have not to look 3-4 days after your blog, 3 articles and the comment section is hyper active! Wow!
These are the three things I want to comment on:
1. Kern vs Walsh: Indeed unnecessary. It is a fairly common problem in the fight against wokeness and among conservatives all around the globe, this often savage infighting and strong dislike of each other. It is also happening among fellow Christians who oppose those not exactly 100% of their faith, even if they have more in common than most.
2. Let me point out Islam: The various ethnicities and nationalities there often hate each others guts, but against Israel, Christianity or for spreading Islam, look at the UN how they all suddenly manage to unite. Compare to point 1, it is a massive advantage in their favor.
3. Neil Druckmann was mentioned in a comment, yeah, he is like many game devs and games journalists suffering from the “I SOOOOOOOOO want to be a renowned writer/hollywood star” syndrome. His alma mater Carnegie Mellon still goes as liberal, I would say they must have quite a strong left slant by now, too. He is full into this woke-liberal world view and preaching it via video games, which I find thoroughly annoying.
Let me add another thing, the internet doesn’t forget, but bringing always up what someone said 5-7-10-40 years ago and that opposes his view nowadays might for sure be necessary to expose people at times, yet it is too often abused as a cheap attack on someone, poisoning the well for the future and creating animosity.
@AnonEntity
Try viewing this in a different matter
This conflict only really looks to be happening, is because there looks to be a purposely made cultural divide
No offense, but from my interactions with religious conservatives, even the more theological ones and those who actually do science and make fiction.
They’re very very very prudish to the point they purposely close themselves off from entire mediums whether they be videogames, animation, music, comics, manga etc
They really do choose to just lay all the world’s problems solely on entertainment, rather than admitting they sent their kids to schools where the teachers/professors manipulated them
@REHFan
I’m a religious conservative, not American. I’m a Born Again Christian born in 1991, I’ve been playing a lot of stupid (also satanic) media, such as games, movies, music, etc.
I don’t think the problem is just media that’s brainwashing people to be stupid and morally degenerate. It’s a combined effort from media, school, kindergarten, preschool, university, work.
Propaganda is waiting behind every corner. The danger is everywhere and it’s almost impossible to escape it. One has to have a clear idea of what this propaganda is in order to make efforts to avoid it. The problem is this vocal minority somehow got very powerful and if you voice your opinion, especially on the internet, where things change the fastest, you get punished for not going along with the agenda.
I’ve seen on Steam or other gaming forums people asking if game X, Y, Z is woke, and in the comments you usually get 80% of the people supporting them and 20% mocking them and demeaning them for having an opinion different from theirs. Threads usually get locked and those who are opposed to woke get banned.
I’ve been banned on Steam twice (at least from the forums of two games) for having a profile representing the Lord Jesus Christ and a statement “get woke go broke”. There was no reason to ban me other than some manchild looked at my profile, got triggered and banned me.
@Allwynd
Yeah, it’s the Long March Through Institutions and that rule about how every organization eventually becomes Leftist over time
I have a theory that Kakistocracy or rule by the incompetent is in play, because the incompetent can get by via connections and being propped up by those who are really really really in charge, since they came in via connections, they show themselves to be VERY loyal to the Woke cause
Thing is, when any meritocracy is thrown away, it’s a gradual decline for any large organization
Someone with actual skills and accomplishments and who especially doesn’t espouse the IdPol is a threat to those in charge
It occurs for both public and private and even religious institutions, it just takes time and a sense of being invincible within a specific area regardless of how rotten the place is and even looks
Online in particular, is an easy place to take control, most people offline aren’t used to the bizarre mind games and gaslighting or having to deal with guys who can make themselves seem to be the majority, or are the majority because offline they’re not as capable of taking control
A return to Meritocracy is what’s needed, but for that to occur and stay for much longer, is if the margin for error is too high and the organizations are both very decentralized and possibly stuck in a more Wild West new frontier setting….which is actually pretty dark as you end up trading AnarchoTyranny for a more “if you wrong me, there’s a high chance of me F-Ing you up unless you legit apologize” kind of thing….and the police will be barely present because it’d be too hard to do so and because they prefer people deal with things themselves and only intervene when things get too destructive
Senator Armstrong would be a weird horrific villainous antihero in this modern age, who’s only a “hero” because his opponents would be physically weak and effeminate technocrats like Klaus Schwab and Larry Fink and their legions of useful idiots like Sweet Baby Inc and the real armies(Armed Forces, Law Enforcement and “Deepstate”) that only follow because they’re being paid and naively believe they’re still serving their countries