“I don’t hate it because it’s offensive, I hate it because it’s a bad game. And it’s a bad game because it doesn’t match my definition of good humor”. Surely that’s not all Shut Up and Sit Down can bring to the table?
First of all, attempting to define humor is a pastime of the humorless. Secondly, what is the purpose of a multi-person deep dogpile of EXACTLY the same opinion. Somebody strap on a helmet and write why it’s a good game - plenty of people have done that here without being offensive or stupid (amazingly?). AT MINIMUM suggest improvements in game mechanics, or contrast CAH with games that attack the same game domain and do it much better.
This wasn’t game journalism, or a review, it was an exercise in hall of mirror political correctness.
This smells like groupthink. We’re entering an age where everyone can be offended by any thing, all the time, ignoring context, intent or the actual values of the offender. We decided that knee jerk offense is somehow good, and valid. If we dare question this someone screams “privilege” like some magical mantra that should shut down anyone who might disagree with them. Offense isn’t enough, offense isn’t harm. Offense is a base reaction devoid of meaning. Offense, in itself, carries no weight.
On topic, I don’t care, I will still have the occasional drunken evening playing CAH with random people. If you don’t want to play a racist card, don’t. If you don’t want others to do so, then you’re a jerk. If you hate the game so much, then don’t play it. My drunken group of friends screaming “smegma!” At 3am isn’t going to hurt you.
Seeing as this is BoingBoing and not Sit Down and Shut Up, I’d love to see Cory weigh in on this. Surely he is not suddenly without opinion on a topic. Hey @doctorow, what do you think? Is CAH fun? Funny? Morally bankrupt? Creator of hate and discontent? Refuge of closet bigots?
No, it doesn’t. That’s not at all what it says. You’ve read it from a certain viewpoint, perhaps in increasing frustration as you’ve pattern-recognized things in it that you’ve seen before in vaguely similar articles where you are being personally attacked and abused for your preferences.
But you are not being judged as morally defective. It was not a congressional hearing. It is not censoring you. It is a subjective review of a game and shortcomings.
"Seriously. Read the article. “Trigger warnings”, “child abuse”
People who complain about how easily offended others are often exasperated by it, yet are often quick to take offense themselves. This isn’t remarkable: it’s what entitlement is, boiled down to its basic human need to be in control of one’s own wellbeing.
What is remarkable is that their offense is often triggered by exactly the same words.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to do this, only that it’s a small step to taking your own reaction to those terms–the unfairness of their casual application and their ability to ruin lives–and realize that it’s an echo of something that already happened to someone else, too.
No, I didn’t. You’ve read my reply from a certain viewpoint, perhaps in increasing frustration as you’ve pattern-recognized things in it that you’ve seen before in vaguely similar articles where you are being personally attacked and abused for your preferences.
See how that works?
At least Cory would provide something other than a circular argument. Lame.
But it is a good reason to review it on a site that’s about board game reviews (Which is what Shut Up and Sit Down is) and suggest there a better games to be played.
No, but now there’s steady stream of stereotypically tumblr-y articles from a bunch of now-regular contributors. There used to be (fairly accurate) a joke about BoingBoing Bingo some years back, but now it’s just your basic Tumblr Bingo. There used to be more positive content about fun things, now it’s a few things that are fun and lots of examinations of how things you thought were fun are actually very problematic. Which is fine, I suppose. Whatever people like to read. It’s less fun though.
An interesting historical experiment for those who lament Boing Boing’s loss to “political correctness” is to look at the use of that term by its editors. The implication is, here, that we were previously muscular defenders of free speech from the authoritarian leftist cabals that have now coopted and muddied our once-illustrious editorial voice.
From beginning of Boing to 2006, the term “political correctness” appears twice, according to Google.
You’ll notice that in all cases, unless I’m mistaken, the term is in each case attributed to others, a quote, or a mocking reference. And for a site with a six-figure postcount and explicit political opinions, it’s rather infrequent.
I’m not saying we’ve never used the term unironically. But I am pointing out that if you do, and you think Boing Boing was ever on your side, you have been laboring under a misapprehension for a long time.
Actually can we dispense with Bingo as a useful… anything? All it does is prove a certain consistency, at absolute best. It doesn’t demonstrate anything about that consistency. That’s why there’s car bingo, because on the road, there are certain things that will inevitably appear. So fucking what?
I think you’re reading to much into my statement. When people profess that they’re having to self-censor, or one of the classic “I’m only saying what everyone’s thinking!” type lines, it means that they think a lot of things they know would offend people, but dangerously assume that everyone is thinking the same thing as them anyway, but just holding back.
I’m not telling them not to think it, just that not everyone else does.
Ironically I’m stating that people think differently, and you’re accusing me of implementing groupthink.
Which gives next to zero information about the topic. Mining the corpus of the old texts for sets of associated words and (better) phrases, something along the lines of sentiment analysis, would yield much better data.
I won’t do it; no time, not enough sleep, no experiences with statistical text processing. But it could be a nice task for somebody else who actually has the relevant skills?
I agree, but I think this review goes beyond merely suggesting other games to play or giving it a bad review. They are asking people who already play CAH and enjoy it to stop playing it. And I think that while saying “Hey, I know you find this game to be fun but when you stop and think about it, it normalizes hateful attitudes” can be a valid point, saying “Hey, I know you find this game to be fun but you should stop playing it because I don’t like the game mechanics” is not.
yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking. I’ve played it at quite a few parties, and while I remember plenty of “oh my god, I’m awful” plays being made, no one made any jokes about race or rape. About racists and rapists, sure, but that’s the classsic punching up thing. But my friends aren’t assholes…and you know, now that I think about it, it was usually in a mixed crowd (gender, race, sexuality, religion) so if anyone harbored those tendencies, they kept them to themselves.
I prefer “Say Anything” because it includes responsibility. It’s quite like “Cards Against Humanity”, but you write your own answers on a little dry erase board. It can still be completely horrible, but at least you are held responsible for your answer.
I think perhaps the author and the people who don’t like the game probably shouldn’t play it. It’s a fun game with the right crowd late at night bonding over stupid potty humor.
