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By David Futrelle
A tragic day for whiny baby-men — the BBC just announced that the next Doctor Who will be a lady. Naturally, these sensitive souls took at once to Twitter to make their displeasure known. And to make jokes about Doctor Who turning into Nurse Who amirite fellas high five!
Here are some of the best of the worst Tweets I’ve seen so far. I can’t decide which are my favorites — the ones lamenting the loss of a crucial male “role model” or those suggesting that a female Doctor Who makes as much sense as a male Mary Poppins (which would be perfectly fine to me, by the way).
https://twitter.com/thomasdeeacon/status/886723202168344576
I'm actually quite shocked at the decision to cast a woman the should call it Nurse who now lol 😂😂
— Rhys (@rhysjordanstew1) July 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/Gapehorner/status/886609824242438144
https://twitter.com/DelDiablo007/status/886613308639514624
https://twitter.com/DelDiablo007/status/886629727745826816
"Doctor Who" what's the deal? Pushing the "gender fluidity" narrative now? Remember when entertainment wasn't social engineering propaganda
— Dan (@NotoriousDano) July 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/Amen1924/status/886681803167236099
https://twitter.com/spcwriter/status/886664276877991936
https://twitter.com/Erin_Danielle77/status/886639647387942912
The BBC have literally just ruined all the heritage and history of Doctor Who making the new Doctor a woman
— Aydin Osman (@Aydin_Osman96) July 16, 2017
Doctor Who officially ruined. Time Lords being women not an issue, 50 years of tradition out the window is. What next 007 being Janette Bond pic.twitter.com/Hj3buVMx8s
— Ewan McColl (@TheMcColl) July 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/hucksworld/status/886682969833865217
https://twitter.com/williamparslow/status/886700469648842752
https://twitter.com/GreavesyX/status/886613123666513920
#DoctorWho So patronising to women to be chosen due to political correctness. No room for merit and talent if PC comes first.
— Holomatrix (@Holomatrices) July 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/BasedKielbasa/status/886647001885978625
https://twitter.com/MJDebio93/status/886691678647705600
https://twitter.com/racerdog45/status/886677551770476545
Women have their own heroes like RIpley, Buffy and Wonder Woman, there is no need to take away role models for men #notmydoctor
— P. J. Lowry (@PJ_Lowry) July 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/thomasoldham/status/886712069021683712
https://twitter.com/Keef44002574/status/886700034934362112
https://twitter.com/Electromoth/status/886674967106125824
I remember when Ripley, Leia, Buffy, Xena et al. trailblazed great women characters. But now, feminism seems pleased with mere pandering.
— Bradley Yellop (@bazz83) July 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/winklewilly89/status/886689221418856448
https://twitter.com/revjackashcraft/status/886693656647913473
https://twitter.com/__AlexN_/status/886631666915172352
https://twitter.com/Blackbirds1632/status/886655183224229890
#doctorwho The regressive left are going crazy over the choice, next they will want a transgender to take the role as the Doctor.
— Rust (@Rust_NoMask) July 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/amusedphysicist/status/886655148235161600
No, I don’t understand what that last one means either.
I am actually ok with the Doctor being a woman even though it does create statistical issues. (If each generation had a 50/50 chance of being male OR female than statistically speaking it’s implausible he’d have been a man 13 consecutive times. That’s like a woman having 13 kids and no daughters. Not impossible, but highly improbable.)
But you lost my respect with this comment: “A tragic day for whiny baby-men”
Grow up, dude. Some people will have different opinions than you. If you can’t handle someone thinking differently or having a different opinion, than clearly you are the baby.
Reasons why I don’t want to participate in organized fandom:
There are too many fans that see themselves as the True Keepers of the Sacred Flame. This particular subset of fans will go for the throats of anyone they see as threatening the Sacred Flame: other fans, actors (if applicable), or writers. I don’t like that attitude. I’m an old-school YMMV style fan. I may think your interpretation is stupid, but I don’t think I have the right to make you change your mind. Sadly, I have known too many fans who think they have the right to change my mind, which I consider to be very disrespectful of MY right to make up my own mind.
I used to enjoy Sherlock but then Martin Freeman started talking and showing the world who Martin Freeman is.
I’ve had no interest in watching it since.
The only fandom I ever participate in has been ASOIAF/GoT. It’s worst moment would have to be when the kid who plays Olly got threats to kill him and his family after the character stabbed Jon Snow.
What the fuck? Threatening a child because he played a fictional character who stabbed another fictional character?
@WWTH
I have never understood some people’s reactions towards actors for what their characters did. It’s a whole other level of dumbass I just can’t get my head around. Just…WHY.
Also thanks peeps for the info about TV licencing.
“Birds aren’t smart enough to be doctors,” huh Thomas Deacon? That would be news to my sister-in-law, the emergency doctor.
Board game fam, you guyse are always invited to board game nights. Seriously, though, you guyse, I’m so jazzed to play that Sherlock game. It’s gonna be so darn good. I grew up on those silly choose Your Own Adventure books, and this one’s those same books, but all grown up and in a dapper evening jacket with a pipe in one hand and a wine glass in the other. Gonna be so good.
#Toxic Fandoms
I’ve had some brain-stirrings about this over the past few months. I’m probably wrong on them but writing is a good way to sort them out, so Im’a write them here. Comment or critique (or ignore) as you like. It’ll actually touch on EJ’s teal deers, because when I was a tadpole I too was bitten by the miniature games bug.
I had just moved into the big city all on my own and saw the little painty mans in a store window and was entranced – i had no idea it was a thing! And I was a budding artist at the time, and had always been fascinated by tiny things. I barely played, but just loved to paint. Even earned a couple rent cheques on painting alone for awhile there. (I still love to paint but don’t have time or space for the easel, tragically)
I’m familiar with the Warhamster games that EJ is talking about, I played the sci-fi and fantasy games both. My lizards and my space nuns and my tank guys and my stompy robot guys. I did some sculpting, did a bunch of painting – lots of fun. Rarely played, but I was usually nearby, painting away and chatting while others did.
I’ll agree that when I was in it it was all pretty silly. I had a pair of Dreadnoughts – big ole stompy robot dudes that weren’t actually angry at anyone, they were just powerlifters that took it a little too far and were super excited about getting jacked and getting everyone healthy and getting exercise and eating right. It was all goofy and fun, and every game was just laughter and explosions. Was great.
I got out of it after awhile because ohmigod it’s so expensive you guys and I had other fish to catch. I also found that too many people were taking the game and its setting too seriously, just like EJ describes.
I mention it because I’ve recently been dragged back in. A new version of the game came out and old friends came out of the woodwork, and I’ve had an itch to paint stuff for awhile now.
And it’s fun! But it’s also … well. A study in contrasts. On my phone are chat logs of two friends who dragged me in. The first is giddily excited about the things he plans on building and the story of the robo-battle-chickens he’s going to make. He also wants to play the Fantasy version of the game with me, despite the fact that they utterly butchered the storyline there to make it more accessible to new players. He just wants to have some fun with little plastic rat-mans. Our chat timeline is full of bouncing good ideas off of one another and general excitement for good times.
The second friend, well. I’ve spoken about him recently before on these threads. He really likes the story of the world and knows every detail of it. The chat with him is full of him explaining all of his lush story and ideas, and suggesting things I should do with my existing stuff that would work within the world. Which is great, but any time I explain what my thoughts are (oooh, devil-horse cavalry with gas masks!) he explains why no, my idea wouldn’t work, and I should really do some-other-thing-he-describes. He also absolutely refuses to join Friend One and I in exploring the Fantasy game they remade, because the storyline was changed. Doesn’t matter if we’re going to be playing and having fun, he can’t have fun in that world anymore, even with us.
(Third friend, also coming back in, is an absolute peach. She’s going to paint up two new whole armies somehow, and has been gifting all of her old miniatures to people who want them. Very creative, lots of fun.)
So that’s the scene. And it leads me to approach the question of what changed? Why such a focus on being right instead of just being creative and having fun? My best guess is that those melancholic kids who used this over-the-top heavy metal fandom just grew up.
Note that growing up doesn’t imply growing out of something – I’m talking about a change in the way the brain forms connections. Under 25 or so, puberty is still ongoing, and neurons can literally migrate from place to place in the brain. Areas that are very active can actually have neurons travel over there to “hook in” to form new concepts, new structures, in the neocortex, allowing for very long range communication and/or very complicated long term concept or behaviour formation. After 25, neurons stop migrating and it’s just dendrite growth (as far as I know – I am not a neurologist!)
The thought structures these kids were wading through while having fun have hardened. Even if they were formed as silly fun, they still exist, and in the same way as someone who took the concepts seriously. Delving into a dark fantasy world where the only thing keeping evil at bay is fanatical devotion to a fascist state will form the same neurological structures as someone who’s actually devoted to a fascist state, there’ll just be extra bells and whistles attached to it. Those bells and whistles can degenerate – fall off the structure off the memeplex, if you like.
So, creativity giving way to orthodoxy; joking and funning about horrible beliefs turning into sincere beliefs. We’re seeing it from 4Chan and the dark corners of the internet, we’re seeing it in Warhamster. All extending from the fatigue of a biological system that doesn’t have the focus or attention to maintain the “it’s just a story” component of the terrible parts of a fictional world.
Anyways, those are my thoughts! @EJ, I should totally do a Mechanicus army with an Imperial Guard escort of a bunch of space viking Temple-Forge Guard 😀
I’m in all likelihood guilty of exactly this. Whenever something is popular to the point of cultural saturation, my immediate thought is: “Okay, if this thing is popular with the lowest common denominator, there’s gotta be something stupid about it.” Maybe I should give Harry Potter a chance, but I read A Wizard of Earthsea first and when I heard the plot of Potter, my ripoff alarm was blaring at 80 decibels.
I can be a yuuuuge snob when it comes to media, so when something popular comes along, it needs to sell me on the fact that it’s doing something different and interesting. I got burned on Lost back in 2004, so I’m doubly suspicious of television series that require a significant time investment.
Game Of Thrones is the one that just seems to confirm my biases. I’m a fantasy geek who’s chucked dice from a while back, so when I first heard the plot, I was like “Okay, so this sounds like a mafia story, but with swords and sorcery. Eh, I can just watch Godfather for that….”
Then when GoT hit cultural saturation, that’s when the Red Wedding happened and I still remember watching The Young Turks do a video on their reaction to it and they showed a whole bunch of those “reaction” vids in a row and just seeing a bunch of 20-somethings go “What?! OMG!!! NOOO!!!”
Meanwhile I’m sitting there thinking “Why, oh why is that shocking to any of you?! Have you never seen any mafia films? Nobody gets out of a mafia story with a happy ending! Massacres abound!”
This is why I find media awareness and savvy so important and I worry that in the memefied social media landscape that the deeper analysis of media is getting so lost that even plots that have been done before and better suddenly seem “new” just because the superficial elements have been changed and some boobs thrown in.
Just look at AAA games.
@Gussie Jives
Human civilization is at the very least 6,000 years old. Ideas are rehashed all the time, same with concepts. It’s kind of why Copyright protects expressions and not ideas in general (i.e. concept of justice, expression: Themis the goddess of justice). In today’s society, where entertainment is abound and becoming more and more relevant, the chances of coming up with something entirely original is next to impossible. Moreso if you’re doing inter-genre comparisons.
… The last time I broke into a rant about how much I despise hardcorer-than-thou pop culture snobbery, Jack left and never came back (which I still feel like a total asshole for), so I’ll sit out of it this time.
The Red Wedding was based on the black dinner, a massacre that took place in medieval Scotland. So no, it’s not a soooo original plot point.
http://theweek.com/articles/463588/reallife-events-that-inspired-game-thrones-red-wedding
I don’t get why that means it’s wrong for people to have a reaction to it though?
I also don’t get why people want different or original stories. I’m not sure what that even means. People have been storytelling since probably the beginning of our species. There aren’t really new ideas. Just variations on old ones. What matters to me is the execution. I get emotionally invested in characters and what happens to them if they’re well written and three dimensional. Not cause they’re part of some totally original story.
I have similar hipster snob impulses to resist something if everyone else is into it. But I’ve outgrown indulging those impulses. Life’s a lot better when you just let yourself enjoy things instead of sitting around grumbling about kids these days and congratulating yourself on your good taste.
So I was a 40K fan for a while too.
I didn’t actually finish my army painting (gotta figure out how to get the Dark Angels to look green instead of green-black) but I really wanted to try playing a war game because it looked so fun to build your own army and go fight people because war.
But now I’m put off of the game because Nazism is spreading like damn virus.
There was a great article here about Brexit where the author claimed Article 50 was so passe and he’d always been into Article 49.
(It was particularly clever because Art 49 is sorta relevant, it’s about joining the EU in the first place)
I stopped 40k a loooooong time ago. But I still have quite a lot of contact with it by virtue of playing another wargame. 40k players are often quite a bit frightening.
Part of that, for me, is a culture of cheating. Like, they seem to often have shouting match about sloppy rules applications and “you moved that, now we can’t know how it was !” and all.
Part of it is that while I did not find too many of them finding the dystopia attracting, a lot of them are (french) far-right electors. It’s quickly visible by how they talk of arabs and poor peoples. And that’s with their public faces, since it’s not like I often talk to them.
Part of it is how the game fluff by itself seem somewhat toxic. It’s not just that it’s a dystopia ; it’s a dystopia supposed to look super cool. It’s visible at diverse degreee on every factions, but the imperium factions seem to particulary glorify stupid fanatism, blind obedience, and utter disrespect of human life. The last “twist” of the fluff, where basically they roll out a new, better version of superhuman soldier who will likely replace the old superhuman soldier, make me *sick*. It’s not the first time that humans ressources are treated as machinery, but given that they are the face of the game, and supposedly beloved heroes of the imperium make it particulary violent to me.
There are other wargames with far less toxic fanbases – Warmachine and Hordes had a bit of a schism when sexism in the scene was spoken about openly, but the majority have sided with the publishers in decrying it, Infinity is a fun SF skirmish game that doesn’t appear to have much fan drama (though I don’t love the rules). My favourite SF games right now are Dropzone Commander and Dropfleet Commander, but my all-time love is BattleTech.
Chie Satonaka
It has been done: Quentin Crisp:
I mean, you like what you like, but I think it’s unfair to criticize archetypes for existing. Sure, I’ve hit reboot saturation too, but it’s an unfair and impossible standard to expect a new work to have no spiritual ancestors whatsoever or else it’s derivative junk.
Obviously, I have personal vested interest in this point.
Scildfreja Unnyðnes – Oh damn, now I have to buy this and annoy my poor dude with it. . .
@Lorcan Nagle:
Approved a million times over.
I don’t know whether there can be any truly new new stories, but here’s Vonnegut talking about the shapes of stories:
WRT Sherlock:
If you really want to get into that world, come to Toronto! We’ve got one of the larger collections of Arthur Conan Doyle works here.
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/books-video-music/specialized-collections/literature-genre-doyle.jsp
A friend of mine spent some time wandering through the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection here because he was doing research on the Piltdown Man hoax, and Doyle was one of the suspects in that.
Exhibit A:
https://youtu.be/93nJQj2Z97M?t=2m8s
Exhibit B:
https://youtu.be/gbqnpb_PIkE?t=52s
Exhibit C:
https://youtu.be/Do-wDPoC6GM?t=17m32s
I think it’s pretty clear that these dipshits care far more about having an excuse to be angry and rant than caring about the show itself. Outrage culture to the max, yo!
OT: Just found out Burt’s Bees makes a shampoo for kittens. Wonder if it’s tested on animals?
@Clever, ahmigah go buy it i just wanna crawl inside this box and live in it its so gooood
Seriously, if you want a cheap date night, this is ideal. Eighty bucks for ten evenings, and you can go at your own pace, spread each one out over a few nights if you want, linger on some point you find interesting or race like mad through the streets of London. Board games are great bonding and sharing experiences, especially cooperative games like this one.
Sad fact, the box I bought isn’t for me. My brother loves the old Sherlock novels very much, and he was blown away a few weeks ago when I told him that there was a board game. It was out of print, though, and he was very sad. So I went looking to see if I could get a surprise for him, and lo and behold, there’s a new edition that’s hot off the presses, with the Jack the Ripper expansion. I saw it while I was randomly wandering through a board game store. Was totally surprised by it. Bought it right then and there. But it’s not for me, and he lives far enough away that I’ll probably only get to hear about the games he plays with it :C
@Cynical Optimist, the thing to remember is that acrylic paint is translucent if you aren’t applying it in thick grody gobs. If you want your greens to be brighter and more vibrant, you need a bright undercoat. White looks good. That was always my trick when I painted things. Everyone used black sprays to prep their models. I used white. The colours really pop when you do that.
@Ohlmann, @Lorcan, @Cynical, et.al., yeah, I never really played with the general-gaming-crowd-at-large. Tried it briefly and was quickly inundated with people far too concerned with winning, and with no sense of fair play. I was always there to have fun, try out interesting ideas, and to make little shooty noises with the plastic mans while rolling dice. I’d always be happy to interpret rules in my opponents’ favour and to do goofy things just because it sounded fun at the time. Pretty much diametrically opposed to the way they played.
(Also, I tended to stomp them flat if I actually tried to win, since I didn’t make my plans hinge on getting one super-trick to work. So they were sort of grumpy about how ‘cheesy’ I was and how I gamed the system. Either they win or they were cheated – there’s no middle ground.)
My own little group was (and is) much more casual and interested in just, you know, having fun with friends. We can still get a bit tetchy about rules at times, but we tend to leave those problems behind pretty quickly. I’ve heard that Infinity is quite good, very crunchy rules, and lovely minis, but wow are the women models all the most ridiculously sexualized things. Motorbiker group: dude, aggressive gun posturing! dude, shootin’ a thing! dude: casual harley pose! gal: butt up in the air like she’s in heat! gal: spine-breaking boob display! So yeah, I’d like to, but I’m sort of unsure.
Warhampster
…
…
…
*dies laughing* Omg how did I never think of this myself?!
My family doctor, who helped me get started on HRT and helped me with the paperwork required for surgery, is a woman. She is exponentially better than the male transphobic quack I had before her, who was only interested in maximizing the number of people seen during the day to max out his pay check.
ETA: Omg now I’m imagining a bunch of cute little warhampster figurines!