Some say that you know a piece of media has made it when it earns itself a review bomb maelstrom for being “too woke.” This new age rule has been proven by several shows, video games and movies.
You may have heard the term “go woke, go broke” on the internet recently. For those who don’t know, however, that funny little colloquial term is used by troglodytes who think that including gay or, heaven forbid, trans themes, stories, companions or love is morally wrong and corrupt.
This group of predominantly white men want stories that reflect them and them only.
They voice this through review bombing. This includes them actively going out and leaving reviews and sending tweets that either falsify or blow things out of proportion within a show or game.
One such recent display of this issue was Disney+’s new show Agatha All Along. This series has been called a liberal-woke-propaganda-spreading machine since its announcement of a predominantly female cast with a leading queer man in it. It was considered unnecessary, and people believe that its lower budget meant that even Marvel/Disney+ wasn’t feeling particularly hopeful about its development.
The show went on to get an 82% rating from Rotten Tomatoes and was a total win in the viewer-ship-to-cost portion of the business. This is a certifiable victory considering that later on, the main character and namesake of the show is a queer witch who may or may not be in love with a cosmic entity that is also female presenting.
Now, whilst review bombs are common in the show and film industry, they are absolutely omnipresent in the gaming industry.
Games that feature queer storylines or even just offer trans and non-binary friendly options in the character creator are flamed on X (formerly known as Twitter) and review bombed online. A specific incident with the game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard included reviews of MetaCritic that used words like “DEI,” “woke,” “propaganda,” and “agenda-driven.”
Later on in this game, you help a player companion discover and eventually come out as non-binary as a portion of their character-specific quests. Dare I say that the alt-right grifters who try and make a profit off of falsely accusing the media as woke to spark engagement to their posts had a ball with this one?
Grown men trying to demerit hard-working artists’ pieces for the sake of spreading agenda when most often the “woke” parts of games, be it character customization options or queer options in games, are there because those stories exist in real life and make for a compelling, realistic and diverse world stage.
Funnily enough, when I was a kid, people used to tell queer people that if they wanted representation in games, then they needed to make games, and now that they are people still aren’t happy.
To put it short and sweet, review bombing is bad. It is almost always used to put down artists’ blood, sweat and tears for the sake of spreading an “anti-woke” agenda. The people responsible for these reprehensible acts will never be satisfied. If you’re curious about a game, don’t be afraid to check the reviews; however, don’t allow toxic rhetoric to poison your perception of the real world or that of a game or show.
Garrett McEntee is a 19-year-old English sophomore from Benton, La.
